If Ed had one real beef over one serious incident or program, and walked out with the info to tell that story...he’d be the mythical hero that you dream of. Ed didn’t do that...he basically carted off every single detail over thousands of programs and episodes, and these will be used to cherry-pick the right times to trip up the US on some relationship, or take down the right foreign government or party. At best, Ed has an understanding of maybe one-tenth of one percent of the files that he took.
I should add....since 1945....what US government has not cheated or lied? Democrat or Republican....it doesn’t matter. You see, that’s the funny part about announcing this list of terrible things. People think that Ed’s work will correct or fix all of those terrible things. Sadly, names will change, IT intrusions will evolve, and life will go on. All Ed did...was make the system evolve, and probably question IT administrators they hire for the NSA operations, with extreme audits conducted over their monthly operations and behavior. People will tire of the intrusions created by Ed-patrol, and turnover of high-security administrators will be a regular event of the future.
How do you know what files he took? (other than those he released to various news outlets)
Perhaps Just as irrelevant as the hero worship is the thesis that because the guy is not a paladin the incident must be about him and not about the corrupt reality he exposed. You rail on and on about the guy and imply we are attempting to put the guy on a pedestal. But as we've seen time and time again this is a diversionary smear at best and and utterly irrelevant. Hello! The US developed an intelligence-gathering apparatus that intentionally undermined the security of freedom, and has crossed the line and gained power which is essentially corrupting, asserting un-examinable authority. The continued embezzlement of the integrity of our national interest can really have no successful outcome. Everyone everywhere could speculate about what was going on and the sheer number of participants meant it was never a perfect secret. At some point the purview expanded to include everyone in the world and all justification became permanently self-serving.
There is no excusing it really. And there was no perfect way to expose it. People operating the government felt the Constitution really didn't mean what it said, what it implied, and what Congress had set forth to ensure operation with the limits of power. They deliberately set about undermining freedom and gathering power. It's purely criminal. The facade has slipped permanently - we know the truth.
Your credibility slips every time you attack Snowden, not because you are right or wrong, but because you are obviously trying to engage us in a diversionary justification of the misdeeds committed by government officials. Attacks on Snowden are clearly either mendacious or stupidly foolish. You can't justify it, and it will never be relevant except to out an attacker as mendacious or foolish, or both. Whether it plays into the hands of the Russians is irrelevant, because we were asked to excuse a crapload of criminality with a thesis of "trust us, it's national security, we know what we are doing better than you ever could", but it wasn't true, wasn't ever true, and was just a disguise for naked abuse of power. What the Russians or any other actor gains is truly irrelevant compared to what was lost by the actions of government officials who impeached their oaths.
We ain't buying no pig in a poke no more. Sadly, your kind will keep coming back to see if we've changed our minds in a moment of weakness...