History may yet judge that Edward Snowden was a hero in releasing the details of the NSA intercepts. I am still undecided on whether the collection of communications on millions of Americans in general is justified, or whether it has, as claimed, resulted in the prevention of terrorist acts. It may well turn out that we do have to sacrifice some degree of our privacy in order to protect us from terrorists..
What is interesting, however, is that this revelation has stirred a fierce debate on both sides of the liberal-conservative divide-with both sides divided. Dick Cheney, for example, has defended the program and called Snowden a "traitor". Both conservatives and liberals are divided-especially since we have the Obama administration in power.
In the end, however, I have some problems with Snowden. First of all, what right did he have to decide that the NSA actions were so wrong that he had to divulge them to the world? The world includes China, to which he fled, and Russia, now that he has revealed or alleged that we were spying on the Russians (surprise). Snowden has chosen to aid and abet countries that are, at the least, in an adversarial relationship with us in one respect or another.
In addition, Snowden had other recourses. If he could not have protested through channels in-house, he could have gone to some member of Congress. Someone like Jim McDermott (D-WA) would have been only too happy to hear his complaints and act on them. In the end, he decided to divulge classified information to the world out of some perceived moral obligation.
If that is the way he feels, then he should do the honorable thing and return home to face the consequences.
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Gary, you're out of sync. As long as Obama is president, Snowden is a hero to all right-thinking Republicans! He's blowing Obama's plot to impose Soviet style intrusion into American life!
Me, I'm undecided about the whole thing. I want to know more about what level of data is or isn't being harvested, and what process it is fed into.
If they know that my phone number (no name or address provide) is connecting to a bunch of other phone numbers (no name or address provided) and none of those phone numbers are on the watch list, move on, nothing here for an analyst to take a closer look at, I'm not too worried.
If they are matching lists of names attached to phone numbers and making up cards showing the name of everyone I call or receive calls from, that's a different story.
If they trace every URL that logged into a known al Qaeda web site, then examine whether that's a one-off or a pattern, then go to court to get a warrant to find out who has that URL, that's OK.
If they have me on a watch list because I used to go to that Islamic woman's site that you referred me to -- Qudosi, they are out of bounds.
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