Photo Credit: via YouTube/HBO

John Oliver brilliantly exposed how ignorant Americans are about Edward Snowden’s revelations that our government is spying on us, and finally put the problem in terms that everyone can understand: Dick picks.

Yeupp, the government can and does collect dick picks.

This is not a trivial matter. Sunday night, Oliver devoted the entire half hour of his HBO show “Last Week Tonight” to the matter of domestic surveillance, and the upcoming vote in Congress about whether to reathorize the Patriot Act, including its provision allowing the government to collect our private information.

The trouble is that Americans seem really ill-informed about the whole matter of domestic surveillance, as Oliver illustrates with on-the-street interviews. They also seem not to know exactly who whistleblower Edward Snowden is.

Enter Edward Snowden. No really, he really does enter. John Oliver flew all the way to Russia to interview, “the biggest hero, or biggest traitor, depending on your perpective,” sweated out an hour delay during which Oliver realized he was directly across from a former KGB building, and then finally got Snowden to explain what the NSA is doing in terms that everyone can understand.

Snowden maintains his dignity as he explains exactly how “your junk gets caught up in the government’s database.” It is not to be missed.

Now, maybe people will care.

Watch the full half hour: