"We know from working at NSA [that] the United States reads the secret communications of more than forty nations, including its own allies... Both enciphered and plain text communications are monitored from almost every nation in the world..."
That's the testimony of NSA whistleblowers - in 1960.
In 1988, British journalist Duncan Campbell wrote about plans by the US, UK and partner agencies revealed the existence of Echelon, a global surveillance programme under the secret UKUSA agreement. A New Zealand journalist, Nicky Hager provided details about Echelon in 1996.
In 2001 the EU Parliament accepted a report which concluded that Echelon had been spying on EU citizens. While it drew a distinction between surveillance for intelligence purposes and that applied to commercial espionage or invading citizens' privacy, it observed that:
An intelligence system which intercepted communications permanently and at random would be in violation of the principle of proportionality and would therefore not be compatible with the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights].
All of which remind us that concern about NSA's surveillance and its obvious lack of proportionality has a long pedigree.
Citizenfour is the gripping documentary by Oscar-nominated Laura Poitras about that surveillance and the story behind Snowden's dramatic emergence in a Hong Kong hotel room 17 months ago ('Citizenfour' was Snowden's sig in his first contact with Poitras).
In one tragi-absurd scene we see a US DoJ lawyer argue that an eight-year-old court case over surveillance should not be settled before judges but should be left to Washington. When a judge asks if he is trying to exclude the role of the courts the lawyer who has been arguing just that denies it.
We are reminded of former NSA chiefs Hayden and Alexander flatly lying to Congress about their domestic spying programmes, and of oversight committees that were "fully-briefed" into these unconstitutional programmes. No wonder the DoJ is tring to make an end-run around the legal system.
It is that abuse of power, and the abuse of laws that put limits on power, that lie at the heart of this scandal.
Those of us who are not US citizens may shrug their shoulders. But where goes the United States, so goes the rest of us. A US that can restrain itself from mass surveillance of its population will become the measure for the whole world. It could credibly speak out about the harm that comes from state intrusion into people's personal lives.
There is no sign that the law professor president or any other public official recognises this. The gap between their assurances and the reality of their coast-to-coast snooping remains wide as they wait for the public once again to lose interest.
But this is not the perishable topic it was. Unlike 1960, millions live much of their lives online and are unwilling to cede their freedoms in that space.
In one of the final scenes we learn from another whistleblower, inspired by Snowden, that 1.2m US citizens are on a watch list - that's a Stasi-like one in every 270 citizens. How many will be on that list in 2024?