have had some effect.
First of all, his account of government snooping has changed the climate of public opinion and aroused more sympathy for Bradley Manning, whose sentence was (perhaps as a result) not as harsh as originally suggested. But 35 years, according to his lawyer, is longer than child molesters and murderers get. I hope by the time his case comes up for parole the fury has died down.
Secondly, President Obama has said that he will review the huge trawl for information that the NSA is performing at present .Read report here. (The more I read about President Obama the more it seems to me that he is confusing legitimate opposition with security threat. Someone who criticized him on Twitter had a visit from the security services. This is all very McCarthy. There is a libertarian tradition in the US but Obama views it as an enemy.)
Thirdly, the British government has made itself look a bit silly by sending the secret service to the Guardian offices to smash up a couple of computers. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/20/guardian-editor-alan-rusbridger-nsa
The British government has made a huge mistake by detaining David Miranda - a journalist not a terrorist, indirectly connected to the Snowden information, and now there is a real row about what the terrorist act is for. All this is shining a light on the darkest, most shameful and most bullying tactics of the government, and I hope it leads to some constraints on their agents' activities. If Nick Clegg condones it his party should sack him. It's against everything liberals stand for.
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