It doesn’t matter if the reason is principled, perverted, lime green or selfish. The importance to the world is that the documents see the light of day and we learn just what has been going on.
Without Snowden, I wouldn’t be aware of my own government’s (UK) harvesting of my communications.
In Soviet Russia, America spies on you.
Feingold cautioned us about how those provisions could be used/abused from day one. It was one of the reasons he voted against the Patriot Act. And he repeatedly brought up how it was being used in the years afterwards. Same with the ACLU.
This didn’t just come out of nowhere, and it wasn’t manufactured by either administration. People have been pointing out that that provision of the patriot act would allow for this kind of use since the law was first passed.
I think this sort of domestic surveillance would be illegal if we revoked or refused to renew the Patriot act and FISA expansions. And that making something legal or illegal matters. If you’re going to go into full-on helpless cynic mode, arguing that they’ll do it even if it’s made illegal, I’m not really sure what to say.
This is mind-bogglingly blind. Snowden continues to leak because he has no choice; his ability to do so is the only card he has to survive with. And in any case Snowden is irrelevant now. Spook tactics 1: Shoot the messenger, then pretend nobody heard the message.
(This is why you’re making a false choice. Giving up your details to government is what causes your home town to look like Damascus within your kids’ lifetime. When your state security is populated entirely by criminals - as it currently is - who do you think protects you from crime? Ask any police state survivor how well that works.)
If you want the argument to become intelligent instead of tabloid, you’ll have to start by giving up your paranoid fear of terrorists and mobs and start by making detailed threat assessments based on actual relative risk.
I think what we are seeing is the beginning of the end of this saga. Putin has already said that in order to get asylum in Russia Snowden has to stop releasing information. I wouldn’t be surprised if the US has signed off on this arrangement ie no retribution towards Russia if they shut him up. Of course this means we’ll most likely never know what the rest of the juicy tidbits are. Surveillance state wins. We lose. Business returns to normal. News cycle moves on.
Just saw the latest news: Snowden withdraws Russian asylum plea due to Putin’s demands. I like this guy even more now. I’m glad to be wrong.
Its a bit late now that he is surrounded by Russia but I would be advising him to just walk away and go to ground. While he was within walking distance of a coastline this was barely possible to do. Now it is impossible.
Ingrate whiners who yet again have taken a big bite of the all-gut/no-brain tabloid sandwich the 24-hour “news” cycle has turned this into, yet again.
Christopher Skase escaped Australian justice in Spain. Maybe that is an option.
On a side note, interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner of Austria (where Snowden has, among other countries, applied for asylum) issued a statement yesterday, stating that Snowden´s application could not be considered because the application would have to be made in person at the responsible agency in Austria and could not be made through an embassy abroad, thereby continuing our country´s cherished tradition of cringing cowardice in the face of politically powerful foreign nations.
I think that ironically enough, you’re falling for Big Power’s diversionary tactic of getting us to think about Snowden himself, rather than about what he’s done, and revealed. Let alone about how inspirational his actions could be.
The longer he’s alive and able to leak “secrets”, the less likely it is that the genie can be stuffed back into the bottle.
From your opening paragraph, I’m left with the unsettling feeling that you’re totally cool with extrajudicial executions of inconvenient people you don’t agree with. I hope I’m wrong about that.
"you did nothing to prevent the things done in your name. "
And that’s not true either.
My point is that without smacking down the Executive’s claims that it has the power to create secret law and secret legal interpretations, that it can hide information from congressional oversight (and outright lie to congress) and refuse to allow judicial review of its interpretations of law, they really don’t need cover of law. They can simply create a secret interpretation of any law and use that to justify their activities. I still maintain that Section 215 does not, in any rational way, allow for dragnet surveillance. No court has been allowed to rule on that question. Was it foreseeable that such a twisted reading could surface? Sure, why not. But that doesn’t mean its any less twisted.
Would Obama stop dragnet surveillance if the Patriot and FAA were revoked? Would the next president? Its hard to say because if they retain these other powers there is no way to even know what they are doing (except for the off-chance of another Snowden). The FISA court does not rule on the legality of the Executive’s legal interpretations. If just makes sure the Executive complies with its own interpretations. Nicely rigged, no?
By all means we should revoke these awful laws. They clearly stretch the 4th amendment to the breaking point and beyond. But what the Executive is doing goes way beyond these laws, giving them complete unchecked power. Which doesn’t just break the 4th amendment, but the 1st and 5th, and frankly most of the division of powers – the heart of our Constitution.
Actually, a U.S. citizen can get back into the country without a passport. It’s a hassle, but do-able. The thing is, you can’t go anywhere ELSE without a passport. By invalidating his passport, he can’t go anywhere else in the world except through extraordinary means.
Depends. He could be Cloud exclusive…
Snowden wouldn’t have any problem coming back if he wanted to, leaving would be the problem 
Oh, I’m sure he could leave for a little vacation time in Cuba (Gitmo) no problem.
Don’t forget Snowden has apparently provided all the documents to 10 journalists or something, who can in any given trio provide the decryption key.
This is a major problem I think Snowden has, the leaking issue.
Wikileaks goal (and they say this on their website) is to leak EVERYTHING so history can judge nations fairly. They don’t care what their leaks say, and they don’t censor.
Snowden’s stated purpose is to restore a constitutional government to the US.
This MAY be at cross purposes with what Wikileaks wants.
So … why don’t you have a lair?
