... but really it's always been more than just conspiracy nuts saying this.
It's essentially been common opinion in the tech community for decades that the NSA looked like they were building the capability for mass surveillance, and that in all likelihood was probably doing it.
Snowden provided a greater degree of proof, but anybody that was really surprised by what was going on wasn't really paying attention...
No, I am saying that there _was_ at least one valid conspiracy by NSA. It doesn't makes any particular conspiracy case like this one automatically valid, but it gives some Bayesian evidence for it, in my opinion, enough to at least consider it, not dismiss automatically.
I can remember a time where conspiracy theorists told everybody that the NSA is watching everybody. Crazy, huh?
Even if in the case of JFK's assassination conspiracy theories have proven wrong that is not always the case. Think of Watergate, Irak invasion because of WMD, Secret off-border CIA torture prisons and of corse the massive NSA surveillance scandal (Thanks Snowden!)...
Why should we skeptical that the NSA is doing the same thing that it's been doing for the last decade or longer? We already KNOW that the NSA spys on everyone.
Actually last year, most people who thought the NSA was spying on everyone, were in fact highly vulnerable to all sorts of conspiracy theories. There just was no evidence.
Today, with all the data we have on incompetence and failure in most intelligence agencies, we can still have some hope...
Everybody had _heard_ of this, maybe. Everybody in the tech community at least. Or let's just say enough people that some people feel like everybody did.
However when I heard of this, everybody also knew this was just a conspiracy theory. The NSA records everything -- Hello, NSA person who inevitably reads this -- sure, but c'mon they wouldn't actually store any of it or even pay attention as long as you didn't use trigger words. And even then you knew they wouldn't actually listen to your conversation because why would they care about some rando on the internet.
So, no, everyone didn't know the NSA was doing what Snowden said they were doing. It just sounded familiar enough that it seemed like it wasn't news. I think the conspiracy theories (or leaks?) may have actually softened the blow of the revelations. "Oh, I guess the conspiracy theories were right. Huh, who'd have thought. Anyway, how's your sex life?". People carried on as if nothing happened.
I swear if we somehow found out that there really were aliens in Area 51 all along, techies would derail every conversation about it by pointing out how everyone already knew this. And the common man probably wouldn't even freak out because it doesn't sound like news.
Wired broke the stories about the NSA monitoring something like 25% of all domestic cell phone traffic. The fact that all investigations into it have been stopped citing "National Security", and the former President Bush defended the tactic all are pretty good signs pointing to "YES".
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