A sampling.....interesting reading.......
While I frequently agree with Mr. Brooks' points about the corrosion of community bonds, the matter at hand is exceptional. Underlying Mr. Brooks' argument is the belief that it would have been more morally correct for Snowden to continue collecting his fat wad of dough spying on people. Mr. Brooks would have preferred it if Snowden had kept his mouth shut, married his girlfriend, etc. In this exceptional circumstance, Mr. Brooks, you are wrong. The value society might derive rom Snowden's revelation, his "betrayal," remains unique and unknown. At best, Mr. Brooks' article is premature.
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I don't feel betrayed by Mr. Snowden. I feel relieved that someone, however imperfectly he may live his life, respected his fellow citizens enough to entrust them with information that our government has restricted us from knowing, and therefore, from challenging. 'Keeping us safe' could be a bumper sticker that could apply to any dictatorship or totalitarian state; keeping us safe while preserving our civil liberties is a governing philosophy that is essentially American, and our leaders shouldn't need a 29-year-old who never finished college to remind them of that.
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My goodness, David. You would think that this young man had been selling our nuclear launch codes to the Taliban, the way you are whipping yourself up here. While I can't comment on his moral character, and I might not align myself with him politically, the simple fact is that he revealed no data that would endanger any individual. He simply revealed practices which the government claims to be taking on our behalf, and yet everyone from MSNBC to CNN to Glenn Beck is outraged over them. Don't you believe that the people deserve to choose what policies reflect their values, and which don't?
The official response to this revelation has been, in effect, "tough luck", and an attempt to paint the people upset as part of a "fringe". And yet I have yet to see an article or poll on these data-mining techniques where a strong majority of the respondents have not been opposed to it, and this spans the political spectrum.
I see this sort of warrantless data collection as antithetical to our values. While I believe strongly that the government can function to promote the greater good, this type of surveillance (and similar revelations over the past decade or more) pushes people in my generation further down the road to cynicism and further away from engagement in civic life. This, in the long run, will prove more destructive than any terrorist plot these methods could intercept.
They may wish to harm us physically, but we alone are destroying our soul.
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I don't recall Edward Snowden taking an oath ".. to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States of America and to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. So help me God"
I don't recall Edward Snowden authorizing spying on millions of Americans phone and internet transactions and personal business information without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Nor do I recall him targeting and authorizing killing Americans without due process or judicial review.
I do not recall Edward Snowden being a member of the lobbyist brought money driven immature ignorant partisan political wind bags in the U.S. Congress.
I do not recall Edward Snowden being the only person with a vote and access to this information in America.
Private entities seek personal private information for commerce.
Public entities have the power of regulation and taxation and investigation and prosecution and incarceration.
What does intelligence and privacy and freedom and liberty and security mean in America?
Is America no longer the home of the brave or the land of the free worthy of asking for God's blessings?
And who was the better exemplar of the true patriot acting in this drama?
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There is an Apple iPhone commercial which features all manner of people with earbuds in their ears, moving to their own music. What I see when I watch that is not people enjoying music, but rather people, especially kids, isolating themselves from the world around them.
While I tend to side with transparency, the reality is that this is no privacy in the online world. When a Snowden or a Manning exposes this kind of government surveillance I cannot fathom why anyone would think this was news unless they are, indeed, living solely inside their head. If Google knows your preferences, likes, desires, needs without you telling it with anything more than a keyword or a click, why wouldn't the government be able to access that same information. It's public record.
This is not simply the direct descendent of the Patriot Act; this is result of our self aggrandizement on Facebook, LinkedIn and the like. This is the result of living large inside our heads to our own private soundtrack, posting it on Facebook, and then complaining about our tastes being criticized.
In the final analysis, SCOTUS will be pulled into the fray if for no other reasons than to redefine privacy.
Snowden is not really a traitor....he simply said the Emperor was naked,...and then posted some pictures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/op...?smid=pl-share
