And this is why the morning of the Snowden leaks will always be a fond memory for me. Anybody with experience in the kinetic aspects of the USG, who also had a solid understanding of what is technologically feasible, knew about that mass surveillance was a certainty. The Department of State's process for designating terrorist organizations is instructive here: groups are evaluated on both disposition and capability. Well, the USG has repeatedly demonstrated a predisposition for spying on citizens and relatively recently it gained the technological ability to do so at scale. Lots of people feeling vindicated that morning.
It is actually a pretty long list of resulting changes. I'll describe a couple:
The German government became very interested in open source firmware, I've heard talk of RFPs requiring it from vendors - which compels vendors to put pressure on manufacturers, leading to fewer binary blobs.
Google became very interested in the power processor. Years ago their decommissioning process involved a hole being put through the Intel processor. For a long time I just assumed that there was a deal in place with Intel requiring a certified field destroy, but I'm now thinking that it was their distrust of Intel's backdooring. That may sound extreme, but nobody can say with certainty that whatever bs is occurring in ring -6 isn't caching private keys. Intel is now trying very hard to fool people into believing that they're going to be open sourcing their firmware - this will not happen.
As far as the social consequences, that is hard to say - I'm less plugged into popular culture than most. I'd be surprised if it didn't influence people's views of the government though, especially if they had voted for Hope and Change™. Greenwald timed and ordered the releases perfectly so that the government would predictably lie, only to be proven a liar the following news cycle. This pattern repeated a few times before they got the hint and STFU. And then there was the director of the NSA showing up at Defcon in a black t-shirt and jeans...
You have a good point but many people do not realize the implications of things. To be fair to them, things are purposefully framed so that they seem to be in the public's best interest. I understand the anger and resentment, but if people are now worried then we can use that momentum to fix the issue. You're right, it didn't have to be an issue in the first place, but let's do what we can to fix it instead of spreading the frustration.
You are 100% correct. I remember complaining about this way back in 2005 when RealID was passed. To my chagrin I just got my RealID driver's license as it became mandatory in my state.
What the parent is trying to say is that it was not public. This can mean that they just weren't aware of it too, or thought it was something else. I know when I heard about the RealID act there wasn't much discussion about it among my peers. It just seemed like an update into how licenses were done, and one that would make them more secure (and let's be honest, identification in the US is atrocious. We even use SSNs for identification!)
Yeah there was a little privacy debate when it was proposed, and a little states' rights debate. Now it's really just a formality, but back then there wasn't this level of integrated and aggregated data about individuals.
Some states listened and intentionally dragged their feet. Mine is one - we needed an extension in order to fly -- but we're rolling it out here now too.
Funny you should mention that in your call for caution against black pilling. When SS was proposed there was massive popular outcry against serializing citizens with a federally assigned number. The USG assured everybody that SSNs would only ever be used for the distribution of benefits...