> But I can't begin to imagine any long-term upside. I believe that if these people are left unchecked, their actions will lead to the mutually-assured destruct

> But I can't begin to imagine any long-term upside. I believe that if these people are left unchecked, their actions will lead to the mutually-assured destruction of privacy, or at least the sundering of the Internet. Who is in the set of "these people" though? For instance, how do you think Huawei obtained much of their IP in the first place? If hacking will lead to the destruction of privacy then the U.S. is not the sole point of responsibility here. In fact it's already the other way around completely; states hacking other states is a given, it's already happening and has been happening for awhile. Nothing NSA does or doesn't do will change the actions of the rest of the governments around the world. I think you're right that the Internet will sunder itself, but if you're going to start pointing fingers then get ready to have a long list of pointees.