Is this maybe a British vs. American difference? In the US "snooping" definitely has a sort of casual, comedic connotation. You snoop on an office conversation,

Is this maybe a British vs. American difference? In the US "snooping" definitely has a sort of casual, comedic connotation. You snoop on an office conversation, not a foreign government. It would be weird to hear a journalist talk about "domestic snooping" instead of "domestic spying". But in England the widespread nickname for some pretty serious legislation was "Snoopers' Charter", and the Economist is using the word in a similar manner. Even the dictionaries disagree: Merriam-Webster defines it as "to look or pry especially in a sneaking or meddlesome manner". "meddlesome prying" feels substantially different from "furtive investigating" to me.