So you're simply saying the ends justify the means. Okay. Let's note this sanctioned Machiavellianism for future reference.

@1 Thanks for declaring your allegiance to the anti-constitutionalists.

This is a simple matter, really: Snowden has done us all a great public service, while the NSA are documented liars both in their attempts to discredit Snowden and in their attempts to deny their own lawbreaking. Who really deserves the benefit of the doubt here, and who must provide evidence to back up their claim?

I want to agree, but I dunno Paul - isn't that like saying, "if the NSA suspects wrongdoing, they should be able to steal your password and spy on you"? Your logic seems to be flawed in that context. I want to agree with you, but it's kind of a catch 22, no?

A reminder for idiots like Mr. Mehlman:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Snowden's character, and whether he stole a password or not, are a different story, a different matter entirely.

The only reason this is coming up is to distract people.

And reading comments @1, 2, 4, & 5, their distraction worked.

"Don't talk about this mess here people... we'd rather have you talk about this other mess instead. Yeah, that's right, just ignore this mess over here."

@ 3 Its anti constitution when the SCOTUS says so supreme law of the land right?

This guy is no hero

@ 6 4th amendment is not absolute there are national security exceptions.

@4 see @6 (minus the idiocy comment). Individuals are* afforded protections from the gov't by the 4th Amendment in a way government agencies are not.

*your results may vary

The part no one seems to be willing to pull front and center is that Snowden managed to get anything out of the NSA at all. The reason the spymasters are so up in arms is that this little pimple on an ant's butt has managed to globally embarrass them. I am possessed of the same feeling about the NSA I had when I realized Bush & Co. and their Iraq plans were not a cabal of evil geniuses but merely a collection of idiots who apparently didn't even consider the possible bad outcomes of starting a war that didn't go precisely the way they planned.
Edward Snowden is not a Bond villain nor is he some sort of master spy, Manchurian sleeper agent chimera. Edward Snowden is an average or slightly above average tech head who got a job that for some reason gave him access to information that shouldn't have existed in the first place (whether he used someone else's password is irrelevant; anyone with more than two minutes experience in cyber security knows that the weak link is always human nature) and if it did should have been locked down carefully. There are people a lot smarter, more tech savvy, and higher in the NSA org chart than Snowden who are working for China, Russia, the UK, and the EU (probably Australia and India as well). What have they extracted and shared?

You just deputized the internet to break whatever rules they want to if it goes to their "core beliefs."

I'm not saying that this isn't ultimately a good thing. But Snowden committed fraud in order to advance his goals. If he feels he can justify these actions with the results, fine. But he needs to do that in front of judge and jury. Lawlessness will not advance anybody's rights.

In the end, you're still being spied on in violation of the US Constitution.

Which should mean the NSA gets disbanded and the top spies go to prison for life or are executed.

Period.

I thought the really important shit was only accessible by a combination of retinal, fingerprint, and voice scans? That's what they showed me in the movies.

Snowden should've needed to murder someone to get such access. It should'ce required him to hold up an eyeball on a toothpick, rake a severed hand across some backlit scanner device, and then play a hifidelity recording of his closest workmate saying 'Identify: Jim'.

...and only weeks ago we learned that the US nuclear strike go code was '000000000'. Might as well have been 'password'.

More to the point, accessing the details of fifty billion a year of black budget programs required nothing more than stealing a password. These clowns brag about all their gets, but were got in the most simple ways imaginable.

Snowden isn't even half the story. Foriegn agents don't trumpet their finds. China and Russia have had contractors at the NSA for years feeding them this level of access. Corporate espionage has been sold to the highest bidder.

18: So, are you going to perform the honorary Snowden suck off when he gets back?

18 & 21: Sorry, that was uncalled for.

@16 That is debatable. This is likely going to the Supreme Court.

@16: Part of the issue is that the secret FISA court (that allows them to do what they do) has been accused of being a rubber stamp. 1,856 approvals to 1,856 requests in 2012 does seem to support that notion.

And isn't "federal judiciary" a contradiction in terms?

I wasn't going to comment until I read @14. "Lawlessness will not advance anybody's rights." I haven't blurted out laughter with such force in quite sometime.

Please google civil disobedience before anymore absurd, albeit amusing, comments.

I've used co-workers passwords before. You have to account it to an IP address and a location of someone. All the spy equipment in the world and they can't even verify beyond "he used a password" this thug group is fucking pathetic. These are the hackers from the hackers movie, which is a documentary, don't hack their Gibson people, these are EXPERTS.

@26: What, by sniffing network packets? If a the secure sockets layer protocol is used (HTTPS), the password cannot be ascertained.

@28 wow, what a straw man argument.

We are questioning his methods and finding them justified. That is what this post and the comment section have mostly been about.

Not terribly surprising, but there are quite a few right-wing authoritarian bootlickers on this thread.

Perhaps more interesting are the number of left-wing authoritarian bootlickers on other threads. Seems that, for many people, massive government power is fine as long as it's for your cause.

Just an interesting, if unsurprising, observation.

@7 -- I was just thinking something along that line when I read comment #1. "If Snowden hadn't [allegedly] stolen that password, then none of the nefarious wrongdoing he exposed would be true. So all that nefarious wrongdoing is obviously Snowden's fault!"

@27: It has definitely been awhile. It was only one semester in senior year of high school, but I got an A, so take that for what you will. I've never heard anyone use the phrase before you, but I realize now that I was somehow registering "executive judiciary," even when typing it myself. *shrug*

No luck on finding an answer to the other things I brought up, then?