Gee whizicers but you are so naive.
At any time in the past 40-50 years the media could have let the public know that NSA was intercepting all communications worldwide. But they did not. Anyone with any inkling of what NSA stands for or has read the numerous books published by former NSA types could have guessed all that Eddy released. That any of this crap - about what NSA is up to - came as a surprise is astonishing, to say the least.
Any one who applauds what Eddy did is hopelessly stuck in some fantasy realm. He did not mean well, and the whole of the publicly released stuff is just the smoke screen to cover for the huge damage he did.
And yes some of us still have contacts within the intel community and we do know what he released privately - everything. Climb down off the ledge and look up. His service was to himself, not to his countrymen. You may think we deserve to die - well you first.
Exactly where is the line - “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance”. One cannot be vigilant today by excluding electronic media - which is public in the first place. Anything broadcast can be intercepted and recorded. The price of naivety is eternal ignorance. The price of eternal ignorance is death.
The FBI and others intercepted my phone calls, followed me, took pictures etc for years and nothing happened. What are you afraid of? If you are mostly harmless you have nothing to worry about and guess what? Your stuff will get disregarded eventually - unless, of course, you have something nefarious up your putative sleeve ...
First of all I already said Snowden confirmed what many of us already suspected and it has been talked about publicly for decades. It's the majority of sheeple not paying attention that stood to benefit from his revelations. So that entire whole first paragraph there makes no sense addressed to me at all.
Secondly, (a) I'm not taking your word that someone told you Snowden damaging spilled secrets to the Russians, and (b) didn't it occur to you to this source exactly how a 3rd party contractor in a far away installation has access to anything more damaging than that which the enemy hasn't already been able to wring out of turncoats and bugs they located and brute force hacking, and (c) why your contact feels free to now spill this to you despite them allegedly being at defcon 1 since Snowden left? You allege he told you something for sure that would surely be huge news in the real world. ( hey, I don't know, but I am really skeptical ).
Furthermore you keep saying he did it for himself. What's the evidence for that? Lots of spies did it for themselves ( cash money ), lots did for the cause ( equalizing the two powers ), but we all know how it worked out for them all, usually prematurely dead and never the good life. It's the spies that we turned and the informants we purchase that make out like bandits. I can't imagine how someone as smart as Snowden is alleged to be would think he could gain anything by going over. He had it made. Maybe your contact can tell us what the heck Snowden gained to prove the allegation that it was selfish. ( hey, I'm not ruling anything out, just using educated guesses, and this one does not compute ).
Finally I said we disagree philosophically and that is fine, this is America. Neither of us can change anything blabbing about it anyway. But IMHO your last bit there is a screed that will not help you convince anyone that your position is remotely sensible - especially since your position seems to be that we should bend over and take it like a sheep because eternal vigilance is "eternal ignorance". I did say this: "If the price of this "security" is to accept 100% penetration into everything then we have failed Eternal Vigilance 101, and frankly we deserve to die.", and I stand by it. I know that Thomas Jefferson and suspect even most Federalists of the time like Mr. 'Alien and Sedition Acts' himself John Adams would agree. I said all this after pointing out that an Amendment is necessary to justify it. To legitimatize it. To make it legal. Apparently we disagree.
Well then, call me old fashioned but clearly you have evolved to a more modern man who believes the Constitution is dead. Even though you presumably took the oath at one time or another, it is still dead so why bother with the oath anyway. I and probably no-one can argue with a zealot who thinks the naive "fantasy world" is the the one that has the government restrained by a Constitution and granted limited and specifically enumerated powers. You of course twisted what I said into only "electronic media - which is public in the first place" ( a strawman that I believe Clinton used in 1998 or so ) when you know full well I was talking about the penetration into everything public and private at all possible levels of hardware and software and all I/O and at both ends. To use less words, it means *everything*. NOT just "public", whatever that is supposed to mean anymore.
That last bit is a very tired argument 'Well I got nothing to hide'. The fact that you have to say that is just sad to me. Whether you did or didn't have something to hide isn't the damn point. Is there any part of the Constitution that you believe in? 4th Amendment ring a bell? And if you hate that one you must really hate the 9th which brings into the Constitution *everything* that they neglected to specifically mention, and this would include spying on everyone. Washington didn't cross the Delaware and the Founders didn't convene in Philadelphia to found a nation just to have it hijacked by it's new protectors. In my opinion every single person down in DC that has this attitude should be pink slipped and run out on a rail. And they would be getting off easy for violating their oath to a document they intend to ignore. Ideally they should all be doing a stint in Leavenworth for Color Of Law felonies. Seriously, this attitude is making it very difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys.