I’ve been thinking about this whole Snowden business; here’s my humble thoughts on the matter:

From what I see (and correct me if I’m wrong), the big “revelation” by Snowden is that the NSA is keeping records of our phone and surfing data (not verbal content of our calls, but who called when, etc.) and that these are the SAME RECORDS that the privately owned communication providers have been keeping for years (as has been common knowledge). These records were shared, likely in accordance the agreement record for which we give tacit permission for by acknowledging the “terms of service” that no one without a tinfoil hat and a life outside mom’s basement ever reads, contributing to the general ignorance of what’s going on.

Assuming a warrant (or in extreme cases relevant to national security, a military or executive order) is required for the NSA to access these files, which is my understanding, I can’t honestly see the huge deal in this provision, and it seems, as usual, the government agency is actually held to HIGHER standards regarding preservation of our privacy than the actual (privately owned) communication providers are. It seems the government has a long way to go in catching up to the ubiquitous invasions of privacy that commercial industry has been allowed to get away with, with much lower accountability, for a long time. There’s no huge “tyrannical invasion” of our rights here at all, at least nothing new.

This all being said, I have two points to make:

1) This ‘scandal’ doesn’t seem a big deal. Thus, it seems the NSA, thinking in their right minds, could have run some major preemptive damage control, without compromising their security, by simply being open about this simple fact. This strikes me as a major public relations screw-up on the part of our Intelligence operations - which is the real ‘scandal’ here.

2) Given this isn’t a major revelation, I don’t see how this makes Snowden much of a “traitor”; more just an attention monger, who may even believe he’s doing the “right thing” in his naivet. Yes, he should be punished for breaking the rules he committed to, but I don’t see where this, considering all the above, should warrant a draconian sentence, and I hope, based on that knowledge, it doesn’t happen.

Again, I’m no expert on the matter; I’m just a layperson trying to keep up, and open to input on my insight or lack thereof.