printThose who are not suspended in the moral abyss with mainstream media already know that Edward Joseph Snowden is the best of America. (Included in the septic mainstream are the interchangeable females on a Fox News idiot’s extravaganza called ‘The Five.’ Said a nimble mind by the name of Andrea Tarantula: ‘If the [National Security Agency] are competent with my information; they can have it.'”)
“At 29, Snowden upended the National Security Agency on its own turf,” heroically bringing to light how—contrary to the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, in particular—the NSA had instituted “a global surveillance system that cast off many of its historical restraints after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Secret legal authorities empowered the NSA to sweep in the telephone, Internet and location records of whole populations.”.
One of the positive outcomes of Snowden’s actions is that “U.S. technology giants including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo,” are taking “extraordinary steps to block the collection of data by their government”:
Led by Google and then Yahoo, one company after another announced expensive plans to encrypt its data traffic over tens of thousands of miles of cable. It was a direct — in some cases, explicit — blow to NSA collection of user data in bulk. If the NSA wanted the information, it would have to request it or circumvent the encryption one target at a time.
As these projects are completed, the Internet will become a less friendly place for the NSA to work. The agency can still collect data from virtually anyone, but collecting from everyone will be harder.
The industry’s response, Smith acknowledged, was driven by a business threat. U.S. companies could not afford to be seen as candy stores for U.S. intelligence. But the principle of the thing, Smith said, “is fundamentally about ensuring that customer data is turned over to governments pursuant to valid legal orders and in accordance with constitutional principles.”
It is to a heroic young man such as this that we should all say: “Thank you for your service, Mr. Snowden.”
Have a happy New Year.
ilana