> Edward Snowden exposed the world’s largest surveillance state. It seems most of us are comfortable with it. The Chinese are following in our footsteps and they are about two generations away from the mass global surveillance that the NSA (and partners) conduct.
It's unclear whether most of us are comfortable with it. I know that I personally feel fairly powerless and helpless and unsure as to what to do in the face of it,
Regarding your statement about the Chinese following in the footsteps of the Five Eyes, wouldn't you say that is pure speculation?
> Remember it was our global surveillance dragnet that made us have Nelson Mandela (and other blacks) arrested.
I think it's important to maintain a distinction between the normal so-called spy-craft that led to Mandela's arrest in 1962 to which that NPR article refers and the global surveillance dragnet which Snowden brought to light. There's no suggestion in that NPR article that it was wire-tapping which provided information as to Mandela's whereabouts.
> he NSA also conducted surveillance (illegally but they were not white) on homegrown black leaders (considered communists/terrorists/traitors by the white US government) like Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King:
The BBC article you link to says this: “The agency eavesdropped on civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Whitney Young as well as boxing champion Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker and Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald.” Tom Wicker and Art Buchwald are white by the looks of it – so I'm not sure why you're trying to crowbar the US's race issue into a topic which is not about race (it's about class struggle and power).