At 01:42 PM 1/12/2015, you wrote:

Except it wasn't. Revelations from Snowden and others shows that not only were the "nonsense" claims correct, they didn't go far enough.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to be very cautious before calling anything nonsense.

Excellent reminder those who claim to know, don't. Or won't tell all they know, just enough to build a reputation of responsibility. This applies to Snowden's team of "responsible" releases of a tiny fraction of the full dump Snowden says he gave to the public, then was hi-jacked in transit, most of it in private storage to enhance its value of restricted access. Meanwhile, replacment spy tools are being developed in order that Snowden's gift can be dimissed as nonsense -- a process well underway: NSA head now claims that the Snowden material was not as damaging to natsec as first alleged. Could be psyop to hide the damage, or indicates new means and methods are coming along just fine.