[canistr]

I disagree.

Grabbing everything because you don't have time to sift through the data and passing them to so-called "respectable journalists" doesn't make it right. In the same way that people claim dragnet surveillance is wrong to catch terrorists if it's violating the privacy of everyone else.

[Nadya]

How would you have done it? Gone through 16,000 documents that are all 100's of pages long as an individual? You'd be lucky to finish in your lifetime. Not to mention he's not a lawyer. Should he consult a lawyer to know what is going against the Constitution or just use his best guess? Is consulting a single lawyer better than a team of lawyers? Should have had consulted a team of lawyers? What makes Snowden more trustworthy than journalists?

Would he be able to find lawyers to consult while remaining in a country that wouldn't put his life at risk? Should the lawyers relocate to Snowden's location of asylum? Or should they be consult over the constantly monitored internet? Is releasing the information 10 years from now more beneficial than releasing it now?

It opens a big can of worms when you question the logistics of doing it differently. Not that I disagree with your statement - it's a lot like dragnet (catch it all to watch a few) but the logistics in this scenario, unlike a dragnet, the resources simply aren't there to do it any other way. Snowden is not a multi-billion dollar government with near unlimited resources.

[bonobo]

Are you claiming that he could handle all of this by himself? Because unless you're claiming it, you'll have to agree with me that he would have to trust someone at some point. And calling Greenwald a so-called respectable journalist doesn't make justice to the reputation he built. I'm curious to know how would you select a better fitted person to this job.

I also don't think that comparing this to privacy violation is a valid comparison. The government is not a person, you're not violating any civil rights by getting these documents.