Edit: pre-preemptively editing because the original, though I believe correct, was too glib and snarky.
Three Letter Agencies in the U.S. have long had commercial "partnerships"[0] with private companies including internet and telecom companies. As has come to light in the past couple years, these partnerships were not "just" about securing national interests and infrastructure.
I don't think there's anything fundamentally different about the citizens of the respective countries. Both are loath to give up comfort and the status quo to challenge their governments surveillance states in meaningful ways.
The big difference as I see it is that the staus-quo, at least on the surface, is vastly different in the two countries so the governments go about their efforts in appropriately different ways.
The cultures are entirely different, and that includes the perspective of the people towards the government. You can find many sources to support the claim that in general, the Chinese people trust the Chinese government more than the American people trust the American government. In China, the attitude toward the state is akin to the attitude of a child toward a parent. The prevailing wisdom in China is that what's good for the state is good for the people. Obviously that's not the case in America, where polls show record levels of distrust toward the government from its citizens.
These political differences stem from fundamental cultural ones, which is why I take issue with your claim that there's nothig fundamentally different about American and Chinese citizens. On the contrary, most differences are fundamental ones.
That's not remotely obvious to me. In my experience, American citizens distrust specific politicians, but they strongly trust the state apparatus. As examples, American citizens gave/give broad support to the NSA, invasions of other countries, and police/soldiers/firefighters/anyone in a uniform.
To broadly generalize, liberals seem to trust the State to be able to provide equality to people, so they might appear to "trust the State apparatus." Conservatives tend to be patriotic, so they might also appear to "trust the State apparatus." But both those groups are also trying to limit the State, just in different ways. Conservatives try to limit the social creep of the liberals. Liberals try to limit the defense spending.
I think you overestimate the "broad support" of the NSA, invasions, and uniformed men. If you've been reading the news it should be apparent that there is a huge lack of trust in the police, for example.
It's still too glib and snarky.
There's a really big difference between controlling what is said and observing everything that is said. I think the NSA has gone too far, but it's way different from censorship. And even censorship is different than what Communism does, which as far as I can tell from the People's Daily, is that they simply say what they wish were true as if it were true. Apparently they also suppress statements to the contrary. This is very, very different than privacy violations from recording everything.
The U.S. simply makes a far greater effort to make the movie/TV industry appear fundamentally different to and disconnected from the NSA.
That's another difference between the U.S. and China: the U.S. use elected politicians as media decoys in addition to foreign countries a lot more than China, leaving unexamined the real groups that run the countries, which in the U.S. includes the corporations that pay money to advertise on TV or in the news.
Something bad, from a ccp pov, being discussed on a forum? Quick, netops, now, cut the cord... now.
It's quite different. The CNG are willing to spite their companies to further the party's viability. The party always comes first, not law, not country, its the party and the pla.
I also believe there are reporting oddities in the role too, but I can't find the reference to it anymore.
The result is that same as China, the difference is who's paying the person's salary.
Edit [information below]:
[1] (13) Carriers shall comply with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), see 47 C.F.R. §§ 1.20000 et seq. Page 5 of 6 1.20000 et seq.
[2] (14) Every carrier must designate an agent for service in the District of Columbia. See 47 U.S.C. § 413, 47 C.F.R. §§ 1.47(h), 64.1195.
[3] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-15-348A1.pd...
Not that ominous, just normal legal intercept. The US has had this requirement for a long time.
[0] https://insidersurveillance.com/calea-solutions-should-you-b...
[1] http://www.cisco.com/web/about/security/intelligence/LI-3GPP...
I expect that the intent is different, although I don't know US law. The Chinese intent is to (forcibly?) prevent unwanted communication. I doubt that is the intent of the US law.
CALEA intercepts are implemented through automated systems, the judge signs a warrant, it's entered into a computer and the wiretaps are done automatically, with the traffic routed to the requesting agency's systems.
In China, they probably noticed that they don't have a legal intercept facility built in, and don't want to spend the time to negotiate with all of the interested parties. So, they put a person on site.
The threat and the outcome is the same. If you don't provide legal intercept, you're going to get locked up.
For an example of what level of access these systems provide, a Greek carrier was hacked through theirs - the hacker(s) turned it on and used it to listen in on the Prime Minister's phone calls[1].
I'm not saying that the Chinese are doing the right thing, just that it's largely equivalent to what happens here.
[1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-athens-affair
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...
The enforcement that goes with the surveillance is much less intrusive, almost invisible, but that doesn't mean we should ignore it.
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/government-wiretap_...
The government can make sure that the private sector information and communication is secure against nation states and industrial espionage while also using the partnership and the access it provides to further its surveillance efforts, even its efforts against its own citizens.