Edward Snowden has done us all a favour – even Barack Obama

By Edward Luce

For a whole generation, the US is coming to stand for Big Brother

©Matt Kenyon

Whether he is a scoundrel or a hero, it is clearer all the time that Edward Snowden has done us a good turn. Shortly before Mr Snowden’s first big download in June, President Barack Obama gave a landmark speech in which he defended the US war on terror while pleading for vigilance against its excesses. Franklin Roosevelt once said: “I agree with you. I want to do it. Now make me do it.” Though Mr Obama was talking about America’s counter-terrorist and data intelligence complexes, his speech contained a similar appeal. Shortly afterwards, Mr Snowden took him up on the challenge.

Mr Obama has yet to provide a convincing response – ask Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, orGermany’s Angela Merkel. Mr Snowden may yet force him to. From Mr Obama’s point of view there are silver linings to the National Security Agency bombshells. Something of this kind was going to happen sooner or later. If a high-school dropout could get hold of troves of classified information, so can many others. Bradley Manning, a US army private, had already demonstrated that. US intelligence agencies are meant to be smart. Mr Obama now knows how dumb they can be.

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EDWARD LUCE

Mr Snowden has also reminded us that there is more at stake over America’s sprawling data intelligence complex than hunting terrorists. Washington has done a good job of preventing big attacks on the US homeland since the terror attacks of September 2001. Both George W Bush and Barack Obama deserve credit. Both also deserve blame for having over-learned the lessons of 9/11. US intelligence does not have a particularly stellar history. It has a tendency to bungle covert action and to miss what is coming – from the Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba to the World Trade Center attacks. There is also its extraordinary litany of domestic abuses exposed by the Church committee in the 1970s.

In light of what Mr Snowden has taught us about the rapid growth of the NSA in the past few years, it is worth rereading the report of the 9/11 Commission – the best on intelligence failure yet written. The report blamed the failure to foresee the World Trade Center attacks on “stovepiping” between US agencies. Because of turf protection, nobody was in a position to “connect the dots” between fragmentary clues about flight schools, Saudi visas and so on.

A decade later it is plain that US intelligence overcorrected for 9/11. The days of stovepiping are long gone. Nowadays anyone can download enough classified information to construct Tolstoyan epics about US espionage. Here too, Mr Snowden’s actions have been helpful.

Most of all, Mr Snowden has reminded us that the biggest lesson from 9/11 remains unaddressed. The report said intellectual failure was the ultimate culprit in missing the Twin Towers attacks and stressed the need to “routinise, even bureaucratise, the use of the imagination”. Mr Obama needs no imagination to know how tarnished America’s brand now is. Some of it comes from the recent Washington shutdown and default crisis. But the NSA revelations have added mistrust to complaints about US incompetence. Corrosion of trust between allies and between governments and citizens can breed all sorts of unforeseen consequences. It is the right moment for Mr Obama to start a larger debate about US intelligence.

At some point in the near future he is likely to agree to a weaker version of the code of conduct among allies that exists between the “five eyes” of English-speaking nations. It will be a polite fiction but co-operation will not have been seriously impaired. Neither side of the Atlantic is likely to curtail actual intelligence gathering. And in many cases they should not. Tapping the phones of leaders such as Ms Merkelhas clearly boomeranged – as has the NSA’s siphoning of data from nodal points at the leading US data companies. But eavesdropping on Pakistan’s military should continue to be a no-brainer.

Mr Snowden has also forced us to confront the larger question of US power in a changing world. For all America’s military weight, hard power gets fewer bangs for its buck nowadays. The fate of a US-led world in the coming decades will probably not be decided by a military clash with another large power. It is more likely to be settled by the quality of America’s economy and democracy. For most people around the world who are older than 30, the US is still chiefly seen through those prisms. But, for a whole generation beneath them, it is coming to stand for Big Brother – and not necessarily a benign one. The damage to US soft power – and the weight it lends to those who want to nationalise data storage and balkanise the internet – should not be overlooked.

