> A few decades ago, all communications were unencrypted and people were fine.
A few decades ago, a user base using whatever was available was about 99% lower than now. As well as governments were so illiterate that they could not read with the tech they had even those unencrypted messages.
Snowden was more than a decade ago. The NSA was recording everything.
A few decades ago implies 1990s or early 2000s. In 1990 he was 7 years old. In early 2000 - 17 years old.
a few
a small number of units or individuals