Why news that the NSA is listening to our phone conversations isn’t news at all

[Commentary] The latest Edward Snowden disclosures show that the National Security Agency vacuumed up far more data on far more Americans. In fact 9 out of 10 of people whose accounts were caught up in the data dragnet were not targets of any investigation.

Now we’ll wait for the reactions to roll in from US tech companies that are trying to paint themselves as worthy stewards of customer information.

Industry execs ranging from Cisco CEO John Chambers, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and HP EVP Bill Veghte have all said that US government data collection has put tech vendors behind the eight-ball as they try to sell technology -- from networking hardware to cloud computing.

Google, Facebook and other companies are pressuring the government to be more transparent -- or let them be more transparent -- about what customer data intelligence agencies ask for.

But let’s face it: People who are surprised by the latest Snowden disclosures should not be. Previous NSA whistleblowers already told the world that the NSA has been collecting their email and phone conversations for a quite some time.