Are you really so innocent as to believe that the NSA was _only_ targeting foreign Bitcoin holders, or that they made effort at least to avoid capturing info on Americans?
That's the law, no reason to think otherwise without evidence. I assume the story would be very different if there was any indication this was used on US citizens.
Actually no. I read all 300+ documents leaked by Snowden independent of the news coverage in order to determine if the media narrative was true, as that would be absolutely enraging to me and I needed to decide if I would need to be calling and mailing my representatives/senators daily about this.
I was not able to find evidence in the leaks to substantiate any claims of improper use on everyday citizens. I like to operate on facts, so if there was a leaked document I somehow missed, you can provide a link and I would be happy to review it.
I concur. The purpose of Snowden’s leaks was to educate the masses that mass surveillance is a thing, and privacy should be taken seriously. He did not suggest the government was breaking the law, just that the law permitted surveillance on a scale that the average person probably wasn’t aware of.
As a result, we gained things like GDPR, which will revolutionize privacy worldwide because of its extra-jurisdictional effects. And think about how much more SSL is happening now. Http:// is mostly gone. We have letsencrypt. Google is encrypting all traffic between datacenters. Etc...
But no, Snowden did not reveal anything suggesting widespread illegal surveillance of Americans.
Why would they be afraid of going to jail? None of them have gone to jail so far. You only face consequences for reporting misbehavior, not for engaging in it.
