Sir Xsarus wrote:
No it's fine that you think that snowden's actions weren't justified,and he shouldn't have done it.
At least you think it's fine, as opposed to the OP being disappointed with it.
Quote:
As a conservative who wants the government out of your life, shouldn't you be more upset about how much your government is spying on you?
No. I think I'm exactly the correct amount of upset based on how much my government is spying on me. Which is to say, not much at all.
Let's not forget that the context here isn't "do I think my government should spy on me and how much", but "do I think what Snowden did was justified". I happen to think that people who praise Snowden out of a belief that he's somehow freed them from government spying, or even revealed any significant domestic spying by our government, just haven't paid much attention. As I said above (twice even!), the vast majority of the classified documents he's dumped have nothing to do with domestic spying, and mostly to do with legitimate intelligence operations by our government. Which puts his actions well into the "violation of national security" and "high treason" categories. Trying to defend that with the very very thin claims that he's really just blown the whistle on NSA domestic spying is not remotely legitimate IMO.
Blown the whistle on what exactly? Has anyone learned the details of a single actual instance of domestic spying from Snowden? All I've seen is very vague documents talking about potential sources of information, that frankly looked ludicrous to me when read. I honestly think it's the kind of document you'd write as a honeypot to catch idiots who think they're looking for "proof" of spying. As an old boss of mine would say: The documents are "content free".
As to actual government spying? Yeah. I don't like it when it's aimed at our own citizens. Here's the thing though. I'm far more concerned about overt uses of government power to compel me to do things than I am about covert uses of said power that don't actually affect me in any way at all. In the grand scheme of "things I worry about", the NSA having a complete record of my phone or internet metadata history ranks far far below just about every other domestic spending program the US government currently engages in. It's a matter of putting things in perspective.
Edited, Apr 23rd 2015 4:43pm by gbaji