The revelations of vast data mining by the National Security Agency (NSA) have led some Americans to express fear of an Orwellian government and inspired comparisons to the Soviet Union. The reality, however, is that the U.S. program is very different from the system of surveillance in the Soviet Union. Seen in perspective, the details of the NSA program show that the U.S. remains respectful of the rights of citizens even as it seeks to protect them from terrorist attack.

The difference between the recently revealed NSA activities and what existed in the Soviet Union is that, in analyzing a staggering quantity of metadata, the NSA was seeking exceptions. The population as a whole was unaffected. Their correspondence was processed but not read, even by a computer.

In the Soviet Union, on the contrary, the government was not after enemies who, under totalitarian conditions, were nonexistent. It strove instead to intimidate the average citizen. It wanted to make every person aware that any “disloyal” word could become known to the authorities and, in response, they would ruin his life.

The Soviet Union did this without the help of modern technology. The key to the Soviet authorities’ ability to keep the entire population under surveillance was the use of informers. The KGB had informers in every work place and every apartment block. If a group of retirees gathered in a courtyard to play dominoes one of them was an informer. In any group of friends, one of them had a connection to the KGB.

There is a great deal of moral pretentiousness surrounding the latest revelations about the NSA. Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old contractor who publicized the NSA surveillance programs has said that he did not want to live in a country where practices like the NSA data sweep were possible. It’s a shame that people who express similar sentiments don’t have the chance to experience life in a country where the fanatics we are trying to neutralize have seized power. They might then better understand what it is that the U.S. has to defend.

— David Satter is an adviser to the Russian Service of Radio Liberty. His film, Age of Delirium about the fall of the Soviet Union has just received the Van Gogh Grand Jury Award for best film at the Amsterdam Film Festival