He is no hero. He is a liar and criminal of the worst possible kind.

Funny how so few people seem to trust president Obama in this matter. I thought they were so big on him just a few months back.

Those that think the government should not spy on anyone because it violates their rights are no different from the NRA that thinks anyone should be able to buy any any gun anywhere because anything less is a violation of their rights.

What will become of our rights if there is a successful attack on our country as a result of information he has leaked and a hard core right wing government comes to power?

I never heard such nonsense as to call him a hero. Hero to China, maybe.

I guess anything goes on the internet but this guy never fooled me for a millisecond.

I thought you might have been a person in the middle.

I agree and feel protective of our country with someone like this. That's the idealism I come from, and my family too, revolutionary war fighters included.

Obama is very protective of us in my opinion, he doesn't want an attack on his watch. We benefit from this. We lost under Bush, and would lose again if the right leadership with the right tools cannot act.

Ripping our right to Privacy to shreds is not being protective, its being totalitarian. I heard this same "keep us safe" shit during the Bush years, detested it then and detest it now.

That is logical. Totalitarian is something you can't support, at least under Obama. Totalitarian is China, much much more and it seems to tweak people to no end that Snowden did his thing under the wing of China.

Its illegal spying. The NSA has already admitted that it has read the e-mails of innocent Americans. That is indefensible. Ben Franklin said it best with his quote about giving up liberty for so-called security.

Maybe someone can tell then how to only read the emails of guilty people

Don't read anybody's e-mail. Gee, what a concept. I remember when Democrats believed in it from 2001-2009.

okay i get it,.,.,.Now tell me if gun control is totalitarian..

why didn't your precious surveillance state prevent that?

Snowden is attempting to warn us of the totalitarian over-reach inherent in these policies in THIS country. We are a lot more like China than most people realize. We are in bed with them and we owe them a lot of money. We want to keep our biggest creditor happy.

Flamingdem, any friend of Big Bird is a friend of mine, so I say this to you as a friend. Please consider that this may NOT be merely a choice between "keeping us safe from terror" and giving up all rights to privacy (and our right to know what is done in our name, and at what cost, internationally). Is it right that the US government stores the Facebook data of everyone in Holland? Please open your mind and consider some of the possibilities of these sweeping powers, unchecked, in the hands of our INTERNAL enemies? Those who would bleed this country dry while their bank accounts swell, come to mind.

Since today everything is global, the allegiances to corporate entities can trump what's good for the country. So we need to know who the spying is really for. Most international spying is not done "to keep us safe." It is for economic and political reasons that have little to do with our safety. Monitoring of groups that might be harmful to us is only a fraction of it, but it's been used to justify the most massive electronic surveillance system ever conceived. This international e-spying is intertwined with our domestic data-mining systems, and it's going to take a lot of political willpower to have any real separation between the two.

I'm saying this kind of simply because I'm trying to keep the big picture and not get mired in details. Because really this is a question of what we want our country to be, and what we want our place in the world to be. It's a critical question that Snowden has suddenly drawn our attention to. President Obama has been put in the position of having to support the Bush era policies--that I completely accept--but what after Snowden's revelations the question is "will he do the right thing now?" Will he be on the right side of history in this? That's the challenge to Obama. He's in a bad place, but it's also a place of opportunity.

We should have control over what the govt does in our name internationally, I'm sure you'd agree, & supposedly that is through Congress. But obviously congress is complicit or is otherwise negligent in this. They operate as though they have the will of the people, but the majority of Americans have no idea how the system works--technically or legally--or why they should be worried about it. (All they hear is "9-11", and then they allow the govt to do anything it wants). Snowden wants people to know the truth about this diabolical all-seeing monstrosity that their tax dollars are funding. To a large extent the PTB have taken advantage of the average person's ignorance in the electronic revolution. They exploit us in every other way--do you trust them not to exploit us in this way?

This is how I see it:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/why-we-spy

"...terrorism simply isn't the kind of danger that could merit the level of response America devotes to it. Unless terrorists get nuclear weapons, he says, they really can't do much damage in America:

Conventional terrorism—even of the sort suffered on 9/11—is not a serious threat to the U.S. economy, the American way of life, or even the personal security of the overwhelming majority of Americans, because al Qaeda and its cousins are neither powerful nor skillful enough to do as much damage as they might like.

He adds that "post-9/11 terrorist plots have been mostly lame and inept, and Americans are at far greater risk from car accidents, bathtub mishaps, and a host of other undramatic dangers than they are from 'jihadi terrorism.'" He uses the Boston bombing in April as a case in point, describing it as tragic but less lethal than the factory explosion that took place that same week down in Texas.

