"Venezuela OTOH seems quite reasonable."

Venezuelan here, and I can tell you that there is nothing reasonable about Venezuela these days. The big scandal here is that USA citizens had been monitored without a warrant but in Venezuela government agencies had been doing that for years and without any shame.

They had shown in national TV, audio recordings of phone conversations just to embarrass people that are no pro-government (nothing relating to felonies or crimes, just to make fun of them). So it is ironic indeed.

This doesn't seem worse than what's happening in the USA (monitoring... just about everybody; keeping hundreds of political prisoners at Gitmo for 12 years and counting) or Europe (UK government spying on... just everyone; or the countless robberies and abuse of power of Sarkozy, Berlusconi and friends).

It is worse in the sense that the have no shame to hide it, at least in the US was a secret. On the other hand, it is ironic to do what he did and then escape to a country where freedom conditions are way worse.