History may well revere Snowden as a martyr of the second American Civil War.
Monitoring communications traffic goes back at least thirty years. All telephony switches have a government monitoring provision/capability. We used “big data” techniques to identify Al-Qaeda cells before 9/11 and didn't use the information, probably because internecine rivalry kept the information from the agencies with authority to act. Read about Able Danger, Curt Weldon's House Intelligence sponsored project with the DIA. That technology is now in hundreds of police districts around the world. and can be purchased openly from such firms as I2, what used to be the “Analyst's Workbench” and “Analyst's Notebook”. I2 passed out their maps identifying 9/11 Terrorists in the early 90s to market their version of the technology. The Maps of terrorists and of all those associations gathered from telephone and bank records to Osama bin Laden. Those data were not passed to the FBI by military agencies competing for resources or we might have prevented 9/11. The 9/11 Committee omitted mention of the Able Danger analysis and Jamie Gorelick explicitly refused to take the report from Lt. Col Anthony Shaffer, who was part of the data mining project that identified most of the 9/11 cell, including their locations, before 9/11.
Let's hope Snowden, who now has an international spotlight, will reveal the misuse of such techniques, because the technology is here to stay. It is indeed Constitutional guarantees of individual sovereignty that are being trampled by an increasingly tyrannical government that needs oversight. Exposing that our government is headed by a man who does not have a Constitutional mandate to govern should be at the top of the list, but the power held by the usurper's organization is too daunting for most citizens to challenge. If the Supreme Court has no longer the independence to protect and defend, along with our military, now dying to support Muslim Brotherhood operations, whose officers swore an oath to the Constitution, not the President, will sacrifice our men and women rather than honor their sworn oath, Snowden could come out of this a hero by pointing out the truth.
Oh please. Snowdon is a scrawny OWS punk who was probably applauding the terrorists on 911.
He’s a hero over on DU...seeking refuge in commie countries
Like Russia China and Nicaragua. Sheesh.The guy is slime.
IDK about martyr, that remains to be seen. but if your side of the Second Civil War is to oppose totalitarianism, this guy is on your side.