Mr Yglesias and Mr Walt are right: conventional terrorism poses no major threat to America or to its citizens. But that's not really what it aims to do. Terrorism is basically a political communications strategy. The chief threat it poses is not to the lives of American citizens but to the direction of American policy and the electoral prospects of American politicians. A major strike in America by a jihadist terrorist group in 2012 would have done little damage to America, but it could have posed a serious problem for Barack Obama's re-election campaign. For the president the war on terror is what the Vietnam War was to Lyndon Johnson: a vast, tragic distraction in which he must be seen to be winning, lest the domestic agenda he really cares about (health-care, financial reform, climate-change mitigation, immigration reform, gun control, inequality) be derailed. It's no surprise that he has given the surveillance state whatever it says it needs to prevent a major terrorist attack.

In a perfect world, as Mr Walt argues, we in the public wouldn't let terrorist strikes dictate our politics. But we're not likely to get calmer about terrorism, because too many people are trying to keep us frantic. At least three parties stand to gain from exaggerating, rather than minimizing, our reactions to terrorist strikes. The first is the media, which wins viewership by whipping up anxiety over terrorist strikes. The second is politicians seeking partisan advantage, since panic over foreign-backed terrorism tends to increase voter turnout. (In Israel terrorism shifts voter support to the right. In America throughout the early 2000s, anxiety over terrorism increased support for president George W. Bush, but by 2008 an attack would have increased support for Mr Obama. Similarly, Spanish voters punished the conservative government for the Madrid train bombings in 2004 because 80% of the public had opposed the government's participation in the invasion of Iraq. Either way, when terrorists attack, one party or the other is going to make political hay out of it." (more at link)

I'm too exhausted to reply but will tomorrow.

and gun control is also totalitarian?

I can play your little game as well.

the emails of innocent people will be read...can you figure out how to conduct an investigation without this sometimes happening?..
Now answer my question

But thanks for revealing yourself to be a totalitarian. Good to know who stands where on this issue.

Just dont whine when a terrorist strike is successful and a far right wing government comes to power as a result..and am i correct in saying you dont trust Obama, pal?

I don't get it. Are the police only to question the guilty? If they did things right, then their arrests would only be of the guilty? So the jury is not needed? This goes beyond idealism into just plain demanding that the government be as just as God. It should figure out who dunnit without questioning or inconveniencing anyone, or it is totalitarian. I think thus all government on Earth are totalitarian.

WTH is their problem?

Chinese hacking. Obama finally had enough damning info on China's hacking that he was going to address the issue in a rather forthright manner with Xi when Xi visited last week. What happens? Snowden releases the info. What's the battle cry? "Let the people decide" which would mean these programs would either have to be declassified or stopped. Also, all the revelations have benefitted China and their allies. All the harm has come to the US and their allies. That's not by accident.

and can't understand why such a big crew here denies this

democratic party at heart. It seems that there are some who are either paid trolls or volunteer rabble rousers. I don't think the opinion and article postings we've seen lately reflect the average democrat.

elected. A lot of what is being said attacks Obama indirectly, in some cases directly.

Now we have an unknown quantity trying to tell Obama what to do from Hong Kong... yeah right!

Most of the people very upset about nsa are the same ones who veer away from mainstream Democratic politics, they don't want to work within the system. However they are jumping on this before the facts are in, that's not a great idea.

But is smarter about where to go and staying out of trouble with girls.

I'm waiting for Julian to weigh in on this - bet he'll be jealous and try to grab the spotlight back.

will. "look at me.. I'm still.." Where is he now? rofl

dawg damn Martyr while he's kissing China's butt.

Meet the new Libertarian spokesmodel coming to a Tea party near you!

Very Miami Vice

the ones with the built in Google cams

in the back of the head.

The Watcherback glasses! (tm) Made in China

He's going to be there a long time!

wants to be comfortable and not pay for his actions.

He's so smart.. he can always learn Chinese. Why wouldn't they want to tutor him?

While the scum sucking loser media elites carry on doing the only thing that they do best, french-kissing their master's asses.

He can go to Cuba for all i care, that's up to him to decide. The real issue here is the criminal actions of the NSA with the blessing of a so-called progressive President. And as usual the corpo-fascist media tries to deflect attention.

this is not what I voted for.

Check out the fake icons of Kerry and Wellstone

is, appropriately, a monkeywrench

They're too smart for that.

If anything he should have gone there instead. The Leftist govt's. in Latin America have all rallied behind him, along with Manning and Assange. To think Cuba wouldn't take him is almost absurd.

over many years think about all of this.

Yeah, it's ironic in a way, look at statistics human rights concerns in China amongst Americans. Still, Hong Kong was one of the very few places Snowden could actually get to with the legal framework to protect him. He admitted that himself.

That's what fascinates me no end, that we are so gullible as to believe every word from a total unknown.