[pepsionice]

In roughly a hundred days...the bulk of the American population has gone to distrust of the federal government....rather than trust. I don’t see anything being supported much...from immigration reform, to tax reform. Firing people....wont’ change that prospective either.

[catfish1957]

If there was any doubt left that the federal government was not our enemy...........

[cripplecreek]

Snowden is a nobody. The real story is a massive domestic spying scandal and the utter stupidity that allows thousands of people like Snowden to have access along with unknown numbers of Chinese nationals with that same access.

This get Snowden crap is like bad soviet propaganda.

[LyinLibs]

[The Working Man]

What it all comes down to is TRUST. As long as people trust in something, Government, patriotism, the dollar, etc. all is fine, but trust has an implicit factor in it, FIRST do no harm to those who trust in you to do the right thing.

Like ALL tools the NSA and their wide gathering of data is trusted not to harm the average citizen of the country. In return they are given willful ignorance and acceptance that the information so gathered will not be used to harm them capriciously. It’s meant to guard us from the Wolves that want to prey upon us.

But also like ALL tools it can be misused and harm the very people who trusted the tool to do only good things. And that’s where we are at now, many if not most people do NOT trust this government and fear that these tools are being used to not protect us from the wolves but to protect the wolves from us and to allow the wolves to prey upon us at their pleasure.

[Ramonne]

Sometimes we have but one chance to speak up for right. The warnings were there when Bush 2 continued down this slide. It is a terrible burden to carry for the person who has the information Snowden had. I believe his intentions were only honorable and done with every good intention.

[familyop]

"But Snowden did, and rather than step with courage into an American courtroom to make his case and dare our system to punish him for his perceived heroism,..."

According to official political speech of those who sponsor the media and offer the choices in socialist political candidates of various political parties, he'd have never made it to a courtroom. He'd have been tortured, sodomized and assassinated to the cheers of those sponsors, and it would have all been legal.

[Fresh Wind]

Here’s an idea: How about if we wait for abuse to occur before we lament it?

How are we supposed to know when that abuse has occurred?

[IncPen]

The next act in this charade is the Unbelievably Large Terror Event(s), in which the cry for government to ‘do something’ drown out any analysis of ‘how the hell did this happen?’.

That’s when the IRS and NSA converge, and the circle is complete.

The only question is... how long will it take?

[Orangedog]

I had the very same position as the Patriot Act was being hammered out while smoke still rose from Ground Zero. The deciding factor in my decision to support it was the faith I placed in George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to use that information to catch terrorists without spying on my phone calls and e-mails.

In other words, this hack is perfectly fine with living in a neo-stasi police state but only if the thug ruling it has an R next to his name.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”But Snowden did, and rather than step with courage into an American courtroom to make his case and dare our system to punish him for his perceived heroism, he hunkers in Hong Kong, happy to let its people and its justice system handle his fate.
He is missing out on a certain love-fest he would receive here from Americans more worried about potential Orwellian nightmares than the real threat of Jihad. “

There are merits to both sides of that argument but the real unanswered and un pursued question is : why did Snowden get access to that information in the first place?”
Why did a GED level IT specialist have a ‘need-to-know’ to get access to it anyway?

That is the problem congress should be fixing first.

[Theophilus]

Is this the idiot who subs for Rush?

[Orangedog]

But Snowden did, and rather than step with courage into an American courtroom to make his case and dare our system to punish him for his perceived heroism, he hunkers in Hong Kong, happy to let its people and its justice system handle his fate.

Is this supposed to be what passes for critical thinking at townhall? I put that up there with the 18th century British condemning the colonists for taking cover behind trees and large rocks instead of lining up in a row to be cut down massive vollies from the red coats.

[Dixie Yooper]

After the My Lai Massacre, I think every whistle blower that comes forward has to be taken seriously until they are proven in court to be criminal, goof ball or someone who actually tried to do the right thing.

[dirtboy]

Here’s an idea: How about if we wait for abuse to occur before we lament it?

By then it will probably too late, if history is any indication.

our intelligence services operate in another landscape. They are not so easily tainted.

They don't have to be. All it takes is planting some political hacks in the NSA. And then, according to DiFi:

“To search the database, you have to have reasonable, articulable cause to believe that that individual is connected to a terrorist group,” Feinstein told reporters. “Then you can query the numbers..."

So there are utterly no checks and balances such as warrants or court orders to accessing the metadata. Such a system is designed to be abused.

[trebb]

My mistrust of this White House runs deep. But I retain my belief in the countless men and women of the NSA, CIA and other intelligence agencies. Their pursuits are within both reason and the law. If anyone were to subvert their tasks -- if anyone in authority were to try to use anti-terror investigative tactics to unduly spy on the innocent, we would then have genuine violations of law, and they would be called out by a genuine whistleblower, which Edward Snowden decidedly is not.

After listening to Sensenbrenner on Hannity (drafter of the bill that allowed spying that has "evolved" into spying on us), I'd say that Snowden is a real whistleblower and knew that he would be squashed fast if he didn't remove himself from the scene first. The law prohibits the mass data mining being undertaken and can only be "upgraded" by going through the Congress - the agencies the author trusts have proven themselves untrustworthy.

[skeeter]

Exactly the position I would expect a flake like Mark Davis to take.