Snapchat texts are not end to end encrypted. I think we know exactly how that happens since Snowden.
There won’t be political ramifications. Though this might be more tangible to the average users that don’t care about privacy.
Snapchat messages being surreptitiously downloaded and monitored by the NSA at some point where they are unencrypted (possibly only within Snapchat's datacenters) is consistent with what was revealed in Prism. I know that most companies have updated their standards to treat any network traffic as insecure since Prism but it's possible Snapchat doesn't.
Also as I understand it the NSA also has no legal issues with sharing any messages intercepted with the UK so long as one of the parties to the conversation is not a US national or on US soil.
