For all I know, you could very well be right when it comes to surveillance, sadly. The saving grace is western countries can't be nearly as blatant as China wh

For all I know, you could very well be right when it comes to surveillance, sadly. The saving grace is western countries can't be nearly as blatant as China when it comes to outright censorship, in fear of the political backlash that (one would hope) would still incite. So the chilling effects on speech won't be quite as dramatic as they are in China until that changes (i.e. people are still unaware that there are things they're not "allowed" to say due to lack of censorship, so they won't start to self-censor out of habit or fear).