[Eupolemos]

Because Snowden, agree with him or not, showed us that reality blew away our imagination.

It may feel normal now, but back then, serious people, professionals, told us that the claims just were not possible.

Until we learned that they were.

[heavyset_go]

Until that moment, the general sentiment about the government and the internet is that they are too incompetent to do anything about it, companies like Microsoft/Apple/Google/Snapchat are actually secure so lax data/opsec is okay, etc.

Meanwhile, the whole time, communications and tech companies were working hand in hand with the government siphoning up any and all data they could to successfully implement their LifeLog[1] pipe dream.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog

[kcplate]

> Until that moment, the general sentiment about the government and the internet is that they are too incompetent to do anything about it

In 2008 I worked with a retired NSA guy who had retired from the agency 5 years prior. He refused to have a cellphone. He refused to have a home ISP. Did not have cable tv, Just OTA. He would only use the internet as needed for the work we were doing and would not use it for anything else (news, etc). He eventually moved to the mountains to live off grid. He left the agency ten years before Snowden disclosed anything.

An example like that in my life and here I sit making comments on the internet.

[somenameforme]

That was not the sentiment, at least not in my experience. There was a far more pervasive and effective argument - if somebody believed that the government is spying on you in everything and everywhere then they're simply crazy, a weirdo, a conspiracy theorist. Think about something like the X-Files and the portrayal of the Lone Gunmen [1] hacking group. Three borderline nutso, socially incompetent, and weird unemployed guys living together and driving around in a scooby-doo van. That was more in line with the typical sentiment.

People don't want to be seen as crazy or on the fringes so it creates a far greater chilling effect than claims that e.g. the government is too incompetent to do something which could lead to casual debate and discussion. Same thing with the event that is the namesake of that group. The argument quickly shifted from viability to simply trying to negatively frame anybody who might even discuss such things.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen

[jatora]

dont worry lifelog was cancelled in 2004 according to that wiki. Phew!

[jjtheblunt]

> Snowden, agree with him or not, showed us that reality blew away our imagination.

pretty much everything Snowden released had been documented (with NSA / CIA approval) in the early 80s in James Bamford's book The Puzzle Palace.

the irony of snowden is that the audience ten years ago mostly had not read the book, so echo chambers of shock form about what was re-confirming decades old capabilities, being misused at the time however.

[ocdtrekkie]

Considering the US military has historically had capabilities a decade ahead of what people publicly knew about, anyone who said it just wasn't possible probably wasn't a serious professional.

[XorNot]

Which claims? HN around that time was taking anything and everything and declaring it conclusively proved everything else.

I honestly have no god damn clue what was actually revealed by the Snowden documents - people just say "they revealed things".

[fao_]

Why are you asking here, versus going to Google and reading the original article from The Guardian? Or the numerous Wikipedia links that are on this page?

[sgentle]

You know how it's considered a kind of low-effort disrespect to answer someone's question by pasting back a response from an LLM? I think equivalently if you ask a question where the best response is what you'd get from an LLM, then you're the one showing a disrespectful lack of effort. It's kind of the 2026 version of LMGTFY.

If you still want a copy-paste response to your question, just let me know – I'm happy to help!