To have so many people switch their minds about privacy and to have this so secret for so long means there has got to be something BIG that they heard of day one of their jobs that drastically changed their value-system/world-view.
My guess is Snowden didn't have the whole picture (b/c he worked for a contractor)
Another theory is that Stuxnet stopped Iran nuking San Diego.. but that didn't require recording the private communications of everyone on the planet.
I was just speculating.
I think this is a rather unique situation where a lot of pro-privacy people seemed to have switched sides.
That raises questions. What everyone seems to be concluding is that these people were insincere before and now their true colors are coming out. That sounds highly improbably and very conspiracy-theory-ish.
It's more likely that there is a lot going on than we know about. It doesn't necessarily make it okay.
It's just something to think about.