[yourepowerless]

People who prattle on about conspiracy theories really having nothing to add after the snowden revelations or wikileaks. Conspiracy theory? Nope, conspiracy fact, the US government does so many secret and nefarious activities the only sane default is to assume ulterior motives.

[Amezarak]

The people talking about what the NSA got up to before Snowden weren't engaging in conspiracy theories, they were basing what they said off prior whistleblowers and limited, logical extrapolation.

A lot of what Snowden put out wasn't new at all, it just gave us particulars on what we already knew or had very good reason to suspect based on that information. (e.g. if they have one fiber tap, they probably have many fiber taps.) [1] [2]

'The Government' is not one single unitary entity. It's a massive, sprawling bureacracy, with most agencies almost completely unaware of what the other is doing. Interagency cooperation is a rarity.

US Attorneys are certainly not the NSA's minions.

[1] http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/04/70...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

[MaysonL]

US Attorneys are certainly not the NSA's minions.

Except possibly when they are arguing that nothing the NSA does should ever be revealed, and that nobody has a right to sue the NSA.