That's fair, but I also think absence of evidence is meaningful in proportion to the likelihood that, if evidence existed, it would be gathered and disseminated

That's fair, but I also think absence of evidence is meaningful in proportion to the likelihood that, if evidence existed, it would be gathered and disseminated. In other words, the more closed the society, the more we should assume the worst when the facts are unclear. In absolute terms whistleblowing is a dangerous game in the west, so it is likely that there's plenty being successfully hidden from us -- and the evidence we do have suggests that surveillance is very intense and intrusive. But I still lean toward the belief that it is probably relatively more restrained, and less likely to be used in completely dystopian ways, than in more secretive and repressive states less constrained by the rule of law.