I’ve basicly stayed off the radar on here while the entire Snowden madness has been going on. Mostly for my own sanity and because I don’t have time to explain nuances. Snowden isn’t purely a traitor, he isn’t purely a whistleblower, He has an idea and an ideal which happens to intersect with him being the white knight saving America. That’s no different than anyone else who has published questionable activity by the US government.

What he didn’t realize was, that a large chunk of America doesn’t want to be saved. Too many people have bought into the security theater after 9/11 and have willingly given into restrictions that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. Free Speech Zones? Check.

If people feel the examination of email and text messages, even metadata is perfectly ok, then it should also be ok if the Government were to record the destination and arrival of every package, letter, bill sent. Honestly, the only thing that’s prevented the government from trying such a stunt is because it had been technologically unfeasible. We have the technology to track cell phones. why not put that in a database, if they promise to only use it to stop all the terrorists lurking to kill everyone.

I know I’m in the minority here, but I think that the fear campaign after 9//1 was over the top to start with, and has only become more insane as the years have dragged on.

Let me be clear, I don’t think that the NSA engaged in any abuse of the data they’ve collected (beyond the fact they’re collecting it). But If there’s one thing I’ve learned. When someone has a tool. They’re going to use it. and if the tools for data collection, and the data collected, remain available, then the scope of usage will expand and mutate into something much darker and much worse.

I don’t think you can develop safeguards to stop the abuse, not when everything is confidential and there is no one to watch the watchmen. If there were, then *maybe* you could justify it on a compelling national interest. but not in it’s current iteration.