Public exposure will likely mean trial in a civilian court if he gets extradited to the US, rather than rendition to G-d knows where or simple murder. Hopefully, he’ll get a jury that’s enlightened enough to practice the time-honored tradition of jury nullification.

This disclosure is VERY MUCH in the interest of the American people. For one minor thing, wholesale collection of phone call information includes legislators’ and justices’ information. I’d say that 75% of people have SOMETHING they want to hide. Enough can be deduced from phone call info (calls to drug treatment clinics, women who aren’t wives, etc) to make them ripe targets for blackmail. Then the security state becomes self-perpetuating.

If they don’t toe the NSA line and vote for more surveillance, they might end up fighting a scandal and forced to resign. This kind of thing breaks the separation of powers — remember that Congressional votes are generally very close, and that even 5-10% of Congresspeople being corrupted might have a tangible impact on US politics.

There’s also precedent. Look at the shenanigans that happened during the Hoover FBI era, what with technology being much less advanced. The amount of damaging info that can be gathered these days with modern tech scares the hell out of me.

Snowden is a true patriot, a brave man, and one hell of an American hero. Hope he walks scot-free and is able to travel first-class back to his own country, to which he did a great service.

As far as the people who forced this system on the American public without their knowledge or consent, I’d say that they were laying the groundwork for totalitarianism in the US. Exactly what the enemies of the US want to happen — the destruction of democracy from within. If that isn’t treason (a shooting offense last I checked), then it comes damn close. Hope they see their day in court.