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

The abuses the Guardian helped him bring to worldwide attention go on: the authorities have merely made it harder to expose them

• Alan Rusbridger was editor of the Guardian from 1995-2015

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.

Alan Rusbridger was editor of the Guardian from 1995-2015. He now edits Prospect Magazine.