I'm not convinced by the idea that surveillance in Britain is worse than in America or other first world countries.

Yes there are a lot of CCTV cameras, there are a lot in most American cities too, in both cases most of them are operated privately.

What is different is that Britain has a much higher population density, so the surveillance appears more obvious, and makes for some skewed stats.

As for GCHQ, I would be surprised if they were notably worse than the NSA when it comes to snooping.