There were two faux-sophisticated takes. "See, I told you they were spying on everybody!" and "Everyone already knew they were spying on everybody!" Both were from the same group of conspiracy theorists who believed the US government was spying on everybody even after Snowden's massive leak showed they weren't.
EU was warning about Echelon since before 9/11. The Patriot act detailed everything Snowden "revealed" (we basically only learned the actual names of the programs).
There was genuine shock in Europe that Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, Merkel were all spied on by NSA. Yes, we were naive conspiracy theorists when we were saying "you know, they gave them the right to do it, so they are probably doing it". But it all fell on dead ears.
> There was genuine shock in Europe that Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, Merkel were all spied on by NSA
The USA (and all major powers) has spied on foreign diplomats and leaders since its inception. This should come as a surprise to nobody. You had earlier claimed that the NSA was spying on everybody, which clearly isn't happening.
I earlier claimed that the Patriot act allows NSA to spy on anybody, which is correct. And semantics aside when a court orders Verizon to secretly handle all the information about calls within the US or where one end is in the US [1], saying that they do spy on everybody is not really far fetched.
I can't believe we are having this conversation on this board, that is supposed to be populated by people who have read that kind of news a bit in depth...
> When a court orders Verizon to secretly handle all the information about calls within the US or where one end is in the US [1], saying that they do spy on everybody is not really far fetched.
If the data can only be queried with identifiers of people with a reasonable suspicion of terrorist links, that hardly seems like "spying on everybody." Subsequent oversight board reports showed that automatic querying of the data with identifiers not associated with people reasonably suspected of terrorist links was deemed illegal and shut down prior to Snowden's leaks. If they could spy on everybody, there would be no reason to shut down that program. https://www.lawfareblog.com/latest-nsa-documents-iii-governm...
> I can't believe we are having this conversation on this board, that is supposed to be populated by people who have read that kind of news a bit in depth...
I probably saw those movies at an age where I was too impressionable, but growing of with portrayals of US intelligence units like in Enemy of the State, I always assumed that they did spy on everyone (and didn't even think that this would be some absurd view, or that I was being clever with that thought).
"Come on that's just paranoia"
Snowden leaks secret program that implements everything details in the patriot act.
"WHO COULD HAVE SUSPECTED?"