FluentInTypo

Not really. As soon as Obama got in office, he completely stopped talking about ending the war, stopping the abuses of the patriot act, rolled over on privacy rights, etc. Basically, as soon as he was briefed by NSA, FBI and CIA, he stopped all rhetoric about constitutional rights and expanded each program as well as prosecuting more whistleblowers than Bush and ended his call for transparency.

I have this feeling, that ever since "Snowdon" ( Not to overshadow your own legacy of course. - I only mention him because of the media coverage), that everything has gotten worse, not better.

The only real reform we saw was the U.S. Freedom Act, which for all intents and purposes, legalized domestic surveillence and iirc, actually increased the amount of data available to NSA from the phone companies.

Meanwhile, at the local and state levels, we have city after city legalizing stingray use and other military technology for surveilence.

The 2016 election was the first election we had since Snowden and surveilence wasn't even mentioned by any candidate except Bernie (against), Paul (against), Johnson (Against) and Christie (Terrifying Pro). I had hopes that this would be the election where surveilence would finally be dealt with..but alas, it was reduced to a bullet point.

This doesnt even cover the corporate marketing survielence going on. We passed the privacy laws in 1974 which was honestly the last big protection ever made on behalf of the American people. The State has no reason to regulate the big data market as it relies on that same market to FISA warrant its own interests from it.

All these things, taken together, makes for a terrifying future where we have the Corporate/State on one side and the little guy on the other. As a little guy, I see no way to fight this, unless on a mass scale of unity among the little guys and that just cant happen in a society as large and addicted to consumerism as we are.

Given your knowledge and involvement in reforms, could you provide any reassurance that we actually have a chance in fighting this beast?

EDIT: sent too soon.

Lastly, how long were you treated as a "conspiracy theorist" by the masses? Or are you still treated that way?

He explains that he built the program and NSA scrapped it for more invasive methods.

Is leapchat associated with the LEAP project at all?