"In fact, when it is eventually declassified, the American people will be stunned that it took so long and that Congress has been debating this authority with insufficient information"
You are correct that the American populace has normalized this already. The fact that this is done without congressional oversight is indeed stunning. Or at least it would have been a decade or two ago.
Everyone knew the NSA spied on everyone, yet Snowden leaks were truly stunning, because no one had evidence of the sheer scale of what the NSA (and collaborators) were engaged in. Wyden Siren was already firing off about that many years beforehand, before we knew the actual truth, so considering his record, I'm also skeptical it'll be "truly shocking" for the average HN tech-nerd, but for the general public, to have evidence of what the government does? Probably will be "stunning", but the one who lives will see.
When we un-tether the possibile from tech-specific delineations, you'll find things get more and more alarming.
Whatever it is Wyden is sounding the alarm about, you can be certain the sole protection we have - the sole guiding principle and bulwark against abuse - is the agency's culture given the rampant "incidental" collection and the public claims that putting the equivalent of a removable sticky-note over the names of U.S. citizens from their personal data is sufficient to satisfy the 4th Amendment as the NSA searches through our persinal data in bulk.
And what is culture if not the people we have to promote the practices?
Boy am I glad we have an administration that lets agencies largely lead themselves and doesn't engage in efforts to replace a large part of various agency's workforce - specifically those who care about the agency's culture!
Most Americans have this kind of thing tuned out, that have bigger issues in their lives.
Or backdooring most major microprocessors (tpm).
Etc?
I am aware that similar accusations are leveled against Intel ME and AMD's Platform Security Processor.
https://www.csoonline.com/article/562761/researchers-say-now...
https://www.franksworld.com/2025/09/18/the-intel-backdoor-no...
You’re far more cynical than the typical citizen, who Ryder is addressing.