[quote=SK in CV]
While I’m wholeheartedly supportive of what he did, everything he exposed is perfectly legal. Therein lies the problem.

The Patriot Act, and all its amendments, extensions, and modifications allows the FISA court to approve and allow this broad authority to require the telecoms to turn over all this meta-data. So congress passed the law. The executive branch continues to exercise its rights under the law, and the judicial branch approved that exercise.

[/quote]

Here’s the part that saddens me. I too think it’s good that he drew attention to this matter, but my cynicism tells me that six months from now all the controversy will have blown over. The government will be moving ahead with even more surveillance programs. Probably Snowden will be extradited back to the USA and sitting in a prison. What a way to waste away your future. Young naive idealism runs smack into reality with horrible end result. Really sad.

The irony of this though is I have a lot of respect for his willingness to fight for what he felt was right and important. Just sad for him because he’s gonna lose this battle and it’s gonna be all for naught.