That's because former Vice President Dick Cheney and former CIA and National Security Agency head Michael Hayden said the government's reliance on data collection from both Americans and foreign nationals was constitutional and carefully overseen by executive, legislative and court authorities. How reassuring.
They have and are utilizing the most powerful propaganda machine in the history of the world, television.

I'm surprised they trotted out the BIG DICK for damage control. Does anyone listen to what he says anymore? Someone must think so. You'll know they are really starting to sweat when they drag out Zbigniew Brzezinski or Henry Kissinger to try to save the day.

You really need to get past the partisan mind set on things like this. Didn't you post a photo shopped pic of Obama that kinda looked like Bush on some thread lately? I thought you might be connecting the dots when you did that,If this country is going to change the path to a fascist police state we are on we all need to put the partisan politics ,that are dividing us, aside and focus on the real threat and that is corruption of our government by mega $ interests.

They are Democrats and Republicans until they are called upon to do the bidding of the richest top .01% at which time they are on the same team. No national politician gets into a key position who is not vetted by this shadow government of the .01%. With the unconstitutional surveillance system that is set up, and being greatly expanded upon, becoming exposed to the light of day the labels of Democrat and Republican are meaningless when applied to those politicians protecting the system. Right now the spying is being justified as defense against foreign enemys but as more and more people become aware of how bad we are being screwed by the criminals that really run this country, Americans will become the enemy that needs to be dealt with and this surveillance system will be invaluable to the few that want to keep the system so much in their favor.

Oh, that's choice.

I suspect he signed some paperwork that forbid him from being a loud mouth about his work. That being the case he is in violation of his oath.
Send Bourne after him.
Tis always amusing that the electorate places the movers and shakers in office and then acts surprised at their behavior.

Personally I don't believe him to be a national hero, and to rank him with
Benedict Arnold does the shade of Arnold a disservice.

Benedict Arnold tried to sell Westpoint to the British.

Snowden blew the whistle on a domestic spying operation that goes thru every level of Gov including the WH, Congress and SCOTUS.

Wee bit of difference!

As for all the news of late I've come to the conclusion that non-Americans have two choices. Either come to America and expedite it's demise from within or stay were you are and get murdered by a Drone Strike!

My native Poland is looking pretty appealing right about now!!

Lol!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnMPQmIPibE

That...was pretty good.

Fish on...

Todd

I heard a cool thing on the radio the other day. It's unlikely the gov't. will give up on snooping cuz that's just not how gov'ts. work. So what we Americans can do is make the gov'ts. surveilance irrelevant. Make sure you include words like terror, terrorism, pipe bomb, dirty bomb, etc. sprinkled throughout each and every phone call you make. If even one million Americans will do this, NSA will grind to a complete halt when the computers mark all these phone calls for follow up checks. Use those words in every email you send as well. Help the wheels of surveilance collapse under its own weight and grind to a halt.

UP THE REVOLUTION!!

good thing the moon isnt on there...

Right after the first private citizen to citizen phone call was made, somebody was listening in illegally.
Why is this new revelation a surprise?
It didn't take the real terrorists long to figure out someone was listening.

'Tis a shame. Snowden should be making the TV and speaking rounds in the US as a free whistleblower who doesn't have to worry about trumped up charges and being locked up by a government that thinks it can and should be able to criminally violate citizen rights. I mean this is really simple. If the US gov't. doesn't want people blowing this whistle, all it has to do is refrain from violating its citizens' constitutional rights. A few things are this simple.

Hank,

I guess it depends on what the secrets are that he gave to foreign gov'ts. If it was the "secret" that the US gov't is spying on everyone, I don't begrudge him that. If it was strategic intelligence other than PRISM and phone call meta data that undermines US security, then that's a different conversation.

Sg

There are two things that jump out at me regarding Snowden and this situation.

The first is that I'm amazed anybody would ever again think that Government is competent at anything they do. Some of the countries deepest, darkest secrets walked out of the country in the briefcase of a contract worker?? And we think they are competent at running ____________ too?? Not only can this Government not keep an eye on their own spies/analyst's they can't even find a way to get them on the payroll! Boy that just gives me a warm/fuzzy.

The second thing is this line of Congress members screaming bloody murder about what a traitor this guy is. Don't they realize that this type of spying/data collection could just as easily be used against them as it could against any of us? Is their hubris so large that they think an embedded organization couldn't use their power against those who only have the job for four to six years? If I where to base my whole campaign on getting rid of the NSA and repeal the PA how far do you think I'd make it before my skeletons where "leaked" out to the whole world?

This whole thing is just another example of Gov governing from election to election without anyone looking at the big picture or where we will be at as a nation in 5, 10 or 20 years from now!!!

Hank, Where is there proof of this other than the talking heads on TV expressing concern that he MAY share info with other countries? IMO that topic is part of the Snowden misinformation/smearjob campaign.