Why is everyone so bumfuzzled?

I'm sure most of you have been following, in one way or another, the developments relating to the NSA spying 'scandal'... I for one am simply stupefied that anyone would be surprised by this. For one thing, experts have been telling everyone FOR YEARS that the government was spying on them. After all, the Patriot Act basically gives the government that power.

So why is it that suddenly everyone is shocked and dismayed? Obviously, I suspect that politicians are fanning the ambers of this issue in order to score points with their constituents. But why is the media all bumfuzzled? Shouldn't the astute journalist point out that none of this is really new and that all of this has been debated in one way or another over the course of several years?

I don't think anyone in the security industry was surprised by this. Well actually, I guess we might have been surprised by peoples reaction, but not surprised by the facts.

Some people call Edward Snowden a hero while others call him a traitor. I call him stupid... He threw away his career, his girlfriend, his family, his financial future and his freedom in order to basically state the obvious. Of course, there is a part of me (you know, the little part which loves entertaining conspiracy theories) which considers that Edward Snowden was actually a spy working for the Chinese who managed to maximize his egress from the US by successfully creating all this wonderful scandal out of things that were basically all well known. It is an interesting possibility considering that Edward seemed rather focused on pointing out things like the part where the US is hacking China (well, duh...) and also the part where his escape route is Hong Kong....

Anyway... Fanciful conspiracy theories aside, everyone needs to realize that none of this is new. Acting surprised and dismayed at something that is totally obvious simply makes us look like idiots...

cheers,
Luis