From the OP:
If you paid attention during the Cold War you know that the problem was active oppression engaged in by the communist governments, not just the listening. Vote the wrong way - go to jail. Tell a joke about the party leader - go to jail for 10 years. Want to leave the country - go to jail.
...
The only difference is that in the current day, and in the U.S. Such things are not as public, this oppresion is happening in our country. We just have a better illusion that these violations do not happen.
...
No, not even close. Great troll though.
There is oppression, however the US has until now used a different way of doing this. The Soviet Union was in-your-face brutal about it but the West does this instead by degrees, through social / financial / legal ruination and then by physical means when the above are not useful. If fear is overused in statecraft it results in loss of productivity through reduced innovation and motivation. The intelligence gathering system is for picking the victims. If this is thwarted, the oppression cannot occur.
Both regimes (US and USSR) had no inhibitions on learning about the limits of the human psyche and testing methods of manipulating the population, and both regimes would employ whatever means each thought necessary and feasible to achieve whatever the aims are.
The only thing preventing outright oppression in the US is that people's stomachs are still full and apathy is rife, in contrast to what was the case in the USSR.