I read something a while back (unfortunately, I can't find it) in the NYTimes postulating that the 9/11 hijackers used steganographic techniques to communicate via the open 'net. If that's true, I wondered, then what could possibly be the point of storing/analyzing internet communications twelve years later? If they were using steganography in 2001, I can't imagine the techniques they're using to hide in plain view today.
It makes you wonder what the actual point to all of this surveillance is. Regardless, I whole-heartedly agree with you that steganography should be prioritized much higher than crypto.
You are naive if you think that national security is the reason for all this surveillance. It's a pretext, a convenient excuse for the masses. The real reason is establishing a global surveillance network, monitoring digital communications both in the US and abroad and establishing/continuing international supremacy.
Since you can't explain it in those exact terms to the masses without causing an outrage, you have to tell them it's for their own safety and to protect them from brown skinned tunic-wearing AK47-waving freedom-hating lunatics.
It makes you wonder what the actual point to all of this surveillance is. Regardless, I whole-heartedly agree with you that steganography should be prioritized much higher than crypto.