Why, then, does Mr Obama want to put Mr Snowden behind bars?

The question of Mr Snowden’s motives is secondary. He may be a criminal, or a saint. I suspect he had good reasons. At minimum he will pay for his sins with a lifetime of looking over his shoulder. In the meantime, the rest of us are far more educated than before about how much privacy we have lost and how rapidly. We are all Angela Merkel now.

Mr Obama is enraged and embarrassed by the hammer blows of one giant disclosure after another. But the fallout has given him the possibility of answering his own plea for greater accountability. Back in May, he issued a thinly coded cry for help to rein in the growing US shadow state. We should be grateful that Mr Snowden came forward.

edward.luce@ft.com

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Reportjohnnyreb | November 4 1:35pm | Permalink
Google up the term "Cambridge Five," Mr. Luce. The damage that those traitors did to the UK intelligence agencies in the 40s and 50s was catastrophic, and I doubt there are many in the UK who considered them "heroes" or "saints." Bradley and Snowden are the American version of the Cambridge Five. They have seriously damaged our intelligence gathering and given succor to the enemy. They are traitors.
Reportklirhed | November 4 12:50pm | Permalink
Yes Snowden did all of us a favour by stealing over a long period of time an enormous amount of highly confidential electronic documents (thus breaching his legal agreements with his private employer and his country), loading them ilegally on his personal laptops and flying away with them all the way to Putin's Russia, where he is now a political refugee in hiding. He is no whistleblower, he is a traitor to his country. He is also turning out to be an unexpected enabler for Putin who is now all too happy sowing conflict among Western leaders and offering him the possibility to advance his own international agenda by using Snowden's Statements and documents.

And supposedly intelligent and informed journalists like E Luce would see none of this, why of course because they have their own agenda: America as Big Brother and Russia I suppose reciprocally is the freedom champion.

The end of the article is another howler: Snowden should in fact be congratulated by Obama, because both are trying to fight the "shadow state". No of course Obama the Media Hero cannot be turned into a convinced anti-Snowden himself, he is basically good and honest, only polluted by the politicans around him.

I must say I was rarely as disappointed by a view expressed in an article in the FT as by this one.
ReportDour Scot | November 4 12:00pm | Permalink
What unadulterated tosh. I can only assume Mr Luce wrote this last night after having had a few too many. If all Mr Snowdon wanted to do was to alert people to the scale of espionage, he could have accomplished that with a handful of documents. Instead Mr Snowdon stole vast amounts of information - not even he fully understands what he took, or the damage its disclosure may cause. His true motive are therefore open to question. Please do not dress up such illegal and grossly irresponsible action as doing me a favour.
ReportFordson61 | November 4 11:35am | Permalink
Please Mr Luce. Don't confuse result with method MArtin Luther King always made clear, that he was ready to back his refusal to obey segregationist laws with going to jail if necessary to prove his point. Snowden could easily have passed this information to a Congressional committee. In the US this is tantamount to publishing it. instead, he stole millions of doucments and then headed for CHINA and RUSSIA. P'utin is rubbin ghsi hands as he, the most autocratic of leaders, uses Snowden against the leading Western democracies in Washington and London. I am afriad, Mr. Luce, that you ahve your values on backwards. Anglo Saxxon nations invented rule of law as the balance between anarchy and dictatorship. For reasons known only to you, you are suggesting that this principle no longer holds and that the ends jusfiy the means. OVer history it si just such thnking which as led to repression and terror. Is that the side you are on?
Reportpaultbgannon | November 4 11:18am | Permalink
@kirk neuner: "there is no disputing that Mr. Snowden disclosed classified details of top-secret U.S., Israeli, and British government surveillance programs to the press and thus to the enemies of those Western democratic states"

I do not accept that those "enemy states" weren't already aware of the extent of activities of the NSA, GCHQ, etc. Given the vast number of people who seem to have had access to all this intelligence material (some 850,000 people in the US forces and outside contractors!) it is reasonably certain that well organised state-sponsored espionage organisations would have found and exploited compromised employees. It was the citizens of the countries doing the spying who were being held in ignorance, not the KGB. Intelligence history is littered with such situations where the "enemy" knew what the electorate were denied knowledge of.

Edward Luce rightly points to one of the conundrums facing the intelligence world - security demands restricting the passing round of sensitive intelligence, but without passing it round it cannot be exploited for advantage (whether that be to prevent a terrorist attack, find out nasty Mr Putin's plans, or smear a domestic political opponent). One thing we have learnt is that the US intelligence organisations have have been extraordinarily careless with the secrets they were supposed to protect.

Another conundrum is the one we are discussing today: to what extent do we need to exercise some control over the extent of eavesdropping activities? Simply shouting 'traitor' and 'treason' is not a useful contribution to that vital debate.
ReportAmLux | November 4 11:18am | Permalink
Snowden is a thief and a traitor. The man needs to be brought back to the United States to be tried for his crimes. Whether he is convicted and sentenced to die as a traitor (or, perhaps, exonerated) by a jury of his peers, he needs to face the legal consequences of his acts. Arguing that the ultimate result of his thievery and traitorous behavior is good for us" is completely beside the point.
ReportOrwell2012 | November 4 10:43am | Permalink
President Eisenhower:
"...Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together..."
ReportBenUriel | November 4 10:24am | Permalink
I think the author makes a good point about the careless accessibility to information. The monitoring of communications of leaders of particularly allied nations is an embarrassment, but let us not be naive. Except for the so called 5 I countries whose leaders tend to work with a common purpose it is likely that such embarrassing behavior is common and I would be surprised if it were not at some level shared even with the "target" nation. I don't approve of it but it is likely to be the case. Knowing early whether an allied nation is going to oppose or support some initiative/project/sanctions/military action or other is probably of significantly more interest to leaders of Western (and other) nations than whether a particular terrorist suspect has coffee with another terrorist suspect on a given day. I would like to see something of an expansion of the agreement where we respect the privacy of certain allied leaders. Bear in mind that each such increase in the degree of alliance is a corresponding decrease in freedom of action from certain policy standpoints (and for the US as well as its allies). In addition to the serious question of spying on allied leaders, which if explainable, leaves one feeling a little ashamed, a very serious problem in the US as Mr. Luce points out is the tendency of the American US intelligence community to allow this kind of debacle to occur. Part of it is the organizational issue Mr. Luce refers to. Party of it is probably recent institutional history. And part of it, I cannot help but thinking, are that the national intelligence services are neither supervised adequately by the elected government, and that through that weak supervision, it seems clear that contemporary American politics and the inadequacies in governance created as a result exercise too great an influence. We have a very very powerful intelligence organization that is not receiving anything like adequate leadership. This is not a Bush problem or an Obama problem. It is systemic. If we have a intelligence community background president like the sr Bush or a very hands on policy driven president like Clinton we can to some extent avoid the more obvious problems but they continue to exist awaiting a president or a congressional leadership whose attention is drawn elsewhere.
ReportWvF | November 4 10:12am | Permalink
Whether a saint or a criminal, Edward Snowden deserves political asylum from (at the very least) Germany and the EU as a whole for uncovering the NSA scandal. That Russia, a country infamous for its human rights abuses, can manipulate Snowden for its political agenda is a black-eye for Europe and greatly undermines its moral posturing on NSA snooping.
ReportPatrick Heren | November 4 9:56am | Permalink
Snowden's done lefties like E Luce a favour - not the rest of us
ReportDavid Seaton | November 4 9:33am | Permalink
I can't think of anything more brilliantly destructive of American power with so little expenditure as getting Snowden and his information out of the reach of that power. Truly it rivals or even tops 9/11 for "cost effectiveness".

The most creative and innovative sector of the American economy, the sector that most represents a future prosperity for American business, is symbolized by Google, a huge organization, whose business model is based on the free flow of information and especially on obtaining the personal data of everyone on an interconnected, frontier-less planet, in order to anticipate and satisfy their every want and desire by knowing even their unconscious needs and motivations. This obviously requires enormous quantities of trust on anyone who uses Google... as users confide to Google, knowingly or unknowingly, things that they would never confide even to their dearest friend or most loved and trusted family member. Trust, friendliness, goodwill then, are the central, essential qualities of Google's business proposition.

Google's antithesis is the NSA, who also wants access to the personal data of everyone and to know (and especially anticipate) their needs and desires, conscious and unconscious in order to dominate and control them. This organization's philosophy is not to trust anyone, not even ones closest friends. And whose process of knowledge to action might be symbolized by the drone strike. Certainly trust, friendliness, goodwill then, are NOT the central, essential qualities of NSA's "business proposition".

However the two "business propositions" are deeply entwined. It is hard to imagine a "Swiss" Google or anything as all-encompassing as Google in any country that did not physically control the Internet and set and enforce the world's rules of commerce and supply the world with its reserve currency, while physically controlling the seas and air all over the world with the greatest accumulation of military power in the history of our planet. And conversely it is hard to imagine an intelligence agency as "penetrant" as the NSA without access to the resources of Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

The same as mixing Clorox with gasoline will cause an explosion and it is vital to keep the two apart, so it is vital for America's new economy to keep the idea of the NSA as far away from the idea of Google as possible... I should say "was" because Snowden has let the cat out of the bag and like putting toothpaste back in the tube, all the king's horses and all the King's men will never put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

With the wisdom of hindsight this Achilles's heel of American power was obvious, but Edward Snowden, or whoever (if anyone) runs him has fired a deadly torpedo directly under America's waterline.

http://seaton-news...e-or-overripe.html
Report2904 | November 4 8:50am | Permalink
Whistle blowers should never be prosecuted.
ReportPaul Browne | November 4 8:47am | Permalink
All this lefty claptrap will be reversed and the news media will be full of "I told you so's" the next time a major terrorist strike happens and phone tapping could have prevented it.

Snowden deserves to be tried for treason, end of story.
ReportTruth fears no light | November 4 8:29am | Permalink
"growing US shadow state".

Wonder what will happen if the "shadow state" outgrows the "state" what kind of world would that be?
ReportGaramont | November 4 8:27am | Permalink
You're right to remind us of the many botched up jobs these guys are responsible for. They need to exist, but they also need to be controlled.
Reportgandyman | November 4 8:20am | Permalink
Snowden a hero only to "libertarian right-wingers"? Um, I think some of us left-of-centre liberals who prize our freedoms are grateful for what he has done, too. What Obama should do, perhaps, is negotiate a plea bargain with Snowden so he can go home and testify without fear of being imprisoned for life. As for treason, it's all in the eyes of the beholder. Those who fought on the rebel side of the American War of Independence were guilty of treason under English law.
ReportLeah Harvey | November 4 4:44am | Permalink
I suppose the idea was to write an article that would generate interest - rather than be a serious position - well done on that front.

Snowden has allowed oppressive regimes to justify their continued heavy handed approach to their citizens' freedoms for some time to come - that seems likely as one of the more material consequences.
Reportlennerd | November 4 4:31am | Permalink
God bless Edward Snowden and goddamn Cameron and his cronies for condemning him. Just what is he frightened of?

Snowden is obviously smarter than the bulk of university graduates and has not been conditioned by the time serving brainwashing that a degree entails. Formal credentials are vastly over-rated I should know, my wife and I and our two kids have 9 degrees between us.
ReportWonderingWhy | November 4 3:01am | Permalink
This is a tool that will never go away. It is more powerful than any other technological weapon system. It will no more be withdrawn than the drones that patrol the skies and bring death to those that pose a threat.

