There are actually conflicting interpretations of whether the NSA actually broke the law. We do have a judge who ruled on one specific case brought by two people. That judge's opinion was that the NSA may have violated the 4th Amendment clause prohibiting illegal S & S and providing for due process. For many years the NSA and the Justice Department operated on the legal premise that the Patriot Act gave them authority. There also was a process for obtaining a warrant to actually listen to people's telephone calls. The NSA states that when those situations arose they never actually listened because they turned the case over to the FBI who got the warrant and did the legal wire tapping. Or if it actually involved their jurisdiction they followed a protocol the ensure that the were doing it legally. I think the challenge is that many people are willing to believe that the NSA was knowingly breaking the law and continues to do so without conscious. I don't think it's that malevolent or that simple. Yes, the NSA bears responsibility for the decisions they made. That doesn't let Snowden off the hook for the ones he made.
The reason so many military people say that Snowden did more harm than good is because they feel that Snowden callously chose to release documents that compromised people who died. He just didn't give a fuck that he was going to cause collateral damage. He had an agenda. One he openly advertised for years before he did it. Which is sad in a way because if the U.S. Government was spying on all of us as much as everyone would like us to believe then they would have caught him before he had the chance to do any damage. And compromised the U.S. and the rest of the world's saner governments ability to effectively discover terrorist and other activities.
Snowden took over 1.7 million files that we know of. The majority of those files had nothing to do with violations of privacy of the average U.S. citizen that the NSA may have been engaged in. For a really good explanation of what the NSA was doing try this article
NSA speaks out on Snowden. The NSA gave unprecedented access to 60 Minutes and attempted to explain exactly what it was they were doing without spilling too many beans.
If Snowden had restricted himself to just those activities that were "illegally" committed against U.S. citizens there are many who believe he would have had a moral and legal leg to stand on in regards to claiming he was "a whistleblower". He didn't though. Instead he chose to violate his
NSA Oath A lot of people have a hard time understanding this next part. But, IMO and in the opinion of a lot of other people, many of whom are military or ex-military Snowden swore an oath that was unbreakable and binding. Manning swore a similar oath. In our minds there is no difference between treason committed by a civilian who swears an oath not to commit treason and a military person who swears a similar oath. The punishments may differ because of the courts whose jurisdictions the cases will be tried in. But, if you look it up the U.S. has laws about treason committed by citizens. I invite you to read them. IMO they clearly state that Snowden's actions can be called treason. Just as much as Manning's.
There are a lot of people who think that Snowden was perfectly OK in doing what he did. There are many reasons they give for justifying this stance:
Snowden was exposing a crime so his crime is negated. Read that again. And really think about it. Key Bank illegally foreclosed on my home. It was worth $300,000. Key bank broke the law. No one will prosecute Key Bank. I drive to Key Bank and steal $3 million dollars. Want to guess who is going to jail?
Snowden is a whistleblower and he only gave all that information to the journalists, China, and Russia because whistleblowers in this country get treated like crap, blackballed, and lose their jobs while nothing changes. Ok, I concede that whistleblower protections are haphazardly enforced and sometimes the Whistleblower does get the short end of the stick. But, again the rationale is that it is OK to commit Treason because following the rules and being a whistleblower is a shitty experience. Now if he had gone to the Peoria Times I might believe his BS story for why he chose not to be a brave whistleblower. But, he didn't. He ran straight to Hong Kong and gave who knows how much information to a bunch of foreign journalists and a couple of U.S. ones. Then promptly went through China and Russia for asylum. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You can bet that Snowden wasn't granted asylum just for the PR black eye that the U.S. got.
These are the top two that I seem to run across a lot. Go to court and try to use any of these as a defense for breaking the law. I double dog dare you. Just be sure to send me your inmate ID when you do so I know where to send the care packages.
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