User blog comment:Semanticdrifter/Digital Protest Against the FISA Improvements Act/@comment-86.32.140.14-20140205164704/@comment-24459455-20140205172400

It's not an 'American problem'. Look up the 'five eyes agreement': it involves the US, UK, Australia, Canda and New Zealand, and there's a '19 eyes' agreement which uses secondary countries (Spain, Germany, Italy, etc) who are the 'outsiders' who are still spied upon but contribute to the network.

So it's not a US problem. Never was. Look up "Operation Shamrock". That was a joint effort to intercept all telegrams between the US and UK - and laid the groundwork for the joint surveillance net. There's nothing exclusively "American", period. GCHQ, MI6, MI5 are up to their necks in it, besides others.

This is a worldwide problem.