I tend to assume people pretend to be surprised because it allows them to be more outraged. This assumption could easily be egocentric bias, but I have difficulty seeing how any moderately informed person would be truly surprised by these 'revelations.' Some interesting specific details, sure -- but nothing particularly strange has surfaced.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "moderately informed." I've been on HN for a while now. The HN community obviously cares about the NSA's activities, but how many posts were there on HN about the NSA collecting all of this information before Snowden? Or are you just talking about people in the academic crypto community?
I basically mean people with an interest in privacy and implications of information technology on society. If someone doesn't have that interest, I wouldn't expect them to assume the NSA is collecting all the info it can. With a basic background I would expect other people to recognize how powerful vacuuming up everything is. This expectation is strengthened by personal experience (moderate n, but selection bias). Certainly having the leaks makes people actually talk about it -- partially because assumed isn't the same as proved when you are an activist. Furthermore the extent to which the NSA hands this information over to eg the FBI was unknown. IMHO the real danger of spying on everyone is 3 felonies a day style selective enforcement. If the NSA keeps everything well barricaded from political and personal motivations and only pursues genuine threats to national security I frankly think that might be best for everyone. That possibility is seeming less likely because of information the leaks have provided.
