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MOSCOW — TWO years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong.

Within days, the United States government responded by bringing charges against me under World War I-era espionage laws. The journalists were advised by lawyers that they risked arrest or subpoena if they returned to the United States. Politicians raced to condemn our efforts as un-American, even treasonous.

Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations.

Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.

Two years on, the difference is profound. In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated.

This is the power of an informed public.

Ending the mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen, but it is only the latest product of a change in global awareness. Since 2013, institutions across Europe have ruled similar laws and operations illegal and imposed new restrictions on future activities. The United Nations declared mass surveillance an unambiguous violation of human rights. In Latin America, the efforts of citizens in Brazil led to the Marco Civil, an Internet Bill of Rights. Recognizing the critical role of informed citizens in correcting the excesses of government, the Council of Europe called for new laws to protect whistle-blowers.

Beyond the frontiers of law, progress has come even more quickly. Technologists have worked tirelessly to re-engineer the security of the devices that surround us, along with the language of the Internet itself. Secret flaws in critical infrastructure that had been exploited by governments to facilitate mass surveillance have been detected and corrected. Basic technical safeguards such as encryption — once considered esoteric and unnecessary — are now enabled by default in the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private. Such structural technological changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the arbitrary passage of anti-privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1)

Yeah, I'm glad to see how much positive action (toward less surveillance) has ben generated by Snowden's whistle-blowing actions. He has a lot to risk, good job with a fat paycheck, comfortable living, the only burden he'd have is living with this information of knowing the big government was doing things he felt morally wrong. What a huge sacrifice to follow his morals, stay true to his beliefs. Imagine what the world would be like if we ALL did that?!

It's great that The People responded with discontent for the government and that the government finally took action to change. The problem is that when general elections come around The People tend to lose their interest and focus instead on sports, movies, reality tv and anything else that's easy to understand and low-impact to deal with.

How do we get people to act more regularly?

This is what happens when the population is informed, which is why the government fought so hard to keep it secret. As for getting people to act more regularly, I don't think that's quite the issue. People don't lose interest to sports and movies or what not as much as they lose focus to the spin both parties campaign on. Democrats and Republicans get so caught up in convincing you that the other side will bring about the end of America that the fact that they both act nearly identically on major issues like domestic spying and foreign policy gets completely lost. And we keep refusing to hold them responsible for bad policies by continuing to vote within the two party system, despite every indication that doing so is what allows them to continue to not take seriously reform the public indicates that it wants, no matter the topic. The issue to me is getting people not to act more regularly, but more rationally. This two party system is a shell game, but neither has the coin, and they're both perfectly happy to let us continue thinking that at least one of them does.

everything is being recorded =)

Just imagine what will happen if some hacker is able to access this gigantic database of phone-calls, videos and chats. Or it can be even a rogue employee of the FBI, who want to sell this data to third parties for a profit. Can you imagine the consequences? The lives of a lot of people will be ruined. We will be seeing a large spike in murders and suicides.

You guys don't seriously think Snowden has achieved anything special with his revelations right? Let me put this way, do you think anything can stand in the way of 'progress'? How can 'The World Say No to Surveillance' when everybody is embracing every new tech that comes out with open arms? That's like saying you like eating oranges but don't like the taste of it  :D All Snowden has managed to do is let the 'powers that be' know its time they step up their game. The world has already gained enough momentum to be able to absorb any attack and adapt to it so that next time it won't work. The world is a little like the Gold Saints from Saint Seiya, can't use the same attack twice against it  :D

Oh and with the IoT just round the corner, how does being spied on by your juice mixer sound like?   ::)

Indeed. Sensitive information like that can be very harmful to people. This is why I always recommend others to delete old conversations/notes and such.
The government tends to abuse their power, and what we see is only a fraction of what is going on. Spying on everyone isn't going to help their "terrorist fight" or whatever.
Why doesn't the government gives us a backdoor to all of their private communications as well?  ::)

I am yet to see a single evidence to support the argument that this mass surveillance has reduced the terrorist activity in any way. If it was so, the Boston bombings, in which a number of innocent people were killed would have never happened. The perpetrators were under the FBI watch-list, and only a few days before the bombings, the FBI had received a warning from Russia about them. Seems like the CIA / FBI was spying on normal people, and had no time to do surveillance on terrorist suspects.