It has created an arms race that will only be defeated when some creates encryption to defeat the NSA.

With this technological ability to know everyone information - One government can rule them all.
ReportTR-2 | November 4 2:23am | Permalink
Like Einstein, he had the advantage of not attending a public high school, today centers of day-care and collectivist conditioning. He was a lucky kid and we are even luckier to have someone like him looking over the central thesis of our Secret Government--controlling all that government has domain, all aspects of our lives. We are doomed.
ReportJeannick | November 4 2:15am | Permalink
Edward Snowden was system administrator at the NSA Hawaiian central master server
he had access to the whole system, including security protocols, at the highest level .
ReportA_Reader | November 4 1:17am | Permalink
Dear All,

"Whether he is a scoundrel or a hero,...." + "If a high-school dropout could get hold of troves of classified information, so can many others." = A-Yes-Sir-Journalist.

The guy did what he did because he is not framed like the biggest majority of the ones who do high schools + Universities simply for doing, (99.9999% all).

High schools + Universities are / became framing organizations used to teach to be silent and to conform. The astounding majority learn how to stop thinking and to comply to what the stupid and arrogant teacher repeats along years and years..

Few, very, very few do something useful with their degrees. The others learn how to conform and to comply and in so doing get a position to defend the Establishment.

Your two lines just show the amount of prejudice we see in this Establishment newspaper.

A very long time that the FT stopped doing decent journalism.

Classy journalism is done today in only very, very few places. And one of them is The Guardian.

And BTW in the coming years the masses are going to react to what has been happening since a very long time. It is impossible that it does not happen this way.... and this time around there will be no co-opting I am afraid to say.

Best regards,

A_Reader, BTW Ph.D.
ReportWilkes World | November 4 12:04am | Permalink
Luce, you're still in diapers so don't feel offended; if you need coaching of advice call.
ReportWilkes World | November 3 11:24pm | Permalink
Snowden is a traitor to US and should face consequences.
As for US intelligence failures to anticipate 9/11 and other attacks, Mr Luce seems to be blaming the US intelligence services rather than the perpetrators, which is frankly absurd. I would rather have the USA, if occasionally overbearing, looking out for me and mine rather than say an EU secret service (non-existent and liable to be unfaithfull).
Next June will be 70 years since D Day in Normandy....and let no one be in any doubt.....
IT is the United States of America that has allowed the World and especially Europe to enjoy the fruits of peace from 1945 to 2013.
My only fear is that the Yanks may decide that the cost is too high and that Europe ain't worth the candle anymore in which case.....shall we rely on the Belgian army and the Swiss navy for protection??!!
Je crois que non....I don't think so.
ReportRaul Passos | November 3 11:22pm | Permalink
What was exposed by Snowden is precisely something that the u.s. Government should not have done. We can't forget that, before the Snowden be an employee of Government, he is also a citizen of the United States. He pays his taxes and are these taxes that keep the Government where it is.
Snowden acted as an American citizen who, outraged with the lies of a Government that claims to be democratic, has been acting more like a Government that wants to control what their nation and other nations have done.
I believe that many Americans would be startled and indignant at the same position. I also believe that many did not show these evidences for fear. Snowden had no measures. Snowden has jeopardized his career. Snowden has jeopardized their citizenship. Snowden has jeopardized his life. He knew it wouldn't be different and, therefore, has a plan that couldn't be more in the United States.
He knew the damage they will suffer, however, did not want such damages borne disproportionately on American citizens. Who are the real owners of America? Isolated decisions by Governments or their agencies, which are not supported by a nation, cannot be considered worthy of a democratic nation. After all, a democratic Government does what it wants, or what his people want?
Snowden did what he thought was right, not pactou with what was incorrect and that he didn't think worthy of the American population.
Snowden is a hero and there's no doubt about it. Snowden put its existence at risk, for believing in something that many no longer believe more: the truth. Snowden had the courage that many would like to have and no one had. Snowden put the egg whites, a u.s. Government incorrectly. Snowden has demonstrated that there are needs for reform in the form of information gathering.
The needs of reform are currently recognized by the US Government. If what Snowden displayed, really proved on need for reforms, so Snowden is innocent.
The American people will have to leave the idea that his Government's superhero. This incorrect image of a country that is in financial difficulties, political problems, proposal for senseless wars, inadequate investments in the form of unemployment and control struggles that can lead the country to a standstill. The u.s. Government, this time, it hasn't been a hero, both Democrats and Republicans alike, and this will have to be recognized. This time, the hero is beyond borders and fight against what feels wrong in your Government and exposes the real needs of change. This hero is Snowden.
ReportJerryFrey | November 3 10:37pm | Permalink
Snowden helped the Russians and the Chinese, not US...

