I think Snowden was just a general reference to needing whistle-blowers to bring accountability because the rest of us are in the dark.

But I think the point doesn't apply as well here. People measuring censorship thought of that already and aren't simply relying on govt to share info on the censorship it does. They also test access to sites. Obviously non-transparent regimes everywhere will often censor discretly (e.g. a story exposing their corruption).

Mass surveillance induces censorship and has a chilling effect on speech, so it is arguably true that security agencies violated the constitution they are sworn to protect.

Strong disagree. The potential damage done by mass surveillance would be against private communication, not public. Intelligence agencies can and do gather a lot of intelligence by just observing publicly-shared information. And considering the surveillance excesses observed since the war on terror has unfolded, there has been no discernible decrease in speech freedom nor has anyone ever been provably prosecuted or persecuted due to data wrongly collected in one of these programs.

I do think the chilling effect from big brother remains and we don't know if intelligence agencies collect about people, building profiles for example.

What I know is that agencies couldn't produce evidence of data collection helping with their mission. And it becomes a problem if the work too closely with political parties in my opinion.

What I do have seen is panicking about certain people that could gather some crowds and we do know that intelligence agencies like to disturb a civil right movement or two. I demand performance from people payed by taxes and they cannot deliver.

US ”censorship” happens through AI flagging and demoting content, screaming louder than the next guy, distorting the narrative, DMCA takedowns. And it's quite effective. A high percent if people won't ever see the content. One can probably still see it if they take extra steps.

But none of that is government.