AND he only did so after the "proper channel" for whistle blowing, his internal superiors, told him to shut the fuck up.
I feel this always needs to be said. The United States has a lot of slogans and posters about integrity and ethics for a nation that has neither in practice.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
― Anatole France
Thanks for reiterating this and posting a source. Every time I see an article on Snowden year over year, someone brings up the tired old "argument" that because he is now trapped in Russia, that somehow makes everything he did "wrong", and invalidates everything he exposed the government for doing. The media campaign against him was apparently quite effective, and these soundbites are ever ready to jump out of people's mouths without any research or critical thinking.
...Leaked to a reputable member of the fourth estate to decide what was safe to report. Do you disagree with the founders of the United States about the importance of the fourth estate's role in keeping leadership honest?
The only other steps short of that would have been to either quit and shut the fuck up or continue participating and shut the fuck up.
Sounds like you just wanted him to shut the fuck up about your freedoms being eroded by the government that's supposed to protect them.
I don't believe willful ignorance is a defensible position, ever.
It very much is, if the offense is egregious. And the NSA spying on everyone and their employees trading nudes the NSA collected very much is egregious. And to make it sound like he just dumped the raw leaks does not make your argument seem more credible.
The security breach was the NSA letting anyone fiddle with the data. They should be thankful Snowden leaked them instead of a foreign intelligence service listening in for years unnoticed.
Except it's exactly what David Grusch did, with no proof, and yet we have multiple oversight hearings and amendments to the defense authorization, and he made international news
I think we can all agree that Greenwald is an idiot.
IMO Snowden probably chose him because a. he wrote for The Guardian, b. he was publically critical of the Iraq war and c. he is politically on the right.