Ten years ago, Edward Snowden warned us about state spying. Spare a thought for him, and worry about the future

The abuses brought to worldwide attention a decade ago still go on: the authorities have merely made it harder to expose them, writes Alan Rusbridger

Edward Snowden has paid a heavy personal price for what he (and many others around the world) considered an act of public service. Picture: AP /The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras

Even amid the cacophony of social media, most journalism is met with a shrug or a murmur. But ​one story the Guardian published 10 years ago today exploded with the force of an earthquake.

The article revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers. In case anyone doubted the veracity of the claims, we were able to publish the top secret court order handed down by the foreign intelligence surveillance court (Fisa), which granted the US government the right to hold and scrutinise the metadata of millions of phone calls by American citizens.