> Snowden knew this when he leaked the documents and he now resides, ironically, in one of the most surveilled countries in the world

Just to put the end of that sentence in context:

"Privacy International's 2007 survey, covering 47 countries, indicated that there had been an increase in surveillance and a decline in the performance of privacy safeguards, compared to the previous year. Balancing these factors, eight countries were rated as being 'endemic surveillance societies'. Of these eight, China, Malaysia and Russia scored lowest, followed jointly by Singapore and the United Kingdom, then jointly by Taiwan, Thailand and the United States."[0]

There are many, many reasons to criticize Russia - now more than ever - but those of us in the West should reflect on why we rate so poorly on this, too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance