Here Is Edward Snowden's Christmas Message

[gulliver]

72. I anticipated this response.

He belongs in prison for his formal crimes.

And again, it is over nothing. A lot of sound and fury over nothing. As yet, no one has shown harm to a single person by the things that Snowden exposed about the NSA. This is what I mean by nothing. No one harmed. Elected executive, Congressional, and Constitutionally provisioned court oversight in the loop. Nothing.

On the other hand, we are seeing huge spasms of paranoia and anti-government sentiment on the left. Yes, on the left, the very side of the political argument that needs to sell the (correct) idea that increasing government and public sector modes of economic security are better for the general welfare than anti-government mania and austerity. Yet here we have some on the left attacking the "government." We have the spectacle of Snowden saying he defected from "the government" to something called "the public." Grover Norquist now has accomplices in his efforts to get the government down to bathtub drowning size.

The usual democratic process should have prevailed. The Presidency, the Congress and the courts are the Constitutional mechanisms for change. I really don't like the idea that some low level sys admin can simply do billions of damage to democratic process-created institutions and the U.S. economy with impunity. We don't need to go there. That's plain scary as a matter of principle.

And, yes, I'm human and very much pro-American in this particular version of reality. I hate to see some kid putting down our country to the citizenry of other countries, using a platform he earned through crime and deceit. Rubs me the wrong way.