First, it's not about secrets. It's that we're fools. Treated like fools, act like fools.
The underlying theme of this is that it isn't about Snowden, it isn't about Drake or Binney or any of them. It's not even about a secret. Risen told you. Comey told you. Damn, Ashcroft told you. And we simply wouldn't listen. We simply trusted. Surely it either didn't happen as reported or it had been fixed.
Well, it had been fixed. Fixed so that even when some in the Office of Legal Counsel said no, when the attorney general and two dozen top attorney generals said no and threatened mass resignation, it went ahead. Hayden holds ex partes with the FISC judge (Kollar something--shouldn't be a judge or otherwise associated with the law in any way imho) on two Saturdays and she reimplements the very program some in the OLC and the attorney general found illegal.
Obama promises transparency and accountability and comporting with the law and fundamental rights He then signs off on keeping the program. He and Holder nearly harass Thomas Drake to death and then drop the charges just before the trial. Holder should not be the AG.
Lessons: never, ever trust politicians. They lie to us much more readily than they tell the truth. We are to be used. They don't care about protecting us. They care about their power and their fear and manipulating ours.