How was it unlawfully used against the American public?
Again, not a trick question. I would like to know.
My point is that Snowden revealed details useful to our enemies but nothing novel.
Your statement is consistent with my contention.
“How was it unlawfully used against the American public?”
Well, for one the use violated the 4th Amendment. The government is not allowed to spy on the people without a warrant, and the warrants they did receive from the FISA courts did not cover the wholesale collection they were practicing against the public. In fact, it is not even possible for the FISA courts to issue a warrant granting the NSA authority to spy on anyone, anywhere, since warrants must specifically detail what is being sought. A warrant that is nonspecific is an invalid warrant.
“My point is that Snowden revealed details useful to our enemies but nothing novel.
Your statement is consistent with my contention.”
No, I think you misunderstood me. Data mining, in general was known about, but we only knew it was used by private entities, not our own government. There were reports that the government was buying the databases from private companies like google that were data mining, but there was no public knowledge that the government was doing this itself. If anything was out there, it was just rumors with no confirmation, and nobody can take action to stop a program based on a rumor.
In fact, as others have pointed out, if Snowden, someone with no qualifications or bona fides, learned about this program, then it is almost a certainty that foreign intelligence services already knew about it. After all, it is their job to try and infiltrate our programs and compromise our agents, and their agents do have qualifications and bona fides. So, I would say that Snowden revealed much more new information to the public than to any of our foreign enemies.