If the existence of "The Machine" was made known, there would simply be a giant media coverup and people would go back to their superbowl or what the fuck ever.
The PRISM thing is just so depressing because not only does it seem that the state is far more encroached than expected, but also that the population are so satiated with bullshit that it feels totally and utterly hopeless to change things for the better. How is there any hope for sorting things out when people are so utterly and vastly entrenched in their ignorance?
The government has too much power. Far, far far too much. How can we be free when a slip of the tongue on twitter or a stupid joke or wearing a mask or standing up for what we believe in is enough to trigger a knock at the door or being thrown in jail or community service? I expect there'll be a point where we can't even say shit like this. How far does it have to creep?
I think the thing is, PRISM makes me just feel...violated. As someone with a fairly in-depth understanding of computers, I know more than most that the requirement to truly know that software you are using and the hardware you are running it on is exceptionally difficult, time-consuming, and requires a vast amount of effort. Even as a Linux user with supposedly open-source software, it isn't enough. It reduces the likelihood, but in reality we are facing an adversary with a huge amount of resources and hooks that are so very DEEP inside everywhere. What previously seemed unlikely (e.g. NSA code in binary blobs), now seems entirely possible. And as such, we must now enter the age of paranoia if we are to say anything truly subversive or dangerous.
And people won't push back. If you look at policy and press, we can see that it has been to elevate the mainstream at the expense of the voiceless. Sure, there are lots of radical thinkers and student protesters, and that's fantastic, however, these are people (such as myself) which despite this still manage to live in relative comfort - this is the tactic - if your life seems nice enough for long enough, you eventually start becoming ignorant to your privilege and considering that the "system actually might work". You become blind to all the horrendous shit happening around you because you are walled off from it by the media, dazzled by your TV, and it becomes an active pursuit to lift up the rug and see what has been swept underneath. Everything is designed to distract us, have us raise our wallets toward the light, look to heaven, not to the mud at our feet.
I'm sure they'll always still allow us to repost The Real Art of Protest or whatever that pop shit is now, and it will just become the background noise of the few harmless lefties that cling on and don't join the neo-liberal consensus.