The US and UK are not the only mass surveillance countries - as the Snowden revelations have confirmed, virtually every first world power is. It looks more to me as if the only countries not engaging in mass surveillance are those without the resources to do so.
It is not clear to me why the fact of foreign surveillance alone should have greater consequences for the US than for France, Germany, etc. To me it appears the NSA revelations have been exploited by certain political factors, especially in Europe, to strengthen their own mass surveillance efforts; for example, it strains credulity for me to believe European efforts to get more services located in Europe because of the NSA revelations are really for your protection and not so the BND and other European surveillance organizations can access the servers directly without having to negotiate for them with the NSA in a tit-for-tat. That would contradict everything we know about mass surveillance programs in European countries.
Blanket #surveillance, a domestic enemy to the Constitution? Discuss...
"I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will support & defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign & domestic...that I will bear true faith & allegiance to... same [constitution]; that I take this obligation freely, without any... purpose of evasion..."
4th Amendment to said U.S. Constitution: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, & effects, ... against unreasonable searches & seizures, shall not be violated, & no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, & ... particularly describing the place to be searched, & the persons or things to be seized."
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If the NSA's ability to spy is a critical piece of national security -- then that which opposes it is a national security threat. It isn't the Greenwalds or the Applebaums who are the targets, it is the people who are elected President, run for Congress, or run big technology companies. The only people who have come close to spelling this out are Senator Ron Wyden and Bill Binney. That was before Snowden's leaks.
I'm not impressed by tech's leadership on this. Their fear today will mean a new generation will see secret pervasive surveillance as a feature to be added to; and perhaps that generation already does.
It is not clear to me why the fact of foreign surveillance alone should have greater consequences for the US than for France, Germany, etc. To me it appears the NSA revelations have been exploited by certain political factors, especially in Europe, to strengthen their own mass surveillance efforts; for example, it strains credulity for me to believe European efforts to get more services located in Europe because of the NSA revelations are really for your protection and not so the BND and other European surveillance organizations can access the servers directly without having to negotiate for them with the NSA in a tit-for-tat. That would contradict everything we know about mass surveillance programs in European countries.