To many people, I'm sure. But to anyone following certain organizations (the EFF comes to mind), Snowden basically "pulled the curtains open" on what was somewh

To many people, I'm sure. But to anyone following certain organizations (the EFF comes to mind), Snowden basically "pulled the curtains open" on what was somewhat known for quite some time (perhaps not to the depth that Snowden revealed, but people knew that there was some computer surveillance going on before Snowden.) The EFF has a timeline of quotes / stories that basically extend back to the September 11th attacks. https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline I personally don't think paranoia, though. To me, this whole collecting data on everyone instead of targeted individuals is more this: a huge data storage that is both subject to both internal abuse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT) and data leaks (Snowden); a wasteful process that didn't really stop a lot of terrorist attacks (eg, San Bernadino, the Boston Marathon bombings, Fort Hood, the Charleston church, etc.); a process that damaged America's reputation considerably (even from a pure business perspective); etc. Honestly, the NSA spying appears to end up being a colossal waste of resources and a general failure overall. If some NSA database records this opinion, good. :)