As the article says, there's little to discuss:

> First, details about the programs exposed recently are scarce. ... Snowden's disclosures, in contrast, included weeks of reporting on specific programs backed by leaked documents, making it easier for media and the public to latch onto the story.

honestly the opposite, personally I tend to avoid these topics nowadays because I feel the discussion is very one sided and I usually just get a lot of flak when I argue that people fail to make a material case against surveillance.

I think the average person unlike a lot of active internet users values safety much higher than privacy and a lot of people fail to see any negative consequences of these programs in their day to day life. Opposition tends to be very ideological which is why it fails to make a splash as the article claims.