http://napoleonliv...d-snowden-dossier/
ReportKirk Neuner | November 3 10:15pm | Permalink
Sirs,

I am an ardent reader of the FT, the best daily publication in English of which I'm aware. Thus, Mr. Luce's ill advised assertion that Edward Snowden "has done 'us' a good turn" is shocking. Mr. Snowden violated his employment agreement and security clearance, is a criminal and a traitor to the United States, and must be captured and prosecuted. It appears that Mr. Luce may have let events since Mr. Snowden's treason color his views. Popular opinion of Kim Philby, too, was undecided until Anatoliy Golitsyn confirmed Mr. Philby was a Soviet spy and the "third man." In contrast, there is no disputing that Mr. Snowden disclosed classified details of top-secret U.S., Israeli, and British government surveillance programs to the press and thus to the enemies of those Western democratic states. U.S. authorities have charged him with espionage and theft of government property. The FT should not side with the ultra-libertarians who wish to make Mr. Snowden a martyr in the now global, privacy versus security versus states' rights debate. Look, I happen to agree with Mr. Snowden's views on Dick Cheney. That doesn't change the fact that be betrayed his country and must be brought to justice in the U.S. for that act of treason.
Reportragingwave | November 3 9:41pm | Permalink
"There is also its extraordinary litany of domestic abuses" - tell us more! This fleeting reference does nothing to repair the media's suppression of information about COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence programme) that sent legions of agent provocateurs into trade unions, civil rights and anti-war organisations...
But the extraordinary litany of abuses around the world get no mention in Luce's soap-suds. Abuses like setting up death squads in Central America, Indonesia, Colombia and dozens of other locations, then giving them lists of people to torture, rape, mutilate and then kill. 'Abuses' like overthrowing elected governments and installing sadistic thugs... Why do liberals shut their eyes, pinch their noses, cover their ears and ignore this 'extraordinary litany'? This ostensibly enlightened article is in fact part of the continuing cover-up - and I'm not suggesting the existence of a conspiracy, but of a pathology.
ReportMusso | November 3 9:20pm | Permalink
"For a whole generation, the US is coming to stand for Big Brother"??? Really ?!? Then also the UK, Germany, Sweden, France & Spain they all stand for Little Brothers ... http://www.theguar...rveillance-snowden
Reportclowns to the left of me, jokers to the right | November 3 9:03pm | Permalink
@SSL

Do yourself a favor, and reach your hands around to the back of your head and see if you can find the scar where they implanted the chip in your brain. It would be interesting to know if it goes back to your birth or is more recent.

@PAUL A MYERS

No reasonable person is saying that we don't have to conduct clandestine operations and gather intelligence. I'm sure Edward Snowden would never suggest such a thing. But anybody who thinks that there are not people in the NSA or the US federal government (or other governments) who are not going to abuse this power to advance their own interests is exhibiting such a child level of naivete, I can't think of what to say to them except that they should maybe go back to grade school for a few years--except that they don't teach lessons like this in school.

