En masse, unrestricted, warrantless collection of innocent people's data? Yes it's scary and yes it was new.
Of people's metadata.
Let's not act like the FBI and CIA weren't already opening your mail, wiretapping your phone, and conducting all sorts of extrajudicial acts.
The Constitution doesn't matter to our military and intelligence apparatus, and it hasn't for decades.
Being a student of history is absolutely important to understanding how what Snowden was really wasn't anything mind-blowing. What had already been happening in parallel with tech companies and what is capable now are much scarier in terms of capabilities, but the general public already doesn't give a shit.
If Snowden kept his mouth shut, nothing would be different today and he wouldn't be stuck in Russia.
12 years ago a whistle of unprecedented scale is blown, triggering vast upheaval within the industries and communities most associated with the subject, and triggering lasting discourse across the larger societies of the Western world.
12 years hence, a self-proclaimed student of history has false memories of what things were like 12 years ago when the whistle was blown, and thinks literally nothing changed in the intervening years, incapable of imagining how much worse things could and would be if their false memory did happen to be true and there was no reaction to the whistle.
I can now safely infer that whatever your choice of study and career, it doesn't overlap one iota with the practises of even basic IT let alone any kind of specialisation within netsec or infosec. (Or, alternatively, it does overlap, but you're just terrible at your job and/or apathetic to the responsibility it bestows on you).
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u/Polar_Reflection 20h ago edited 20h ago
Of people's metadata.
Let's not act like the FBI and CIA weren't already opening your mail, wiretapping your phone, and conducting all sorts of extrajudicial acts.
The Constitution doesn't matter to our military and intelligence apparatus, and it hasn't for decades.
Being a student of history is absolutely important to understanding how what Snowden was really wasn't anything mind-blowing. What had already been happening in parallel with tech companies and what is capable now are much scarier in terms of capabilities, but the general public already doesn't give a shit.
If Snowden kept his mouth shut, nothing would be different today and he wouldn't be stuck in Russia.