I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that using the term "liberal idiots" undermines the credibility of your technical argument. But I'll also invite you to post or cite actual data here rather than just ranting.

Can I just say, that RT article provided no context whatsoever to this quote? Does Mr. Carter believe "America has no functioning democracy at this moment" because
a.) intrusive, pervasive domestic spying supresses minority views
b.) gerrymandering, incessant filibusters, etc have thwarted the evident will of the majority
c.) astroturfing, the Citizens United decision, opacity in finance of politics have warped the nature of small-d democracy in America?
d.) limiting access to the ballot, mandating ID at polling stations, etc have eroded the enfranchisement of voters?
e.) both major political parties are beholden to corporate and private money such that the outcome, whoever wins, is largely the same?
f.) the press, beset by false equivalencies, threatened constantly by acquisitions and downsizing, discouraged from publishing radical stances or asking difficult questions of the politicians on whose access its livelihood rests, has broken its compact with the public?
g.) all of the above?

Surely Mr. Carter is an expressive and thoughtful speaker, whether you agree or disagree with his views. I'm certain if you found the full content of what he said around his "no functioning democracy" statement, it would be far more illuminating than what was included in RT.

How about the Washington Post? Is the Army also blocking access to 'the newspaper of record for the Federal government"?

Yes, I think Mr. Wilson could have calculated the likely outcomes better than he apparently did. On the one hand, the environment around Newtown, the Boston bombings, an endless stream of kids-shooting-siblings on the news, etc etc creates a favorable moment in legislative (sp?) history for getting gun control enacted. Everyone on that side of the fence wants to see some, any, tangible results. On the other hand, the NRA really is funded largely by gun manufacturers - these guys have no manifest interest in seeing everyone printing guns at home, and surely don't want to give ground on what they consider to be the more substantive issues (background checks, national registry, large-capacity magazines, bans on certain types of weapons.) Who was always going to be the first one thrown off the island here?

The parent should be modded up. It's factual, relevant, and worth remembering.

"There are two paths through a career like his." - This is the exact definition of a reductionist argument. I don't believe every IT guy working in the intelligence industry much choose one of the two paths you outlined. Is it perhaps possible that some of them could be doing what they do with a clear conscience, and actually believing in what they do?

Snowden sees some Swiss banker shmoozed up and boozed up by a CIA agent, the banker wrecks his car, ends up being recruited (approximately what is described in the Guardian article.) Snowden is aghast, it sounds absolutely terrible on the face of it, no? Uhh, maybe? If in the end, billions of dollars of international criminal transactions are exposed, which closes off a safe haven and laundering mechanism or all kinds of 'bad guys' around the world, who is to judge the real moral value of the outcome?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say some IT/security guy operating at the periphery of the enterprise simply doesn't have the full story. He doesn't have the full perspective to make that call, not for all of us. If he witnessed specific things that bothered him, there are other ways he could have attempted to address it first. He should have gone to the inspector general. He should have gone to the CSC. He could have approached Congress. In truth, by his own admission, he did none of these things.

"Thankfully, all it takes is for one to blow the whistle" you write. I think it is worth turning that question around. If thousands of people are engaged in this enterprise, all of them also acting earnestly and also possessing eyes and consciences, what gives Edward Snowden the right to presume his moral judgements are more correct than everyone else's? It seems to me a particularly self-aggrandizing and hubristic act.

At least Bradley Manning had video footage of innocents being killed. All Snowden had was some powerpoint slides he objected to.

Insurance from whom, against whom? Like, Valve is going to call in its favor and get the FBI to get off his case, for fear of their DRM being compromised? I can totes see that happening.

Wikipedia: "Manning told Lamo he was also responsible for the "Cablegate" leak of 251,287 State Department cables, written by 271 American embassies and consulates in 180 countries, dated December 1966 to February 2010."

He also said explicitly that he didn't read them. He gave them to professional journalists, yes. Somehow, regardless of the journalists' intent, these cables were all available on the internet for a period of time. Whatever you believe about Manning's motives or justifications, what I have written is the truth.

America is not unique in wanting its diplomatic traffic to and from its embassies to remain secret. EVERY country does that. And whatever you believe, it's a good bet that each of these 251,287 cables does not illuminate a crime.