All you need to do for a very recent example of abuse of power, in the good ol' US of A, is to remember the neocons in the Bush presidency. Here we had a very, very, narrow interest group who were able to hijack the US government to pursue their own ends, in opposition to most of the global population, including the US electorate (at least once the lies they had told were revealed), and commit one of the greatest heists (the invasion of Iraq) in history. And they did this in plain sight. They didn't even try to hide it.

Don't think there aren't plenty of other people just like them in the current power structure, just because, unlike the neocons, they have the good sense to stay in the shadows.

Whether you agree with him or you don't someone had to do what Snowden did. Without it being revealed just how deep and wide the intelligence gathering had gotten, their could never be any accountability, and without accountability, there will be no check on the power of these people. The debate being had over this now would not have been possible without this leak.
ReportMichael McPhillips | November 3 8:45pm | Permalink
Eavesdropping on suspected terrorists is one thing and understandable if the purpose is to prevent crimes and acts of terror but on heads of state, one can only conclude that looking for political or economic advantage or dirt is the motive. We read that the President wants peace in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that he okays drone attacks yet the attack that killed the Taliban chief Mehsud while engaged in peace talks, according to the Pakistan President has destroyed the peace process. One can ask how intel knew where he was and how it didn't know about the peace talks while the state department official seemed to disown the talks when stating that they were a Pakistani matter. This does indicate that some in the Whitehouse want out of the Middle East while others in the state department don't. If the latter control the military and intelligence they control expenditure too.

Edward Snowden seems to have sacrificed a lot by going public and to assume that he is not sincere and patriotic given the abuses - and let's not be ambiguous about that, they are serious abuses of trust and violations of freedom and privacy rights - we have therefore to judge on the facts and exposing wrongdoings is what is expected of all those working for government since they pursue such wrongs with determination when they are committed outside government. He therefore was doing his job and acting in the government's best interests. Anyone in government engaged in war activities has to have the highest authority to do so and anyone doing so without that authority is a danger to the public. If a peace process is deliberately sabotaged the cost to America is enormous and measured in billions of dollars at least given the monthly cost of being in Afghanistan - $10 billion? So, how many individuals have the authority to delay departure? A few trillion dollars have already being spent yet who knows how or why? Anyone seeing this happening and unable to make sense of it has a problem. If there is nowhere he can take it what is he to do?

If that's what Mr Snowden was faced with in his section must we conclude that acting on abuse information and decision making is not what it should be in the military or the administrative structures, which also seems to indicate that where the buck stops is a secret to all who have to pass it as part of their daily duties. When we see government chasing banks for millions and billions out of necessity and see those same sums multiplied three or four fold in the Middle East expenditure from decisions and military actions that make no economic or security sense we are left to conclude that special interests are at work and not for patriotic reasons. Snowden had everything to lose and lost it. America too has everything to lose and is losing it daily because information technology can do everything it wants to from creating incidents to depicting them, to choosing the actors, activists, and victims, and presenting the lot to the media electronically in the necessary form to obtain the required result from the public and from governments.
ReportPAUL A MYERS | November 3 8:20pm | Permalink
I would happily sign up for 10,000 more units of surveillance to get 1 less unit of drone attack. I would like to have more knowledge about people and less physical attack on people--less death, less maiming. There are bad people out in the world and they want to kill and maim people--I see it in the newspapers everyday--and I think it is uber-legitimate for governments to find out as much about these people as they can to forestall further deaths of innocents. Trade offs between loss of "privacy" and real deaths of real innocents--I find that a hard bargain to argue for.
ReportSSL | November 3 7:42pm | Permalink
He may have done you a big favor - all he has done is betray a trust which he previously agreed to.
He is bankrupt of personal values and beliefs. It all begins with the individual. He may think himself to be 'big brother'.
ReportDistant observer | November 3 7:41pm | Permalink
Hmmm.... a very different spin to the really shameful Establishment propaganda the FT's editorial writer was putting out a month or two ago, when Snowden was in Hong Kong, and later in Russia - condemning Snowden as an indefensible traitor, coward, etc., etc.

