And a police officer has the technical capacity to walk into my house and shoot me dead. That I can appreciate his likely skill with a service revolver doesn't mean he gets to shoot me dead at a whim.
Right but you accept the fact that the police need to have the capability to shoot people, right? Because if you were an armed robber or something they'd need to be able to do that to stop you.
Similarly the NSA needs to have the capability to spy on people - terrorists, Russian or Chinese spies, or - if WWIII starts - Russian or Chinese soldiers are all people the NSA needs to be able to spy on. In fact it's highly irritating when people who tweet their every thought and bowel movement whine about this. The NSA aren't going to spy on them because a) everything they think is public and b) they're not interesting to anyone, let alone the NSA. Logically given limited resources it's more likely that people like the Boston Bombers are the target of surveillance than people someone memorably referred to as 'twitter cunts'.
If you look at WWII Anglo American SIGINT like breaking the Enigma code was absolutely vital to the war effort and saved the UK from defeat. As China moves towards parity with the West and confronts Japan over the Senkakus it's not impossible the US may find itself in a similar situation. In the long run it's not impossible that Russia will threaten the Ukraine militarily - after all it did more than threaten Georgia.
And in fact having a major SIGINT advantage over Russia and China is likely to act as a deterrent on them doing something like this. Conversely Snowden visiting both and telling them the US's capabilities is likely to make them think they're the ones with the advantage.
The only reason you'd think Snowden did the right thing is if you think the US is the sole source of evil in the world and Russia and China are both governed by people who act robotically in the best interests of humanity eschewing any personal gain. How likely is it really that the people who govern the US are the only ones vulnerable to corruption and the far less open political systems of Russia and China magically produce incorruptible leaders?
I'd say as bad as the US's politicians are the openness of the system means they are likely a lot less bad than those in China or Russia. In which case I'd rather the US has the SIGINT advantage. Snowden did exactly the wrong thing in taking US secrets to Russia and China and the Guardian is wrong to publish US secrets.
