"...I am convinced that the Americans' new status as a single superpower has caused a certain delirium in them. This is documented by the wave of self-glorifying films flooding the world, by the rhetoric of mystification used in the dirty war against Serbia, which the USA dragged Europe into; by the arrogant edging out of the UN; and by a paranoid political vision of the world as a place where villains conspire against democracy, while America self-sacrificingly watches over a threatened world as the world's policeman, equipped with the illegal Echelon planetary eavesdropping system. Only they have the moral right to decide about what is good and bad for humanity. Non-Americans make up an 'insane society', which has no right to judge them."
--Vaclav Belohradsky, Interview in Central Europe Review, Vol. 2, no.20, 22 May 2000, http://www.ce-review.org/

When John Pilger (an Australian) recently remarked that they have been reading our emails, so it's about time we could read theirs, he was implictly referring to the very same "illegal Echelon planetary eavesdropping system" that Belohradsky mentioned.

It is worth highlighting the fact that when Pilger says it's about time we could read their emails, the "we" in question refers to the whole world, and the they of "their emails" refers to a very small elite that more or less runs the planet.
(As a Spanish friend once remarked, "I wouldn't mind so much being ruled by the Americans if they at least let us vote in their elections...")

In itself that situation where they read our emails and spy on us is offensive to anyone with any fondness for democracy.

A friend recently remarked that Pilger's remark is a "fantasy".

From the standpoint of the tyrants who run the world, it might well be so-labelled--echoing equally dismissive remarks about "magical realism" in South America--but why should we take their point of view?

Pilger's astute remark is clear and to the point. It stands sharply in contrast to the vitriolic attack on Wikileaks and Julian Assange. The ferocity of the attack deserves notice; but it shouldn't lead anyone to doubt the value of what Wikileaks has done, or what Pilger has said.
Pilger's comment was, quite simply, accurate. By contrast, the energetic response to Wikileaks had more in common with a wounded elephant thrashing about than it does with anything which might be labelled "political science'.

In any case Pilger has a track record and it would be inaccurate to label him a mere fantasist...