Manning took a pledge to protect this information. Putting classified material into the hands of other people you kinda-sorta know and hope will do the right thing is not the same as protecting that information. He broke his pledge. He would be a whistleblower if he only exposed those things which he felt were actual crimes. Instead he chose to be a vandal.

"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."

Whatever else people may think of him, this puts him one step above Manning in my book.

Though it sounds from the Guardian interview as if he's conflating the attitudes he saw while in the military, the activities he saw while at the CIA abroad, and NSA programs. These are different things surely. If he was unhappy with the way the CIA operates in Switzerland, then he should have exposed those things, rather than NSA programs. He sites no example of actually having witnessed the detrimental effects of these NSA programs (which you'd think must be pretty plentiful given the size of them.)

In the same sense as Manning, what he's done really falls under the category of 'vindictive divulgence'.

Or, if Assange is really trying to say "Google: just like the Nazis" with his leaning on the word 'banal' here, you know, I really hope most rational people can discern a difference. Is that really an argument he wants to make?

Nazis: initiating a world war that killed millions. Pursued a horrific genocide of their own minorities.
Google: dorky glasses.

Let me cap my argument by reminding that Assange's whole enterprise (Wikileaks) depends absolutely on the kinds of technology produced by Google and similar companies. Before the internet, Julian Assange would be some guy somewhere Xeroxing small runs of a paranoid zine. It's very likely that without Google and its peers, no one would know about Julian Assange or Wikileaks.

Yes, I got that, but what does it have to do with anything else in the piece? It's like quoting Star Wars in an article about (some other) war. Here's Websters:

banal: lacking originality, freshness, or novelty : trite

and here's Assange:

"The authors offer an expertly banalized version of tomorrow’s world: the gadgetry of decades hence is predicted to be much like what we have right now — only cooler. “Progress” is driven by the inexorable spread of American consumer technology over the surface of the earth."

His complaint is not that the Google technology of tomorrow will not be original or "fresh". But this is a minor quibble. I stand by my earlier assessment. Even though the book very well may be in some ways, as he writes, "But this isn’t a book designed to be read. It is a major declaration designed to foster alliances" (though that's doubtful - why go to the trouble of publishing a book when a position paper would suffice?) His own absolutist position of presuming the worst motives always for American anything, and his precarious position holed up in an Ecuadorian embassy somewhere avoiding probable life incarceration, makes him an unreliable book reviewer.

Listen to this (Assange) : "In the book the authors happily take up the white geek’s burden. A liberal sprinkling of convenient, hypothetical dark-skinned worthies appear: Congolese fisherwomen, graphic designers in Botswana, anticorruption activists in San Salvador and illiterate Masai cattle herders in the Serengeti are all obediently summoned to demonstrate the progressive properties of Google phones jacked into the informational supply chain of the Western empire. " You know, that's pretty patronizing and dismissive of all these groups, just for starters. Those are real people with real needs, dignity, culture, volition, goals etc of their own - not props. Beyond that, can he describe what acceptable behavior for a technology corporation would be, within his own moral framework? I don't believe he has actually worked that out. Without his having included that in his scathing review of Google's ambitions, we have no real point of comparison, and he has no real argument. I don't believe "white guys should stay home, and not even attempt to interact with anyone else" is valid or reasonable. If Google's technology stopped at the border, you would bet there would be a huge outcry about that as well.

NO, sorry, you should RTFA. He's quite a lot more, and a lot different from that. Just for starters;

"The book proselytizes the role of technology in reshaping the world’s people and nations into likenesses of the world’s dominant superpower, whether they want to be reshaped or not. "

It's an interesting read. Wish I had read the book myself first. Assange's knee-jerk reaction is to presume the worst, and hidden, motives for anything related to American interests and motives. In this way he's like Chomsky, and the problem with this is, he's liable to be right at least every so often (e.g. broken clocks being right twice a day). That is annoying. But it makes every individual argument less convincing as there's no evidence it's actually a nuanced or considered position.

Also, I don't believe the word 'banal' means what he thinks it does.

Henry Ford knew that for his business to succeed, his workers would have to become his customers, so he made sure they were paid decent wages. When Tesla's line workers can afford to buy a Tesla automobile, then Elon Musk will have succeeded.

I heard the first automobile was kind of slow.