I am cynical enough to be not that surprised about the NSA revelations. I believe Russia, China and likely much of Europe have had similar monitoring in place. It is possible that if Putin stays in power, we might never know the extent of monitoring in Russia. Until Putin falls and Snowden or his equivalent is given access similar to what he had at the NSA, it’s possible we don’t know for sure. You can choose to believe the US is a less free society than the Russian system, but I quite frankly don’t. I’m not a fan by any stretch of the imagination of corporate control over the US, and believe there’s considerable room for improvement.
