“I don’t mean to be cynical, but this is nothing new,” Mr. Talley said. “If people think the government hasn’t been monitoring whatever they want to, whenever they want to they are sorely mistaken.” …

“It doesn’t bother me because the government is going to do what they’re going to do regardless of what anyone thinks,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

In Atlanta, Mike Brooks, 65, a construction worker, said he lived his life assuming that he was being watched. “Anything and everything you say — they could be privy: That’s what I assume,” he said. “If you’re dumb enough to put this online, then it’s your stupidity.”

And Molly Flores, 28, a fashion designer walking in Midtown Manhattan said she was neither surprised nor concerned by the surveillance.

“Personally, I have nothing to hide, so it’s not really affecting me,” she said. ” It’s not like they’re invading my privacy. I worry about New York because it’s such a target.”