"Moreover, if what he says is true that we are facing real dangers then the government has the obligation, in a free society, to reveal these threats and explai

"Moreover, if what he says is true that we are facing real dangers then the government has the obligation, in a free society, to reveal these threats and explain what they are doing about it. " Could not agree more. To make good decisions as a nation, we need good information. When everything's classified TS/SCI or above, most Americans are denied an accurate description of reality on which to base their decisions and their votes. Bad guys may do bad things to us regardless of whether their conduct and methods are revealed to all or classified into invisibility. If the NSA revealed everything it knows and does, it would in the near term, wreak embarrassment and economic damage on some parties, but in the longer term would help us craft a better country. By analogy, nobody would keep money at a bank that couldn't be audited. Why would you entrust your society's core values of privacy to a completely opaque government entity having no independent oversight?