So now Snowden's acknowledged that his main goal at Booz Allen was espionage.

[pnwmom]

91. There are two separate issues. One is the internal surveillance, and I welcome

a debate on that issue.

And the other is Snowden's continuing release of documents related to US foreign policy, which I think cannot be ignored and deserves condemnation.

Unfortunately, his release of the latter documents is putting his motives into question and proving to be a major distraction from the discussion of internal US surveillance.

http://americablog.com/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-prism-russia-china-leak.html

I think Edward Snowden has damaged his cause by seemingly declaring all out war on spying – American spying, to be precise – which risks making him sound naive (as if the US can, or should, simply stop spying while Russia and China continue). But there’s a second problem to Snowden’s actions. By releasing information about the US spying on our #1 foes, Snowden risks coming off as having a problem with America itself. And regardless of the merits of any such animus – disliking, and being perceived as trying to harm, America is not a great way to win over Americans.

And we are talking about harm now.

The leak of PRISM can be subjected to a legitimate cost-benefits analysis of whether the greater good outweighs the harm of making the program public. But leaking the details of our spying on the Russians or the Chinese, it’s difficult to find a reasonable justification for leaking those documents. And I’m sorry, but “we shouldn’t be spying on anyone” doesn’t strike me as a legitimate argument. As for the “harm,” it’s always beneficial to know the intelligence successes, and especially the methods by which that success came about, of your foes.

SNIP