[thaumaturgy]

There are a lot of novelties in the Snowden leak for people, like me, who are interested but try to stay on the sane side of paranoid.

First and foremost, it's evidence with details. Echelon was more or less an open secret for a while, but even then there wasn't much information available about how it was being used -- just that communications were being collected and searched. It's the difference between, "There are data centers monitoring internet traffic," and, "here's a slide on an NSA presentation for software that will give you any person's entire browser history."

Second, there's the extent to which communications systems were being compromised. Taps on undersea cables and major backbones? Sure. Direct access to data at Google and Facebook and elsewhere? That was surprising.

Third, there was the scope. The assumption was always that it was impractical for the NSA or other agencies to store a lot of data about every person. But, now we know they don't store it -- they just exploit other databases.

There are the methodologies: I might assume that "they" are infiltrating the communications systems of certain foreign states, but to find out that they were doing it in part by hijacking Cisco equipment in transit and chipping them was surprising, mostly because it seems like such a stupid tactic in the event that word ever gets out.

And, there's the not very small matter of the targets involved. Spying for the sake of the War on Terror and against enemy states and all that is one of those things you grudgingly accept as part of the real world. But spying on our allies? What are they trying to accomplish there? What are they trying to gain that's worth the risk of being found out and pissing off your friends?

So, for me, the Snowden leaks moved the NSA from, "spooky, secretive, well-funded spy organization filling a necessary role," to, "totally out-of-control freaks that lost the plot years ago and seem to have set their hooks into the topmost levels of government."

[wutbrodo]

A lot of this makes sense, thanks for the thorough explanation of your perspective. It's a little easier to understand how people could have such a stronger reaction.

> Spying for the sake of the War on Terror and against enemy states and all that is one of those things you grudgingly accept as part of the real world. But spying on our allies?

This has happened always and forever; it's always been a standard tool of statecraft. Again I'm not making any moral judgment, but to me this was the LEAST surprising of all the unsurprising revelations (and in fact this is something that I thought even John Q. Layman knew about).

> So, for me, the Snowden leaks moved the NSA from, "spooky, secretive, well-funded spy organization filling a necessary role," to, "totally out-of-control freaks that lost the plot years ago and seem to have set their hooks into the topmost levels of government."

I guess that's kinda where we differ. As long as I can remember, it was considered an idealistic overreaction to think of the NSA as a bad actor (with perhaps good intentions). I'm still not 100% clear on how even paying limited attention to the historical actions of 3-letter agencies could lead one to have the former view.

[thaumaturgy]

> ...and in fact this is something that I thought even John Q. Layman knew about...

Well, maybe I'm not paying enough attention (or not in the right places). These days, my information on subjects usually comes from some combination of radio, television, magazines (print and online), newspapers, websites, online discussion, and the occasional book.

For the radio that I listen to (NPR/Radio Lab/et al), I'll usually take it pretty much at face value. I haven't caught them at an outrageous lie yet.

Television has zero credibility with me, regardless of the network, and so I don't even have regular access to it anymore. Even channels like Discovery have changed a lot in the past decade. At most, they'll pique my interest in a subject that I'll look at on my own later.

Magazines are pretty dubious. Subject-specific ones, like SciAm or Make, are fine, but political ones like Newsweek, I don't trust.

Newspapers are a joke.

I mistrust most websites, with few exceptions -- both the political "left" and "right" ones. If Greenwald came out and said that he had evidence of all of this stuff about the NSA, and he wrote endlessly about it but never actually released any of the evidence, I would be skeptical. (Which is why I appreciate so much what Snowden did.)

Online discussion gets treated with a dose of salt big enough to gag a horse. Nearly everybody claims to know more about a subject than they actually do, because online, the person with the most conviction wins, so it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction. Even Wikipedia, you have to have a glance at the history page to make sure somebody's not yanking your chain.

So that leaves books, which I just don't have quite enough time for anymore. It takes me around a month now to get through 500 pages. :-/

In short, I haven't felt like I had a trustworthy enough, convenient enough source for political information in quite a long time.

> I'm still not 100% clear on how even paying limited attention to the historical actions of 3-letter agencies could lead one to have the former view.

The FBI, CIA, NSA et al have all been guilty of reprehensible things at some point in the past ... but there's a bit of a jump from there to "corrupt". The NSA now looks to be totally corrupt from the top to the bottom, thanks to the evidence that's been brought to light.