Those editorials read like they were written by the NSA - and I recall a pretty hostile reception to them from readers.

I have yet to hear or read a single interview of responsible parties in the NSA who actually force them to answer straight questions - such as: 'How many US citizens' phone conversations has the NSA recorded over the last year?'

I think you'd find - in the highly unlikely event that that ever came to be known - that the figure would be enormous; but since no one is ever likely to be able to find out the truth, I suspect the NSA will avoid giving any real answers to questions - no matter true or false - because they probably just don't know what information Snowden downloaded from their systems, and thus would be scared that revelations yet to come would contradict any clearly-defined statements they make about their interception activities.

The sad fact of the matter is that the interception industry is now a vast one in the US - and once that happens in the military-industrial complex, it becomes self-perpetuating, with too many jobs, too much power, and too much money depending on its continued growth.

Thus, I don't think anyone should realistically expect to see any reduction in US electronic interception in the future.

After all, even in the very unlikely event that any sufficiently powerful politicians actually wanted to limit this monster's power and activities, how would anyone know whether the NSA was in fact abiding by any rules that it sought to impose on them? They answer is that they wouldn't.

And for an industry so well-equipped to learn everything there is to learn about anyone's lives in which they take an interest, and to find whatever skeletons are buried there, what politician would really want to take them on, when blackmail material on policy-makers must be one of the most valuable and powerful assets that the NSA collects?
ReportL'anziano | November 3 7:29pm | Permalink
I actually hope that the rest of the world will stop thinking of America as some sort of 'global standard for democracy'. It is too high a standard to be met, especially when everyone, from the hard-core left to the wacky right, has their own ideal of what America should do to lead by example. When that standard isn't met, we get innumerable column writers, under-30's, and otherwise grumpy naysayers bemoaning the 'fall of American democracy'.The sooner everyone realises America is simply another country (albeit usually a hell of a lot more powerful than others) acting in its own self-interests, the better. I hope America's recently re-discovered mineral wealth will enable it to withdraw from certain corners of the world - not to be isolationist, but simply to let the rest of the world get on without American 'interference' for awhile and see how it likes it.
Reportthe white rabbit | November 3 7:27pm | Permalink
Hear hear
ReportBMR | November 3 7:20pm | Permalink
The central force that kept the US on a straight path after World War II was the Cold War and the East-West existential confrontation. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the US did not take too long to fall apart in its own merry ways.
Report1776 | November 3 6:52pm | Permalink
This is a topic that both left and right should be able to find common ground on (except for Imperialist like John McCain). History is replete with one side using dictatorial powers only to have it rebound on themselves later. Every "friend of the people" benevolent dictator like Caesar is ultimately followed by a Nero. We balance cost & benefit for certain freedoms (driving/drunk drivers, 2nd amendment/shootings) why should it be different with privacy?
ReportGreek taxpayer | November 3 6:36pm | Permalink
"If a high-school dropout could get hold of troves of classified information, so can many others."
Did he simply download it or did someone help him access it? It's already been questioned how a high-school dropout with no degree could get this job.

"But eavesdropping on Pakistan’s military should continue to be a no-brainer."
Do you think Mr Snowden would agree?

"Corrosion of trust between allies and between governments and citizens can breed all sorts of unforeseen consequences."
And this is what Snowden, Greenwald, Assange, et al want to see.

"Why, then, does Mr Obama want to put Mr Snowden behind bars?"
Does he? I thought he just wanted him to return to the US for there to be an inquiry and if it is deemed Snowden may have broken any laws then he would be tried for that and if he's found guilty then the court would decide the sentence.

"We should be grateful that Mr Snowden came forward."
Because all the libertarian right-wingers who hate "government" have found their hero?