Yes pinqy, that is why the point of the OP is to promote discussion on making the law more flexible towards whistle blowers. So the issue is no longer "he broke a law, therefore must be arrested" but instead "he broke a law but under what circumstances, given the contents of the leaks, is this permissible"?
You asked why the government is after him. The answer is that he broke the law.
Simply saying "well he broke the law and should be arrested" is not only an indifference to justice,
I kind of thought that was the definition of justice
but a mandate to excuse the U.S government of using the law to shut up it's workers in order to break the law.
except no intentional violations have been shown except in a dozen cases over 10 years where all perpetrators were punished or resigned.
It is a foul excuse to deprive the liberty of somebody who has exposed unconstitutional activities (stop assuming we are talking about Snowden, this is a hypothetical discussion about whistle blowing illegal and/or unconstitutional US activities in general).
except the law explicitly allows whistleblowers and prohibits reprisals.
I'm not sure I understand the grammar of this quote. Are you asking me how the mass surveillance of the general populace is an invasion of privacy?
Surveillance
1. a watch kept over a person, group, etc., especially over a suspect, prisoner, or the like: The suspects were under police surveillance.
2. supervision or superintendence.
Surveillance | Define Surveillance at Dictionary.com
I'm not aware of any "mass surveillance." A database that requires pre-approval and has restricted access and can only reveal an visual's identity with an specific warrant is not surveillance (or do you consider a phone book "mass surveillance" too?) And access to emails of specific foreign targets overseas is hardly mass surveillance.
Pinqy, are you suggesting that terrorists had no clue that there phone calls and emails were being intercepted prior to these leaks?
Nope.
The only thing terrorists have learnt from this is that they can tick one box off their Jihadist to-do list, that being: "scare the US into depriving everybody of their liberties as we do our own people". Well done intelligence services. One point to theocratic bullying.
How exactly have your liberties been deprived? Again, are you that arrogant to think anyone at any of the 16 intelligence agencies knows anything about you? And apparently the Brazilians and Germans, at least weren't't aware we were spying on them (which is neither illegal nor unconstitutional). And the terrorists may not have been aware of the scope or methods.
It's going to take a lot more than "the government isn't going to bother looking at your phone calls and emails but collect them and store them for as long as they want" to assure me of anything.
So you are that arrogant. American phone calls are not stored. I don't actually remember exactly how the prism database works, but if memory serves only foreign emails are collected in the first place.
I think recent events should have taught you by now that this kind of blind faith and trust in your government is misplaced.
Not being paranoid is not blind faith. I've read the transcripts of the various hearings. There is plenty of protection and oversight.
Not that them looking at my data is the point, is it?
Actually, it kind of is...you've been complaining of the 4th ammendment being raped and loss of liberty, but if not yours, then whose? Who exactly has had their rights violated or liberty taken?
It's blanket surveillance, they don't care about targeting specific people. They just harvest data and see what they get.
Seriously? You believe they have that much time, money, and people to sort through all the information on the planet? That's idiotic.
