I'm not sure what sort of legal protections you think Americans have, as it would seem that any 3-letter agency can get an order to force private companies to h

I'm not sure what sort of legal protections you think Americans have, as it would seem that any 3-letter agency can get an order to force private companies to hand over any data they have about any number of individuals based on the rubber stamp of a secret court which forces the company to stay silent about the activity. I'm absolutely certain that the NSA has precisely the same granularity of data on US citizens as described in this article. The US government is just smarter about hiding that fact, lest there be a second revolution. Another decade or so, and it will be so prevalent everywhere else that they'll start operating in the open, just like the Chinese.