Snowden can just as easily be a pressure value, to allow this sort of things to normalize in the public consciousness in a certain way with a certain narrative.

Snowden can just as easily be a pressure value, to allow this sort of things to normalize in the public consciousness in a certain way with a certain narrative. And it has normalized perfectly. Stuff that would make everything seem scary and relatively totalitarian is now normal day to day mater of fact sort of thing.