Tossing aside that Assange didn't actually make this statement: In 1996, the possibility that the NSA was sniffing the Internet was largely considered "tinfoil" even by most tech experts.<p>But anyone who read Bamford knew there was good circumstantial evidence that mass surveillance was occurring -- except back then, the bad word was "ECHELON", not "PRISM".<p>It's important to remember that while Snowden brought this to the masses (and to that we owe him a great debt), long before Snowden, we had Mark Klein, Binney, Cryptome, and James Bamford.<p>The NSA has been under strong suspicions for decades at this point. Back in the 80s, the exposes were about their mass surveillance of telephone calls. This was even in the popular press. There was a particular 60 Minutes episode that described a post worker shocked that she was intercepting a mom talking about her kid's soccer game in English.<p>Having lived through multiple very public NSA scandals over the decades, I think the only effective change will come from the grassroots: strong crypto, secure software, privacy focused. It sure as hell won't come from our lawmakers.