Did we really know then that they were tapping into backbones and recording all the bits?
It's possible 'we' did, but I just didn't notice it because I wasn't paying attention and the media didn't make too much of it.
I did hear about the immunity thing, but figured that was for individual requests for particular information for particular investigations; it honestly didn't occur to me that they'd record the entire internet, I naively thought that would obviously be unconstitutional and thus not done.
If "we" did know that before, then I guess the Snowden leak has been great PR, because I didn't know about it until now!
For future references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_v._AT%26T is the lawsuit - it was pretty clear that they were wholesale tapping the backbones and recording everything.
Even worse, The Supreme Court declined to review the case.
All three branches of the federal government tried to sweep the gross abuse of power under the rug. They succeeded, at least for a while.
It's possible 'we' did, but I just didn't notice it because I wasn't paying attention and the media didn't make too much of it.
I did hear about the immunity thing, but figured that was for individual requests for particular information for particular investigations; it honestly didn't occur to me that they'd record the entire internet, I naively thought that would obviously be unconstitutional and thus not done.
If "we" did know that before, then I guess the Snowden leak has been great PR, because I didn't know about it until now!