Er... just to clarify: Samsung was deeply inter-wined with the government before(from the 80s to ~'17), I’m not sure if NIS has actually requested Samsung’s data but I suspect Samsung could give out such data.
However most companies don’t; for example, the biggest chatting app Kakao (think as WhatsApp in the US or WeChat in China) refused to provide information; opened the fact that NIS requested info to the public; and revised the chatting system to only save the message for 3 days in the server and added a end-to-end encryption mode.
Just wanted to point out that South Korea’s situation is less like China but more like the US.
The bottom line is that if you decide doing anything against the current US powers that be (like harassing a Senator from outside his house late at night) do not use any of the services coming from companies directly liable to the US authorities. The same goes if you’re in China or Russia, try not to use the services of companies directly liable to those countries’ governments if you want to vigorously protest the current political status-quo.
The NSA does not have a mandate to do what you’re describing, they face extensive civilian oversight and programs like their metadata collection were extensively debated in public. Are there exceptions? Yes; but they don’t have the same mandate or the same powers of control as some of these other nations, so the effect is vastly different.
Most democratically elected representatives don't know what the NSA is up to. The Director of National Intelligence directly lied in his public testimony when asked about NSA collection. It took a whistleblower to reveal even the basic outline of the NSA's massive surveillance powers, which the civilian population was unaware of. That whistleblower now has to live in Russia, or else he'd be rotting away in jail, or worse. The metadata program was only extensively debated after those revelations, and we civilians are still in the dark about what the NSA does. I don't trust that they've stopped their mass surveillance of Americans. A massive organization that acts with such little oversight is a danger to democracy, regardless of what it claims in public.
Presumably people protesting against Putin or the people from Tiananmen Square weren't all asking for peaceful elections, I bet there were some protesters among them who were literally asking for Putin's or Deng Xiaoping's heads, that's what I meant with "vigorously protest". It's understandable that some people in the US would want to "vigorously protest" against people who they think are directly liable for other's people deaths, as I presume that lady thinks of the likes of Mitch Mcconnell.
As per the NSA mandate and the "civilian oversight", that's what I meant with "right at this moment". I think what you're describing was generally true until 2 or 3 years ago (yes, even after the Snowden leaks), but I'm afraid things are not the same in the current political climate.
The least cynical reading is that it's an expression of neo-Confucian values; those in a position of political, military or economic power have a broad belief in the importance of cooperation and "social harmony". If the NSA want to access all of Google's data, they hide an implant in a data center, put optical splitters on key fiber links or bribe a third party to provide a backdoor in a vital software dependency (PRISM and BULLRUN). If the PLA want Tencent's data or the NIS want Samsung's data they just ask for it, on the understanding that a) they're not really in a position to say no and b) cooperation with the state is a mutually beneficial quid-pro-quo.