> Snowden didn't just blindly dump everything he could get regardless of the consequences.
Snowden leaked information about NSA surveillance of foreign persons not on US soil - that kind of activity is explicitly within the NSA's core mission and the legal framework around it. I'll leave aside any debate of the domestic programs - he very definitely did expose entirely legal secret activities. That's either careless or malicious.
I’m honestly not sure if I missed something. I’ve been under the impression that he gave all the files to journalists and let them be the judge of what’s relevant. Sometimes things go beyond domestic vs international - because it’s someone else’s domestic surveillance and if that someone is an ally it’s at least a tiny bit problematic and worthy of review.
> I’ve been under the impression that he gave all the files to journalists and let them be the judge of what’s relevant.
That would mean he wasn't careful at all, having outsourced the selection of what data to make public to a 3rd party.
> Sometimes things go beyond domestic vs international - because it’s someone else’s domestic surveillance and if that someone is an ally it’s at least a tiny bit problematic and worthy of review.
Everybody does this with everyone, allies and enemies alike, and doing so is a matter of state foreign policy. This type of activity is exactly what the NSA is charted for. We've reviewed this stuff in writing the laws that charter the agency and govern it's activity.
Snowden revealed warrantless wiretapping of US citizens, not just foreign nationals. Unlike WikiLeaks he reviewed each document before release to attempt to minimize harm.
I'm not sure why you're bringing up a completely tangential topic, even as you seemingly agree with the core point I made: Snowden revealed information about completely and indisputably legal intelligence activities.
I rather think that revealing that our government is violating our 4th amendment rights is worth whatever minor harm it may have done to our ability to spy on our allies. I don't think you can reveal something like PRISM being used domestically without also revealing it's non-domestic applications. You think foreign intelligence agencies can't do the math on what it means for the NSA to have unfettered access to places like Google?
Also legal does not mean moral.
Your free to disagree, but my opinion is that Snowden did the American people a public service, and put clear effort into minimizing the damage. It's not some unambiguous knight in shining armor situation, but more of a shades of grey situation where in my opinion the good outweighed the harm.
Snowden leaked information about NSA surveillance of foreign persons not on US soil - that kind of activity is explicitly within the NSA's core mission and the legal framework around it. I'll leave aside any debate of the domestic programs - he very definitely did expose entirely legal secret activities. That's either careless or malicious.