"Snowden claims that he’s won and that his mission is accomplished. If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents that have not yet been exposed to prevent even more damage to U.S. security."
They still don't get it. Snowden said he won because he got the democratic debate started.
The NSA damaged itself by operating illegally and misleading the public about the scale and purpose of its operation. Snowden merely conveyed the message that it was doing so. Targetted surveillance is legal. Broad surveillance is not. Sophistry about definitions of the word surveillance doesn't change this fact.
Nor is there any evidence that domestic surveillance secures anything much, as the government's own two investigative panels have failed to find evidence that the NSA's database foiled any material terrorist acts.
The debate isn't finished and the NSA continues to breach a normal reading of the fourth amendment. So it isn't unreasonable for the press to continue to describe the NSA's misfeasance.
Journalists are not accomplices. They publish information that they discover, especially if it involves wrongdoing. The NSA may have been trying to protect US persons but it is not doing so within the orbit of the constitution. Nor is it doing so particularly effectively. And it has lied to protect itself from proper scrutiny.
It is now clear that these spooks cannot flex their thinking. They are entirely self-righteous. They cannot conceive of privacy in a way that is normal, that is reasonable and that is valuable to people and institutions. They cannot understand people who can conceive of it. They won't respect the balance based on suspicion that is described in the fourth amendment. They think their requirements trump all others. So the US and UK need some new intelligence leaders who are capable of thinking differently.
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