[jsmcgd]

I don't understand Marc's position. He says that foreign governments knew about the spying but that Edward Snowden is a traitor for telling them what they already knew? So what damage is ES supposed to have done exactly? It is public record that terrorist organizations knew about intelligence services surveillance against them, which I suspect everyone on the planet would guess would be happening. So how has ES acted against the interests of the American people?

It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous.

I'm deeply disappointed :(

[mikeyouse]

Knowing that someone is spying on you is worth much less than knowing that they use Camera Model XYZ, which transmits on XYZ frequency and the camera is located at coordinates XX, YY.

[jsmcgd]

As far as I am aware no information has been revealed that is specific to a national security target only information that targets millions of innocent civilians. I would hope and expect that the intelligence community has much more invasive and targeted tools they deploy against genuine national security threats than what has been revealed so far.

Edit: To clarify, I'm sure Al-Qaeda already knew not to trust any computer, or cell phone that they used because they were probably completely compromised. So nothing that has been revealed by ES would change their behaviour.

Edit 2: Also, it doesn't matter. The most important thing for our civilization is not personal or national security but our democracy. A 'security state' is never democratic. Its people are never free.