The US is not Zimbabwe or Burma or Jordan. It has its serious flaws and issues that need to be addressed, but we shouldn't mistake the kind of creature that we are dealing with. Making that mistake will lead one to seriously misunderstand what the interests and possible courses of action that western governments will pursue.

Also, if one wanted to be really crabby about it, it's kind of disrespectful to all of the journalists who paid with their lives to contribute to the civic sphere to equate pervasive surveillance (as serious and insidious as it is) with the pervasive fear of physical harm and death that some journalists face.

Marcela Turati did a terrifyingly good job of conveying the price that Mexican journalists pay at the Investigative Reporters & Editors conference this year. If you really want to get a sense of that, you can watch the video here: http://ire.org/conferences/ire-2013/keynote/