Propaganda-filled statist bullshit. Appeals to authority, and uses ridiculous examples to justify it. > But I worry less about what happens to this one man and

Propaganda-filled statist bullshit. Appeals to authority, and uses ridiculous examples to justify it. > But I worry less about what happens to this one man and more about the damage Snowden has done — and could still do — to America's long-term ability to strike the right balance between privacy and security. The only valid balance is 100% privacy. A government that violates its citizens' privacy is not acting legitimately. > Ever since Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, leaked top-secret material about its surveillance programs, he and the U.S. government have locked horns about the nature of those programs. He's trying to rephrase the story to be one of Snowden vs. the U.S. rather than the U.S. government vs. the people. > Second, despite the grumbling from Snowden and his admirers, the U.S. government truly does make strenuous efforts not to violate privacy, not just because it respects privacy (which it does), but because it simply doesn't have the time to read irrelevant emails or listen in on conversations unconnected to possible plots against American civilians. If it's archiving them, it has all the time in the world, and can search through them at later times and forward information to relevant agencies. And we already know this happens with the DEA and IRS, so his argument here is even more irrelevant. > I know firsthand that Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director, is telling the truth when he talks about plots that have been preempted and attacks that have been foiled because of intelligence his agency collected. It doesn't matter how many attacks they believe they have foiled, that doesn't justify dragnet surveillance. Nothing does. > Let me break this to you gently. The government is not interested in your conversations with your aunt, unless, of course, she is a key terrorist leader. Trying to sideline the issue by suggesting ordinary people only talk about irrelevant things. What about journalists, politicians, political activists, and people who commit victimless crimes? As noted in a fantastic article by Moxie Marlinspike, laws can't be overturned without people breaking those laws: drug laws won't be overturned without people breaking the laws and using the drugs and wanting them to be legal, etc. > Unfortunately, during the Snowden affair, many news outlets have spent more time examining ways the government could abuse the information it has access to while giving scant mention to the lengths to which the intelligence community goes to protect privacy. We have spent enormous amounts of time and effort figuring out how to disaggregate the important specks from the overwhelming bulk of irrelevant data. "Trust us. We have a policy." Not everyone is guaranteed to always follow that policy, and it's a secret policy, with no legitimate oversight.