[lern_too_spel]

Pure revisionism. Obama did not run on that promise, but he shut down the email metadata collection program before it was even leaked and limited and then shut down the phone metadata program after it had leaked. Snowden leaked details of compromised computer systems to China. That's not whistleblowing.

[r3trohack3r]

I didn’t start hearing your take, including the bit about “leaking to china,” in the mainstream zeitgeist until many years later.

He leaked an illegal program to the American people after the Supreme Court denied the ACLU a ruling on the classified program.

His leak resulted in a successful lawsuit against the government by the American people where the judges cited Orwell in their ruling.

Snowden was not the first Snowden, there are a handful of people who attempted to use official channels to blow the whistle on the program. Their careers were ruined and their lives destroyed. If Snowden had followed the official protocols to blow the whistle, we wouldn’t know his name today. He’d have lost everything for nothing and ended up working retail to make ends meet like his predecessors.

These are articles from the time referencing promises made and promises broken

https://www.whistleblowers.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/8....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/05/obama-...

[lern_too_spel]

> I didn’t start hearing your take, including the bit about “leaking to china,” in the mainstream zeitgeist until many years later.

That was one of the first things he did and the whole reason he went to Hong Kong. I, along with many others, pointed it out at that time. He stupidly believed that China would grant him asylum for leaking that information. https://archive.is/i5JTB

> Snowden was not the first Snowden, there are a handful of people who attempted to use official channels to blow the whistle on the program. Their careers were ruined and their lives destroyed.

You're talking about the phone metadata program, the only illegal program he leaked. Point me to any information showing that lives and careers were destroyed over this. There isn't any.

> He leaked an illegal program to the American people after the Supreme Court denied the ACLU a ruling on the classified program

The program that the ACLU had sued over (wiretapping Americans with suspected foreign terrorist links without a warrant) had been shut down even before Obama came into office. It didn't even exist in Snowden's leaks.