A criminal committing a crime, is criminal.
Somebody revealing the crime, is not.
Snowden nevertheless miscalculated his choice for Hongkong maybe, although he hopes to finally end up in Iceland. His revelations not only reveal how far the surveillance state already is reality in the US (and the US monitoring all the globe), but they could also be painful for other states who are accomplice sin crime or running excessive surveillance themselves. If china is one such candidate, they might not want to to give him political asyl, but want to hand him over and have the US lock him and throwing away the key.
I wish Snowden well. Hopefully he made his homework on the Chinese.
For careless ordinary citizens this hopefully is a wakeup call to realise to what degree the total surveillance state already is reality. And since not only priovate people get overheared, but the ifnrasturcture gets used on everybody, we inevitably also talk about economic and industrial espionage as well. Knowing what the manmagers of a foreign company talk on the oh so well protected phone before meeting Americans in a business negotiation, can be worth millions and millions of dollars for the american side. It's like playing poker with marked cards.
And lets have no illusions. Not only will those data never be deleted, but they also will be used and abuse outside ans counter terrorism context. Just a question of time. The state never executes self-restraint, the state always wants more and more and more control and its citizens being naked, made of glass, pinned under the states microscope from the cradle to the grave.
The dream of the totalitarian dictatorships of the past century, and the secret polices of theirs, finally has come true. Of course we must allow getting told again and again that it all is just for our best. Yeah, sure. And the data is safe with almighty father state. Yeah sure. And there is laws and regulations. Yeah sure. And anti terror is the only motivation and there will be checks and balances against abuse. Yes, if I get some brain surgery done on myself, then I will believe all that, yes I will.
The Gestapo in the Third Reich acted on the basis of laws, too. So did the Stasi in the DDR that spied on its own people, and the KGB in the USSR. And yes, the White Rose indeed was illegal, from laws' point of view. Good that they caught them!
Our forefathers have been told the same bull last century, too. Now its our turn to swallow all that.
Morality and legality are two totally different things. And the modern states' morals can no longer be trusted.
Snowden acted on basis of his conscience, and by a moral argument that I find no reasonable way to argue with. He pays a high price and does not give me the impression to have done it for fame or to boast with it. I wish him well and that this under the circumstances he now is in will come to the best possible end for him. But I fear the opposite will become true. Many Americans will call fore revenge and retaliation.
This is a confused state of mind, because the rage should be directed against the state and against the shadow it casts over the people in the US, and outside the US.
A simpe question:
WHO MONITORS THE MONITORS, if the people do not even know they get monitored? And is a society where checks and balances fail, really free and "democratic"?
The answer to the latter can only be "No".
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And now back to my letter to Oberon.
