The 'toon below from Ted Rall is factually accurate. It's a fact that the much-reviled mainstream media reported on the NSA spying on Americans long before Edward Snowden spoke up. (To give an example, back in 2012 James Bamford in Wired reported that "The NSA…has the ability to eavesdrop on phone calls directly and in real time." I remember because I posted a llnk to the story.)
This week in the Washington Post Barton Gellman reports that the NSA has the capability to record 100% of telephone calls in "a foreign nation" and keep the recordings for a month of data mining.
The reaction from the American public?
A shrug. Near as I can tell. Didn't make the national news. 
But maybe it's not so much that Americans are dumb, but that they really don't try to get the full picture. They read the news for drama. So "revelations" from an insider — supposedly an espionage-related betrayal — make a lot more news than, well, the news.
Kit Stolz 