Foresight has been essential in this.<p>Without Stallman&#x27;s foresight of the need for public domain open source software, there would only be proprietary software, all subject to PRISM.<p>Without the foresight of potential Government&#x27;s to come the US founding fathers would not have written in such protections as still exist today.<p>Before Snowden there were many that suspected but now everyone knows.<p>&gt;Um. Who thought this?<p>Snowden himself:<p>&quot;<i>I had too much faith that the government really would do no wrong. I was drinking the Kool-Aid in the post-9&#x2F;11 moment. I believed the claims of government, that this was a just cause, a moral cause, and we don&#x27;t need to listen to these people who say we broke this law or that law.</i>&quot;<p>pre Snowden this was unopposable, the NSA&#x27;s James Clapper lied to Ron Wyden in Congress about mass surveillance.