Don't let the local Hitler Youth get your goat. Most of them just ape what they hear on the right-wing media with little understanding of the issues. But they have a point on Snowdon that is unrelated to right-wing politics. There are two issues here that I think you are conflating. One is the legitimacy of the NSA domestic spying. I tend to cut them some slack on this in the absences of evidence that they did anything with the data except to find terrorists, which requires some extraordinary measures. Congress needs to create more judicial oversight for it to assure that the data is not being abused or leaked to those who might abuse it. The other issue is about Snowden illegally leaking classified information. Lots of it. Very sensitive classified information that hurt the US internationally. Even if the public did have the right to know this, what he did was wrong and very criminal, endangering the nation and many of its citizens. He could have taken that information to the Congressional oversight committees instead of releasing it publicly. Then Snowden fled to our enemies China and now Russia rather than pleading his case in the US courts. Heaven knows what he leaked to them. Russia does not need him or trust him and they want him gone. He wants out of Russia, which is not a pleasant place to live with no money. But the idea that he could return here and walk away with a suspended sentence is ludicrous. He made the choice to break his oaths and the law and he will be doing serious time in federal prison when he returns.
Godwin sighting. This is it pretty much and FTR LaSalle, you dope smoking hippie, my post was tongue in cheek.
You have to wonder about that guy. He was living in Hawaii making $200K a year doing work that was probably very interesting. He had a good looking girlfriend. What more could he want? Now he lives in Moscow and stands in long lines to buy his bread, borsht and a sack of potatoes on whatever pittance the Russians dole out to him. He is a criminal and a traitor in his own country.
