When Edward Snowden unleashed the flood of classified documents and surveillance data secreted from U.S. spy agencies earlier this year, it is unclear if he anticipated the high-level damage it would do to U.S. international relations.

Headlines have focused on irate calls by heads of state to President Barack Obama and parliamentary moves to restore privacy. Diplomats have been summoned to repair fractured relationships.

And just this week, the United Nations’ senior counterterrorism special rapporteur, Ben Emmerson, announced that he would launch an investigation into the surveillance tactics used by American and British intelligence agencies citing the Snowden leaks at “the very apex of public interest concerns.”

Yet for all the ruckus globally, the most enduring damage from omnipresent surveillance may be right here at home.

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