The real reaction of the American public isn't the talking that happens now. Or the next month. Or the next year.
It's that people like me, who are young and have decades of time we're going to put in to society - working on infrastructure, working in the military, working in civil service jobs, etc - have this information and have someone like that as a counter point to the obvious corruption happening in government.
I'd wager the biggest effect of Snowden - because anyone watching suspected much of this anyway - is going to be the legacy of someone who stood up and said something about it, screw the cost.
Rolemodels like that are important, especially amid a context of massive social and governmental breakdown.
Unfortunately, the fall of the Roman empire happened slowly and no one did anything about it. The point being, change wont happen, some, perhaps many will look to Snowden as a hero or roll model, but all he is is a sign post.
There were no rallies, no strikes, what did the populous do when they heard about it? Complained silently and some are probably annoyed that it's still being reported on.
That's a pretty depressing outlook, but it is hard to avoid looking at history as a sign of things to come. (I just started reading 'History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire')
You're right, it is significant for generations to come. There's a big concern, though, that PRISM/etc allows mining a person's life history to filter out people of conscience, and ensure organizations filled with obedient worker bees. (They already do this, it will just be more effective by orders of magnitude.)
Donated to Ron Paul? Watched one too many Chomsky videos? Sorry, Booz Allen doesn't have a position for you at this time.
To quote (or paraphrase) a military commander: technology is a force multiplier.
What we're actually seeing is the cusp of a very important transition, where currently governments can afford to do all these kinds of things (and large corporations are quickly getting in on the game), but in 10-15 years, we'll be able to do it /at home/.
I think society will change - will have to change - with the massive distribution of computing power that's likely to occur. We're not even outside the realm of where a motivated citizen could build a cluster at home, scan through all the publicly available documents, and profile government (and related contractors) in the same way they're doing to the public.
It simply hasn't entered the public awareness yet that we're living in that age.
If you really freeze out everyone of conscience (and motivation), do you really think they'll just go "ho hum" and do nothing with their time? That they'd just accept being thrown to the side of major political affairs and take no follow up?
I think it's far more likely they'd reach out to technology, and take matters in to their own hands.
It's this access to technology that really scares the government, people in power, etc. They just have no idea how to constructively deal with the change.
I hope you're right. The obvious counterpoint is that off-the-shelf crypto has been available for 20 years, and effectively nobody uses it. Also, the government has a significant ace in the hole: they get to send in men with guns to tap corporate pipelines and issue gag orders. More home computing power isn't going to fix that.
I'm still optimistic in the long term. It's just a shame we've forgotten the lessons of history, and won't take action until there's real abuse, instead of being a smart enough culture to nip the problem in the bud.
> The obvious counterpoint is that off-the-shelf crypto has been available for 20 years, and effectively nobody uses it.
Sorry for the delay, I just saw your comment and wanted to respond to this:
The point isn't that /everyone/ can use it; it's that /anyone/ can use it.
Similarly, at the point that drones become easy to construct at home, it doesn't matter that it won't be everyone that has home-operated drones monitoring government actions - just that people who want to can.
