Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. He worked with journalists to try the make the leak safe. Let’s focus on impact- Now everyone is at least aware that digital activities are under surveillance including phone call metadata. We have made that trade off for some security. Thank you Snowden.
Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the whole Snowden ordeal was not discovering hard proof we've been living in a borderline-Orwellian surveillance state, but the utter indifference of the American people at this revelation.
It's certainly not indifference, it's that our media and democracy aren't really functioning properly. I can go look at any news site and regardless of the site's political bias - there's a recurring theme. You'll see lots of pro war stuff and lots stuff on topics that makes people really dislike each other. But these sort of issues where people overwhelmingly feel one way, and the political establishment feels another? Yeah, those are all strangely absent.
And come next year? These same topics will receive about as much coverage as COBOL at a hot trends in computing conference. Instead we'll get two people each telling you to vote for them because the other guy's awful. The one bright side is we can safely say that they're both right.
[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/11/15/key-takea...