Snowdon is a dummy

revelette2 wrote:

Forgive me if I don't take what Snowden said at face value.

Most do here, even our secret services, the chancellor, ... ....

Of course, WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT...which means these misguided people really just hate the US. And, of course, there are all sorts of people outside the US who hate us, too.

[...]Ackerman discounted allegations that Snowden was a Russian spy. "I believe wholeheartedly and 100 percent that we should consider Edward Snowden a whistle-blower," he said.

But he acknowledged a difference of opinion: "You can think the worst of the guy and still think we should probably know our phone records have been collected by the government without suspicion of wrongdong."

He predicted a tough congressional battle over legislation that would end bulk surveillance and data collection. The NSA has indicated it would likely fight such a law in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

"This is a tremendously thorny and complex issue," he said, "that is going to intensify even if this law passes."

I've deleted me quoted post ... because it's more the documents which I and others take at face value.
However, I completely can understand what he says and how he feels - I've worked as a social worker with asylum seekers.

And, there are lots of Americans who don't "hate what they refer to as "our government", but have lost a degree of faith in believing the party line. We're supposed to have a free press to help keep the government honest. We're supposed to have a set of civil liberties that prevent government overreach. Snowden took his discoveries to the press - that entity explicitly prescribed for within the Constitution to investigate and expose government overreach. I don't believe in anyone's gospel, but I sure do believe that the free press serves a purpose and preventing government overreach into the lives of it's citizens is a worthy effort.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Of course, WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT...which means these misguided people really just hate the US. And, of course, there are all sorts of people outside the US who hate us, too.

There may in fact be some haters amongst Snowden's supporters, but I've yet to meet or read from any.

There is a wide continuum of opinion from Traitor to Hero with almost everyone I know falling somewhere in the middle.

As glitterbug said, there were other avenues he could have taken to report any alleged crimes other than taking classified documents and giving them to other persons. Two wrongs do not make a right.

@revelette2,
I don't think that seeking asylum is a sign of cowardice.

Forgive me if I don't take what Snowden said at face value.

[...]NDR's Interviewer Seipel, in a pre-broadcast interview also published online by NDR, said Snowden's sole "life insurance" was that he had entrusted journalists of the New York Times, Washington Post and Britain's Guardian with the material.

At regular intervals, Seipel said, these media outlets triggered a series of "small thematic bombs."

'Very carefully' selected documents

"The NSA is still trying to guess, how much material it involves. At the start there was talk of 200,000, then of 600,000 and now there are around 1.7 million documents," Seipel said.

Snowden has "very carefully" selected documents that rather than focusing on individual persons, focused on the structure of the US secret services and alleged "violations," Seibel said.

"He has shown what happens within this apparatus, also in connection with other services."

The accusation that he has endangered the lives of thousands of soldiers or secret service employees is in my view feeble-minded," Seibel said, adding that Snowden had a "very strong" sense of justice.
"That [President Barack] Obama said he was not a patriot is for him, I think, quite difficult enough."
[...]
The interviewer said Snowden was "very precise in what he says, but naturally was also very cautious" to avoid breaching the terms of his asylum in Russia.

One of Snowden's representatives stated that Snowden would be willing to discuss returning to the US if guaranteed amnesty. DOJ demands a precondition of a guilty plea. Sounds like they're dancing around some sort of clemency agreement.

He is, however, a fugitive from justice at the moment..

And I hope he is returned to the US soon so he can clear his good name in a fair trial.

Ron Wyden of Oregon, Mark Udall of Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, all strong critics of the NSA’s reach into Americans’ lives.