It's a shame that a superpower like China can't call out the United States on surveillance without it being hypocrisy. We need more countries objecting to unfair power-alignment like FIVE EYES, XKeyscore and PRISM. Unfortunately, most of them would rather build their own version rather than hold the US to a higher standard.
Hopeless "violence begets violence" situations like this underscore how disastrous a full exposé of both governments would be. It's a sad time to be a global citizen.
I don't think all nation states have spy agencies.
Wikipedia lists them for 122 countries [1], out of 206 [2]. So about 60%. Maybe a little higher if a few are missing.
I do wonder if there's also some kind of commonly accepted division within those that separates the "big guys" vs the "little guys", e.g. if there's a certain key spying ability that takes a certain level of funding and sophistication. I mean, I do have to assume that there is a qualitative difference between the kind of spying done by "major powers" and others.
I agree. In the same way we resent nuclear warfare though, we should want to "de-surveillance-ize" as much of the free world as possible. It's an unsafe deterrent and (as we're seeing now) a terrible precedent to set when things verge towards war.
Hopeless "violence begets violence" situations like this underscore how disastrous a full exposé of both governments would be. It's a sad time to be a global citizen.