[r3trohack3r]

What you're describing as "known" was not known. If you remember, the ACLU attempted to take the government to court over the Presidential Surveillance Program several years before the Snowden Revalations. They lost because they didn't have evidence.

The government had classified evidence of their crimes making possessing evidence of them breaking the law illegal. SCOTUS ruled that they couldn't charge the government of a crime without possessing that evidence.

Snowden gave us that evidence allowing citizens to, once again, bring charges against the government in 2013 and winning the case in 2017.

Some rumors are true. Some rumors are false. Rumors do not a court case make. The Snowden Revalations do.

[b112]

I had thought this was about the NSA spying on US citizens, not about five eyes' actions, which is still ongoing I thought.

Note: re rumours, there are rumours, and then there are facts widely known.

No one I knew had even a shred of doubt re:five eyes, it was not "tinfoil hat" stuff, merely "this is how this works".

Even now, I do not see how five eyes is even remotely illegal.