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The mood back then was that domestic spying didn’t exist.

As in: Imagine the scale it requires, you’re stupid if you believe, what, that the NSA tapes all of our records?!? Put your tinfoil hat back.

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I dunno, there's always been a greybeard contingent here that's been in or around telecom or otherwise know about Operation Shamrock, Echelon, room 641A, and so on, before Snowden.

Yeah and it was pretty common to be voted down and called a crank over it too.

Hence, "greybeard." Even when people are talking about something that they know to be true, they ground themselves in derogatory stereotypes about the people who were right.

Do you consider “greybeard” to be a derogatory stereotype? I sure don’t..

I've seen it used with either positive or negative connotations depending on the context.

This is why I framed the question to see if there was a 'dominant vibe'. It sounds like there were voices in a position to best know but that they were a minority.

I think I can infer that their education explanations didn't meaningfully change that dominant vibe.

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