All here who think giving Al Qaeda information is no big deal, raise your hands

[nil desperandum]

19. No one thinks that

Snowden opened a rather large and important discussion, he did so in a careless and dangerous fashion in my opinon (and my opinion only). Whether or not he should be prosecuted for that is not my decision to make.

The government's unrestricted information gathering process should however be a concern to us all. Each infringement on our personal rights creates precedent for further future erosion of those rights. I do not now, and never have, trust the government to always do the right thing. It has become clear to me over the last 5 decades or so that the government can hardly be trusted to do the right thing and abide by its' own rules when the light of day is shining brightly upon it. In the dark of night of behind a screen of secrecy the government has seldom proven to be trustworthy.

I don't mock the people who work to prevent terrorists from landing on our shores any more than I mock police officers doing their jobs in difficult places every day, but I do expect there is significant oversight to prevent abuse for our intelligence gathering agencies and our police officers.

It always important to know who watches the watchers, especially when it turns out that no one is watching the watchers...