You may be right. But in my opinion it's not the severity of the action that's brought to light, it's who gets hurt. The elites of the US are usually fine with

You may be right. But in my opinion it's not the severity of the action that's brought to light, it's who gets hurt. The elites of the US are usually fine with extraconstitutional shenanigans and human rights violations when they only affect foreigners, or relatively powerless people within the US. When it affects the domestic balance of power, then you start to see elite consensus building against it, and the wheels of reform start turning. This is how a hotel break-in is more serious than a secret war in Indochina. It's possible that US elites will perceive surveillance as a threat to themselves. If they don't, you're probably right and then everyone just gets used to it, and any reckoning is kicked down the road for a few more decades.