Well, the world's oldest democracy legislative branches is still miles ahead of the US public: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/17/uk-security-agencies-unlawfully-collected-data-for-decade
shareI would really take news from the guardian with a pinch of salt.
This is likely to be just another try to regain credibility - as when FBI claimed that they couldn't access Iphone data in USA. Everyone (read; most IT literate people) knew they were lying through their teeth.
When they ON SITE DESTROY THE SERVERFARMS/PARKS and grant access to the public then it'll be more credible. The 5 eyes "cooperation" is still running isn't it...
*The ICIJ release (now known as the Panama leak) was initially released (the information from it was not) before Snowden released the information.
Making it possible that it's simply a soft release to cause a media blackout.
Saving the money on the cost of something that was allready on the verge to become mainstream knowledge through leaks like the CIA analyst Binney and others could very well have been weighed and measured (not claiming in any way that Snowden would have been a part of it, but that the reason he gained access would then have been to give a person with integrity (and not another sociopath) access in the first place to do the right thing (expose it).
I also agree that GB is further (it's an older nation) bureaucratically and by that standard has evolved further, yet Scandinavia (whose nations have old established bureaucracies) which had a more equalised law before it became a part of Lutheran (read; secularised/modern) christianity and also have a rigid basic law has introduced surveillence on that scale. Showing where the normative power lies more than anything else (where the decisions really come from).
[Political rant below]
Even Sweden that not 20 years ago was a bastion of freedom has through directed policychanges fallen and is falling. FRA (signal tracing) which is directed towards the citisenry (s>z) first and foremost (they've even asked for larger budgets to be able to break the encryption of normal people thus breaking normal peoples integrity to steal information and ruin trust on a large scale). Then you have KSI, which is an office that gathers information and sells it for pure profit to other nations and organisations, literally national treachery. The Patriot act is not only alive in USA but it's been snuck into many more civilised nations legislation despite basic laws to prevent it, resulting in laws that looks like scribbling from a young teenager.
London (as a whole, including the area with some of its own laws called; city of london) afaik has more CCTV cameras than any other city. It has since been leaked that the CCTV cameras are linked to a global network, 1984 is not tomorrow, it's not yesterday, it's a couple of decades ago.
So why do you think the plutocracy is so paranoid that they need surveillence and protection everywhere?
A rigged system will fall because it becomes inefficient over time, it either falls by itself (through pluralism/plutocracy - rule by the few for the few), war (to kill off enough people to prevent an uprising) or revolution (when the plutocracy can't keep the people busy from noticing what is happening).
Only democracy is sustainable over time as every voice is accounted for, all ideas taken into account (in it's ideal state, but also more realistically when it functions only somewhat well). But when informal interest group(s) run wild they effectively ruin society through removing accountability, trust and thereby the efficiency of the democratic system. People who do not trust each other will not be ruled by each other (divide and conquer when democracy becomes plutocracy).
[EDIT] Spelling, structure and clarification.
Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.