The naysayers are still trying to undercut the importance of what Snowden did, but most people get it:
Edward Snowden didn’t win a Pulitzer on Monday, but he might as well have.
In a move certain to be interpreted as a vindication of the former government contractor’s efforts, the Pulitzer Prize Board on Monday awarded The Guardian US and The Washington Post its coveted Public Service award for reporting on the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance practices.The award was given for the “revelation of widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, marked by authoritative and insightful reports that helped the public understand how the disclosures fit into the larger framework of national security,” the committee said in its release. Sig Gissler, the Pulitzer Prize administrator, announced the winners shortly after 3 p.m. at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.
I have no idea why people have accepted this “metadata” crap. If they record the basic routing data, they are recording the message also. Maybe they don’t listen to the message unless something in the metadata flags it, but you can be sure the message is there recorded just in case.