See my answer to a similar question below. Are you arguing that Egypt is not an authoritarian regime? As for the others you mention, I have no information about

See my answer to a similar question below. Are you arguing that Egypt is not an authoritarian regime? As for the others you mention, I have no information about their surveillance program. But you are right, my use of "Western" was inappropriate. I should have said "country with a functional democracy" instead. But essentially, if you don't already have separation of powers, an independent judiciary and the sort of check and balances which are typical of democracies, you are going to get mass surveillance anyway, as long as the tech level is sufficient, because there is no reason for an authoritarian regime not to do. Mass surveillance is a feature of authoritarian regimes (see 1984 or what the Stasi tried to do). In democracies, it's a bug. So you'd need to transition Russia to a democratic state before you could tackle mass surveillance.