Political ramifications? Most of them matter little, in the long run. The Chinese can call us hypocrites. Yeah, that will change the world. /s I'm more worried about our 4th Amendment, thank you.
Now, maybe Snowden has information that really is damaging to the country - he does essentially make the "threat" that if something happens to him, more will come out. But not all information damaging to the present gov't or individuals in it is necessarily damaging to the USA, especially in the long run. Given what Snowden has NOT released, and the fact that he has not disappeared with the help of China, I see no evidence that he intends harm to this country. My biggest worry would be that the Chinese might try to grab him and break him, but that's a VERY risky move for them, especially since he might not have any truly "big" information to make the risk pay off.
As far as I'm concerned, the threat from this Administration is greater than whether or not some G8 negotiation gets ruffled. It's not like the G8 will decide to nuke North Korea, or even meaningfully curtail Iran. Putin is not going to give up Syria. Even then, 99% of what's supposedly decided at these things has been worked out by lower level diplomats in advance.
Further, not only has Obama shot any credibility we might have had long before Snowden came along, there is no way that "getting the American people to doubt or question" what the NSA is doing presently is going to "lose this country" to some outside entity. If you think that, you have no idea what the true strengths of this country are. So, to be honest, I don't have to think about it 10 seconds - your premise is ludicrous on it's face. But if you think I am wrong, please do explain, in detail, just how it is that we will be taken over from without because ordinary U.S. citizens decide that they don't like being spied on!
Finally... At what point SHOULD we doubt? It seems to me we passed it some time ago.
Ok hear it is and if we all just wait the whole thing will be exposed for what it all is....
Cruz said not to jump to conclusions on the NSA...
...Obama used the mega trolling to gather data to win the election...he didn’t need personal data, (as we are now in such a hype about)..that could be obtained thru Driver’s license and other venues we offer freely daily. He wanted the mega data and used the NSA to obtain it to win the election.
Further...the Arizona scotus decision today was not a loss as we supposed, there’s a thread on it going now...... the left lost for states now can determine certain forms to be used that “REQUIRE” proof of citizenship in order to vote...rather than federal forms.
additionally we all were surprised when Obamas media co-hurts were jumping with us on the NSA issue...but they were simply protecting Obama and otherwise diverting the public from looking closer at Obamas USE OF THE NSA for his election. It worked....everybody is all caught up in what the Government knows about us...while Obama slithers away to his african vacation.
Meanwhile we have Snowden...a strong Obama “Supporter” and he said as much...pointing the finger at the NSA entirely. Getting everybodies pants in a knot of what the Government knows about us when we all knew they knew anyway... set him up to gain traction on this NSA hype and feed it til we’re crying for more....thus the blame is on who?
Not Obama and his winning election by fraud...not that he used the NSA to win the election...and not that he’s being protected yet again by the media.....no... Snowdens got us all pointing the finger where Obama wants it...it’s the NSA that’s deceiving the people....and it’s all about how we’re being spied on when in fact it’s Obama who has been the reason this is all coming down.