US officials have a pattern of making misleading (or outright dishonest) statements about surveillance practices.

Daniel Ellsberg: Edward Snowden was right to flee; the US of today is "not the same country" as the one Ellsberg dared to remain in.

The latest media campaign to smear Snowden is to point out that Venezuela is guilty of some wrongful surveillance too.

Surveillance of people because they are opposed to government policies is no more legitimate in Venezuela than it is in the US.

Privacy International is suing the UK government over its massive surveillance practices.

Other human rights organizations are demanding changes in surveillance policies.

How the US pressures Internet companies into cooperating with Prism: by threatening to install their own surveillance gear without the companies' help.

To resist massive surveillance, people must learn to reject invitations to use services that surveil their users.

Although the article has a valid point, it undermines itself with the typical defeatist statements that "we" all engage in these surveillance-feeding practices now. Readers might well suppose that if "everyone does it" then there is no point seriously thinking of stopping.

But it's not all of us, only some of us. It is possible to say no. I have never used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Foursquare, Google+ or Path. (I might consider using Twitter for tweeting, if it were convenient for me.) I don't have a portable phone because I don't want to tell a phone company everywhere I go.