Snowden Leaked Information on Illegal Government Activities

I don't know why Americans tolerate their rights to privacy and anonymity to be violated by the US government and US corporations, but we do.  Edward Snowden, the NSA-contracted employee who leaked vast amounts of information regarding illegal, unconstitutional, and criminal activity perpetrated against United States citizens has been vilified by the Obama administration and just about every institutional organization except the Salvation Army and the Red Cross (even those organizations may not think too highly of Snowden, but I'm not going to ask them for comment because I don't give a shit about what the Salvation Army or the Red Cross think about anything).

When the US government violates the laws of the United States, it is no less a criminal organization than the Mafia or murderous drug cartels ... the US government just gets away with their crimes more often.

I'm not saying that efforts against foreign and domestic terrorism aren't vital to the safekeeping of any nation.  I'm saying that secret courts, or courts with no oversight that have only nominal transparency, are not really courts.  In a court an accused has the right to a defense, to demand specific charges be proved before a jury of his peers before he or she is convicted, and that prosecutors abide by the laws of evidence and the legal procedures outlined in the US criminal code for obtaining that evidence.  Metadata collecting and spying on every keystroke of every e-mail of every US citizen doesn't count as abiding by the law, secret courts or "star chambers" aside.

Bush, Jr. started this nonsense and Barrack Obama -- despite sensible campaign promises to "protect" Americans' liberties -- has expanded illegal surveillance and data collection.  The Obama administration's bullshit claim that they have reviewed and augmented any "perceived" transgressions by the NSA is clearly the same as when a John says he'll only come on a hooker's face and then, at the last minute, rams his red-white-and-blue cock into her mouth to spew endless metadata spermatozoa into her gullible, toothless mouth.  (Sorry, I know that's crudely over-the-top and, perhaps, the worst mixed simile in the history of mixed similes -- perhaps someone should contact the Guinness Book of World Records.  It's just that I feel very profane when I'm super-disgusted with the actions of the government of my country.)

Terrorism can be fought legitimately, successfully, vigorously by using legal investigation techniques.  Domestic spying on all US citizens under the fear-mongering specious claim that unless the government has access to all information on every US or foreign citizen in the world it cannot effectively stop America from being turned inside out.  Illegal wiretapping and warrant-less e-mail gathering and keystroke-recording of the internet is not an anti-terrorist activity.  It is an egregious violation of FDR's "Four Freedoms."  There is no excuse, no rationalization, that can negate the brutal reality that the United States government has unleashed a propaganda machine to weaken our nation, to make us more susceptible to the pernicious virus of authoritarian paranoia under the disingenuous auspices of national "security."

Cyber attacks on our nation's massive computer network by foreign enemies and terrorists has only been encouraged by our government's mishandling of the basic human principal of privacy.  We are not guaranteed privacy by the US Constitution -- that is true -- but we are guaranteed by the constitution that intrusions into our homes, into our private castles, by the government be done legally, with warrants and reasonable suspicion and probable cause -- and intrusions into these sanctuaries must be justified and we must be able, as private citizens, to challenge any intrusion into these domains through open courts.

The US government has put the nation at much greater risk than the US government can ever legitimately claim Edward Snowden ever did by leaking information regarding illegal covert activities.  It has put our rights at risk, and once all our rights are at risk, our lives and security are meaningless.  The government's jihad against American privacy and the concept of privacy as an element of human rights, fundamental as any liberty, is something that must be ended ... through the justice system, through voting out supporters of warrant-less eavesdropping ... a jihad, of course, without violence.  A democratic and secular jihad.  Call your congressman/woman and senator today (or, if you're hungover from a night of alcoholic/cocaine-fueled debauchery with a toothless hooker, do it tomorrow) and let them know that being an American means being free before it means being "safe" from terrorists.