Is this really a surprise to anyone? We've known that the N.S.A. has gotten (or coerced) support from communications companies in the past, and AT&T in particular (the article mentions it going back as far as 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A).
Did anybody really think it stopped when the secret room was uncovered in 2006? Telecom companies make no promise that your traffic is protected. It's up to you to protect yourself.
Spying on the u.n. based on terrorism legislation is a revelation. Recording of all telephone conversations in the u.s. is a revelation. Recording of all emails, skype, sms, etc is a revelation.
Before discovery of that room everyone knew that there was close cooperation between the telecoms and the government, but we had no idea it was this close and we were shocked at especially the recording of all phone conversations in the u.s.
Even though we had pretty thorough proof of this with ECHELON? Including the EU parliamen report into echelon; and the stuff about the US using it to provide commercial advantage to their aerospace industry?
Risk assessment has always been part of security. And people have always said that you should probably assume a well funded government can and does read everything. This was more of an assumption, but the fact that governments do listen to everything should not have been a surprise.
No, not really with ECHELON. That would have required all phone calls in the u.s. to be routed outside of the u.s., and really the only cooperating country was the UK, even though Canada was part of the group. It wasn't practical to route all communications from the u.s. through the UK, and it probably would have been noticed.
Did anybody really think it stopped when the secret room was uncovered in 2006? Telecom companies make no promise that your traffic is protected. It's up to you to protect yourself.