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It's sometimes felt overwhelming, trying to keep up with all the news about the NSA and the US surveillance state. The Snowden-era stories have blown a giant hole in the wall of state secrecy shielding many of the NSA's activities from the public view. But we actually knew a good deal about the agency before Edward Snowden courageously blew the whistle.

In the talk embedded above, EFF attorney Kurt Opsahl puts it all together, taking us on a tour of the post-9/11 history of government surveillance overreach. He gave the hour-long talk at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg, Germany.