This, Hacker News, is public debate. Don't discount that just because it's not CNN or The New York Times. (Or because pg or his minions can edit/delete content at their whim, which has happened to me before).

As time goes on the less and less reliable I find the media to be when gauging public sentiment. 90% of the people I've talked to about the NSA scandal, all across the political spectrum, have been horrified by the government's behavior. As depressed as I get watching the poor news coverage of the scandal, and the implication that people don't care about it, or are more concerned with "getting Snowden" than what he revealed, just simply talking to people makes me feel a lot better.