Comment by talldayo

You are being downvoted because you're so painfully correct. It's not an issue exclusive to the United States, but American intelligence leads the field far-and-away on both legal and extralegal surveillance. The compliance forced by US Government agencies certainly helps make data tracking inescapable for the average American.

Unfortunately, the knee-jerk reaction of many defense industry pundits (and VCs, for that matter) is that US intelligence is an unparalleled moral good, and the virtues of privacy aren't worth hamstringing our government's work. Many of these people will try to suppress comments like yours because it embarrasses Americans and American business by association. And I sympathize completely - I'm dumbfounded by the response from my government now that we know China is hacking our telecom records.