you are saying that people should not feel indignant now because the US has a history of similar overreaches.

No, sorry if it came off that way. I'm just miffed about how all of a sudden every journalist/blogger and internet commenter is an expert on NSA and PRISM, and many of the articles I've read over the last few days act like this is something new that just happened. I'm more frustrated that people aren't doing their research, and haven't cared for the last 6 decades about this stuff, and even after this NSA/PRISM thing none of them still did any research.

We did know that The Bush administration was copying all AT&T internet traffic for a time, but we did not have clear evidence that it continued.

That program started in 97 under Clinton, it was exposed in 2006 under Bush. A lot of these programs really took off under Clinton, because let's not forget, he was a two term President that was in office during the internet boom and massive growth. A new technology that needed to be monitored (for them). A lot of new programs and a ton of funding got funneled into programs like this during that time, because they saw so many communications moving to this new medium. Every President since the cold war has been involved in these programs, be it democrat or republican.

It would have been labeled as unfounded paranoia.

Exactly. I hang around some conspiracy communities, though I think most of those people are nuts and think most of their "theories" are complete bullshit (I don't even like mentioning that I read conspiracy sites or like associating myself with them), but I've always been interested in the capabilities of the US government. I remember reading about ECHELON when I was in middle school, and back then, even mentioning something like that to people was met with people saying I "shouldn't be so paranoid", and "why would the government want to listen to my phone calls?" type responses.

So no, my previous comment you replied to wasn't telling people "it's okay because it's always been around", it was more ripping on that writer for not being a good writer, reporter, or doing any research whatsoever. Now that the stories out about NSA/PRISM, I want to remind and educate people when I have the chance to inform them that there are hundreds of programs, and that they date back decades. The outrage needs to be focused on the spying on American citizens in general, not the NSA and PRISM specifically. I just wish more reporters and journalists were talking about the history of these programs, and how bad it really is, and how massive these programs really are.

I just fear that like every other "internet outrage" that this will be forgotten in a week or two, and everyone will go back to talking about how much the Xbox One sucks or something.