Snowden Is Slowly Emerging as a True American Patriot

The US government is trying to get a hold of Edward Snowden to put him on trial for revealing 'national secrets'. Mind you, that the 'national secrets' were collected with the help of a secret court and using secret methods so that we would not have been able to find anything about them until who knows when...

Snowden did us 'an unprecedented solid' by revealing the true magnitude and deviousness of the US spying capabilities as well as the fact that the NSA could spy on anybody, anytime, on any channel, and for whatever reason they wanted. It was a total black secret, so who cared?

It was clear to me from day one of this saga that Snowden is a true national hero, but it took the media and the American people a few months to pretty much realize the same thing and I am thrilled about that. I am literally jumping up and down as I am typing this entry.

A federal judge ruled unequivocally that what the NSA is currently doing is totally illegal and unconstitutional and I could not agree with him more. We are lame ducks and guinea pigs in an unprecedented experiment in which the government is capturing and monitoring every single electronic communication move we make.

The current, NSA led, spying activities on our citizens are not only dangerous for the entire society as it stymies the freedom of speech and can destroy legitimate business initiatives but it could also be totally disastrous for our democracy should an unscrupulous president be elected.

A legitimately elected president (turned rogue while in office) could cherry pick individuals -in Congress or not yet in Congress- he wanted to blackmail and ask the NSA for secret reports on them 'on national defense grounds'. He could then blackmail them at will to get to, for instance, pass any laws he wanted. How would the NSA be able to deny such requests when the FISA court rulings are 100% secret and can be easily influenced by the president?

Reforming the NSA and government spying are badly needed. I was reading some ideas generated by a panel selected by the WH to reform the government spying activities and it would be great to have all of them implemented right away. The funny thing is that the president will decide what the next steps are and this is infuriating as the current spying programs and methods were created by the NSA and they should be dismantled by the courts. Their replacement should come from congress action and not just from the executive branch.