This would be true if the voters knew what the hell the government was doing in their name. Without transparent government, democracy is impossible.
Sure. Besides health records and the like, there’s troop locations, undercover operations, battle plans, etc. Specific details. They should only be kept secret for as long as necessary to prevent harming people, e.g., until the battle is over. Notice Snowden didn’t release names of CIA operatives or leak battle plans.
Large scale policies, like “fight a cyberwar with Iran” or “read every American’s text messages without a warrant” should never be secret, because that is the information the American people need to make educated decisions at the voting booth. Otherwise, they’re not citizens, but subjects.
The administration has shot it down at every opportunity, though. And the NSA isn’t really considering it as far as we know. I’m wondering if they just threw the idea out there to make themselves look reasonable.
I wonder, though, if this could be a campaign issue for the next election. If any candidate pledges support for Snowden I could imagine the others will feel similar pressure.
The general election campaign is two to two and a half years away. NSA spying on the public will probably still being an issue, but by then Snowden is either going to get asylum from Brazil or somewhere else, get captured and locked up, or (just to cover my bases) get some kind of clemency.
I can only imagine a fringe candidate “supporting” Snowdon. Too much vulnerability to throwing your active support behind someone who is an admitted criminal.
Why not? I could quote any number of other publications, too. Over at The New Yorker, Amy Davidson weighed in against a recent conservative argument that Snowden isn’t comparable to the draft dodgers who were granted clemency. I agree with her that in fact he is; and indeed is arguably the more altruistic. At the most basic level, both broke the law, and both defended themselves with the claim of having done so in a larger national interest. Yet one could argue that draft dodgers had self-serving interests, too, whereas Snowden put himself in great personal jeopardy for no apparent gain.