All countries spy on their citizens. The real questions are twofold: (1) how reliable is the information that the political decision makers obtain from spying, and (2) how democratic and transparent are the spying operations, how much control do the citizens have over the spying operations.

NSA-like spying is probably the most reliable in history, but how the information gets transformed on the way to decision makers, and what democratic control we have probably leaves a lot to be desired and must improve. Snowden is a hero because his actions have given us incentive and data to improve the world of secret services.