Some of Brooks' conclusions should have never been printed. They defy logic. For instance, >He betrayed the cause of open government. Every time there >is a l

Some of Brooks' conclusions should have never been printed. They defy logic. For instance, >He betrayed the cause of open government. Every time there >is a leak like this, the powers that be close the circle of >trust a little tighter. They limit debate a little more. Considering the project itself was a secret, I'm not sure how exposing something that would never have been exposed otherwise could be construed as damaging to "open government", a position I doubt Mr. Brooks has ever endorsed without mind-numbing qualification. >He betrayed the privacy of us all. If federal security >agencies can’t do vast data sweeps, they will inevitably >revert to the older, more intrusive eavesdropping methods. Gee, and I guess if Dr. Oppenheimer hadn't built The Bomb, we'd have to have used incendiary bombing to win the war. >He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create >the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could >make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed. >Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited the democratic >structures of accountability, putting his own preferences >above everything else. So what Mr. Brooks says here is that government regulations trump individual conscience, and that Snowden should have just followed orders. I think they hanged a few Germans and Japanese for following orders too. But before someone scorches me for DARING TO COMPARE PRISM WITH THE HOLOCAUST, to whom did Snowden really have to turn? The Founders (Hallowed Be Their Names), maybe?