What snowden released went well beyond that. He gave up critical information used against countries like Russia. He exposed way more than just the spying on US citizens. He gave out secrets of how we conduct intelligence gathering on our adversaries, that we need to be gathering intelligence on. Operations that were 100% not on US soil, (which the NSA and CIA aren't even allowed to operate on, though the Patriot Act somewhat redefined that), and operations that were 100% not involving US citizens, (which most intelligence gathering doesn't.
When Snowden published information about the government surveiling it's own citizens, which you should have known since the patriot act, he was being a hero. Until then people wanted to keep their head in the sand and deny that the government was going to use the patriot act the way those of us who protested it said they would.
When Snowden published stuff about the government spying on foreign assets, he became a traitor to our country. We spy on other people? NO FUCKING SHIT, that's what it's call intelligence agencies. He did immense damage to national security and the safety of the free world.
People have argued, well maybe we shouldn't be spying at all, well maybe ,but for now EVERYONE does it, and it's part of avoiding major wars. Sure, I would rather live in a star Trek universe, but for now we don't, and this didn't help that. Every country spies on each other.
But it was never ok to spy on our own citizens, and that needs to prevented in the future. Remember that the next time something like the patriot act comes up.
Our Republican controlled government is so shady. We just had the biggest corruption case in years. They are changde the language on an upcoming ballot to try to make them fail. They ignored court orders and forced us to use Unconstitutional gerrymandered districts.
The US had no support to set foot in Iraq. The UN mandate was to remove Iraq from Kuwait, no more, no less. If the auS set foot on Iraqi soil, it would be going alone, and in violation of the UN.
Afghanistan was NOT under false pretenses. The entire world stood besides the US for that. It was Iraq that was false pretenses and much of the world did not support that, and as it went on the ones that did, quickly stopped supporting it.
Thats the entire world anymore. Everyone wants to make wall street happy, and those assholes are more addicted to money than cocaine. There is no long term planning anymore, everything is next quarter's profits. It is what is killing capitalism, short term greed.
Rolling Stone published a great article a few years back from a former trader, talked about how he got out of college, was super happy when he got his first bonus worth $100K. A few years later, he was mad, lividly pissed, his bonus was on a couple million, and not more.
I demand trump write a full page ad in the NYT apologizing to America and the world for being such a douchebag racist asshole, and fucking everything up. And then proceed to jail.
In normal times, his ass would have been long impeached and removed. Unfortunately, we have been beyond normal times for years. Normal times officially died in 2000. The repeal of equal time clause and Gingrich were the two mortal wounds.
What snowden released went well beyond that. He gave up critical information used against countries like Russia. He exposed way more than just the spying on US citizens. He gave out secrets of how we conduct intelligence gathering on our adversaries, that we need to be gathering intelligence on. Operations that were 100% not on US soil, (which the NSA and CIA aren't even allowed to operate on, though the Patriot Act somewhat redefined that), and operations that were 100% not involving US citizens, (which most intelligence gathering doesn't.