The big difference is that in the years before the Snowden revelations there were a lot of signs of things going on (e.g. when Washington Post revealed that 800

The big difference is that in the years before the Snowden revelations there were a lot of signs of things going on (e.g. when Washington Post revealed that 800,000 people worked in US intelligence and had a high security clearance [1] ). Signs as big as that have not been present for the EU, even when you count in Echelon. 1) http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/ http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articl...