The Surveillance under the law is not a bad thing.
It's the price we should pay to keep us safe.

Here we go again. This reply is worthless and was made because of *insert signature campaign*.

Indeed. If this was actually working surely 90% or more of the attacks would be prevented. However, if I search "how to make a bomb" and similar things they would potentially come after me.
Let's face it, the terrorists know about the surveillance and they are going to beat it (already are). It's not like they will intercept a real call in which they will hear "Okay, plan bomb there and there at time X".
This mass surveillance thing is just a violation of my privacy and serves no real purpose.
Luckily a few right people have started getting aware and we're developing encrypted means of communication.

I think they'll still collect this stuff just in secret. Are they really going to shut the entire program down? I just can't see it.


There's already been FBI agents sharing nude photos I believe. Look what the agents did in the silk road fiasco too stealing millions in bitcoins. They can't be trusted.

Are you under the influence of shrooms or weed? OK. I'll accept that the government is doing all this to keep us safe, and not to spy on us. Just give me an example, where the government agencies had averted a terrorist strike as a result of this surveillance. I can't find a single such incident. Terrorists seems to be striking at will.

A lot of people can access it already. Relax man.

The two-party political system is surely part of the problem. The hype and spin causes confusion and frustration. It leads voters to tune out the noise of arguing politicians, when really they should be weeding out the bullshit candidates from those who can deliver upon good ideas. I do think there's a good portion of the American population who truly don't care about politics. They'll bitch and moan about how things are but do nothing to fix it or even understand why the laws are established they way they are. It's easy to come home from work, turn on the tv and zone out. And it's so destructive to our society...

The "Rock the Vote" campaigns over the last 15 years have helped get younger people to the polls, but it's not enough. The irony is that the poor or disenfranchized people complain that the system is stacked against them, but if they all went out and voted they'd have a system that supports them directly. There are far more poor in the US than there are rich. All they have to do is show up and vote and they'd start seeing politicians and ideas that benefit them, that cater to them.

I am not talking about FBI employees. I was referring to hackers and conmen who could use these data to blackmail normal people. That said, it is not 100% safe with the FBI employees either. There will always be some money-loving rogue types, who would like to get some additional income by passing on these records to blackmailers.

I am glad people reacted this way too and were not cynical.

And you have taken their bait hook, line, and sinker

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...  Rahm Emanuel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb-YuhFWCr4

Partially correct, No one has rights to put a surveillance in the public secret things, every individual has rights to keep his secrets to themselves, their are n number of methods and tactics for spy but not in this say as NSA going through these days. Anyone guarantee that the Governmental bodies are genuine and trustable, let them come first very clean in their attitude and work.

Surveillance is a good thing to a modest degree. Having in towns and areas that are built up motorways and streets is good but to go even future and even more is a no go. For towns and areas that need this sort of thing then ok is good if get into a fight and its recorded or if theirs more serious matters at had comes in very handy. But to have Surveillance at a higher level fk that too much of it people will just fight against it.

Getting younger voters to the poll is worthless if all it does is entrench the two-party system. People stopping voting would have more of an impact on politicians than more people voting, because anything that threatens their claim to be legitimately ruling with majority consent and not perpetrating a travesty of "democracy" by giving us only two choices would be itself a threat to their power.

Don't confuse wire-tapping of phonecalls, video-chats and call-records to traffic surveillance. We are talking about surveillance at a mass scale, which includes the recording of all phone calls / video-chats made by any individual living in the United States. This cannot be compared to the CCTV surveillance which we have on crowded public places.

You logic is ridiculous, you wear a signature too.
Is that means your reply are all worthless?
I do believe the surveillance under the law is necessary.
The premise is under the law.
Yes privacy is very important for every one, but absolutely privacy is a absolutely bad thing.