Previously, _serious_ belief (rather than a sneaking suspicion) that the feds collected everything was considered to be ... eccentric. Similar to claims that the government staged 9/11, or that we have alien bodies and hardware at Area 51. Court cases that reference this have been thrown out on the basis that "you can't prove that anything like that has happened to you".
Now, we have pretty concrete proof that that is NOT a silly belief to have, and that the government really does record everything it possibly can. Pretty much any nerd with sufficient understanding of the technology, and/or who has read very much in the cyberpunk literary genre, has probably always suspected this, but now we have proof.
I don't mean to belittle the Wikileaks cables: they showed that the US and our allies were often lying to locals. In this case, however, Snowden's leak shows that our government has been lying to US, about something that violates the literal founding principles of our country. I think that why so many people are considering this a Really Big Deal.
ECHELON[1] showed us precisely what you call a "conspiracy" theory to be provably true. If ECHELON is a conspiracy theory, then the Snowden leaks are a singular whisper in a backroom, relatively speaking. We've had that "concrete proof" (which the Snowden leaks are not, by the way) for nearly fifteen years.
As for the US government lying to its people, we've known about that too for at least 40 years [2]. According to one CBS article, lying politicians are one of the "three things most Americans take as an article of faith"[3]. It's simply not a big deal. Take the Iraq war and WMDs as another example of the US government lying to its people.[4]
Hell, if you've watched The Newsroom's first season, you'd have seen a whole multi-episode story arc about an NSA whistleblower revealing extensive spying going on at a level thus far unprecedented. [5] Did Aaron Sorkin and the rest of The Newsroom writers have special information on PRISM, or is it just so ingrained in the American psyche that it was entirely predictable and fully plausible? Keep in mind this was MONTHS before Snowden.
Simply put, the Snowden leaks are a "no shit" for most people. The majority now believe he did the wrong thing, according to a recent poll[6]. Also worth noting in that same poll, "Forty-eight percent of respondents to the poll said that they support prosecuting Snowden for his actions, while 33 percent were opposed."
Now, we have pretty concrete proof that that is NOT a silly belief to have, and that the government really does record everything it possibly can. Pretty much any nerd with sufficient understanding of the technology, and/or who has read very much in the cyberpunk literary genre, has probably always suspected this, but now we have proof.
I don't mean to belittle the Wikileaks cables: they showed that the US and our allies were often lying to locals. In this case, however, Snowden's leak shows that our government has been lying to US, about something that violates the literal founding principles of our country. I think that why so many people are considering this a Really Big Deal.