Yes we all "knew". All of us "knew". Some of us have "known" for something like 15 years. (Which, BTW, is why I'm most sure why Obama is getting so much flack. Its a Clinton - Bush - Obama scandal.)
But none of us, not one, actually did know anything at all. We suspected, or assumed. But we did not know. Not unless one of us is working for the NSA, etc, etc. (Ironic if I have just picked on the one poster who is)
Now we do know. It is absolute. No doubt, no shouting down, we know.
There is a huge difference: Before we were written off as conspiracy nuts jobs. Now we have certain knowledge.
Im not picking on you personally. Your post is one of many in the past couple of days. As such I have not down voted you, that would be unfair. But please, can people stop with this sort of comment? We all know we "knew".
You are picking on people; we really did know, not "know." It was obvious, it remains obvious, and the fact is that its going to continue and get worse despite the revelations of this week, unless we do something.
Painting rational people who notice and complain about government overreach as paranoid is precisely what enables the expansion of these policies. You should be asking what you can do now to help rather than setting us up to be further discredited or ignored by implying our years of complaining weren't substantiated until just now.
NSA doesn't even have to deny anything. Let the other interested parties wash their hands, and leave with a "told ya" smile.
Not sure if it was intentional or not, but seems a very convenient prank. I know, Conspiracy theory^-1. We'll see.
That, plus knowing what we know about big data projects, I have a suspicion this "system" has very limited functionality.
Were any of those ever confirmed with documentation?