At this point, this is table stakes for big tech and it's completely anti-democratic. China may have a very good domestic dragnet but clearly it's playing catch up compared to the foreign intelligence assets the USG (and five eyes) has.
Remember that one of the leaks was that the NSA tapped unencrypted Google backhaul in transit without Google's knowledge.
There's a difference between panopticon fearmongering and citing specific information we should be wary of. The former leads to apathy. The latter leads to action.
