Edward Snowden Had No Way Out

[bemildred]

2. Yep, you got it, that's the argument.

Legitimacy comes from the consent of the people, as our Constitution says, and the people cannot consent to a government and laws kept secret from them. That is the crux of the matter. Ultimately we the people have the responsible authority and we must must exercise it, and continue to exercise it. If we fail that is also our problem, but it is legitimately nobody elses to decide. That is the fundamental principle on which our government was built.

The usual argument at this point is something along the lines of "you have to be reasonable", which is, of course, no argument at all, essentially a bald assertion that one cannot for some reason (again: fear) govern openly, where simple observation shows that many countries do that with much less fuss than we seem to need. In fact one of the best modern models: Germany, is one we built in the beginning. It is going to be very interesting to see how this scandal plays out in that context.