The NWS nailed it. They described exactly what was going to happen.

The travesty was that **everybody** ignored the Winter Storm Warning that was issued in plenty of time to cancel school, make other arrangements for work. That was compounded with a situation where the roads went from dry to impassible in one hour, and then 5 million people all tried to drive home at once.

Disaster.

General Keith Alexander. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), lied under oath to congress, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.

James Clapper. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), lied under oath to congress, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.

Edward Snowden. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), stole and released classified materials, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.

The fact that Snowden is being pursued for what he did, while Alexander and Clapper appear to be getting off scott-free is the biggest hypocrisy ever.

God forbid you offer "nuanced" opinions on /. -- you'll get downmoderated as a troll. There is no tolerance here, even though most of the readers and moderators would tell you they are very tolerant.

People have their prejudices, and those color their views on every bit of information they receive, and if your opinions don't agree, then you must be the idiot. This is as true on /. as in the real world, though perhaps it is more obvious here than in RW, the vitriol spewed in various flame wars here go beyond what would be considered "fighting words" if uttered to a person's face.

That is funny.

Really that would have been Clinton's legal team.

Perhaps perfidious would be a better word to describe Mr. Snowden.

What Oliver North did was criminal. Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is still wrong.

Putin stuck Obama in the eye. He thinks Obama is an amateur, a lightweight, and he is correct. Putin is a KGB spymaster, Obama is a "community organizer."

This will not be the last time he poke Obama in the eye. Trust me. Ol' Vladimir is not a nice man, but he is not a stupid man. He knows an easy mark when he sees one.

Uhh? really?

"Russia doesn't go around invading any country without nukes".

Guess what? before the USA invaded Afghanistan, the USSR did. It's in the history books, should you bother to read them. Or maybe some current news, like about The Ukraine, where the citizens want to ally with the EU, but ol' Putin won't have it.

Are you living under a rock? Moron.

Once again, Slashdot cannot tolerate a range of views on politics. If it's not approved by "Progressive Democrats", it's a "Troll".

3 hours later, this post has been down modded 3 times -- "Troll" and "Overrated". For what? offering an unpopular opinion? Trust me, I would not have written over 200 words if I wanted to troll slashdot, because it is much much easier than that.

My point is that he did not need to reveal all of it, just exposing the domestic surveillance would have been enough... Congress and the average American don't give one tiny shit if the NSA bugged Angela Merkel's phone, and many are probably secretly pleased that we did and got away with it until this guy opened the kimono on that.

My question is how was releasing that information helpful? While certainly unethical, bugging Merkel's phone (for instance) was NOT illegal under US law, and not forbidden under the NSA's charter, while the domestic data collection clearly was both illegal and forbidden. I applaud the exposure of the NSA's illegal activities, but I abhor the exposure of their legal ones.

This is why I believe he had other motives. Snowden is not a hero, he's an attention whore.

Yours is a thoughtful reply, and I thank you for that.

However, I must disagree with your "elite corps owning politicians" being the root of this problem. That's a whole different problem, I don't believe the politicians knew what the NSA was doing at all. The NSA was running totally rogue, and the unlawful surveillance of US citizens on US soil -- with Congress having no clue at all -- clearly demonstrates that. Our corporate bought-and-paid-for politicians stack things in favor of their corporate sponsors, and this NSA problem is a loser for everybody.

I don't think you and I agree much on politics, but I think we both agree that there is too much money in it, and the power of the individual has been subverted by big money interests.

Thanks for your comment (and not down-modding me!)

Merriam-Webster's first definition of "treason" is

"the betrayal of trust."

Snowden signed an agreement to keep things he learned on the job secret, and he betrayed that trust. Again, I don't disagree with him blowing the whistle on the NSA's illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of U.S. citizens going about their business here in the USA. My beef is that he unveiled way more than that, way more than he needed to, and I do not support that. I believe that was wrong.

My opinion is that his behavior crossed beyond "whistleblower" into the range of "criminal."

Oh Please!

Do you not think the USA's allies were not spying on the USA? The French continue to conduct large scale industrial espionage against the USA to this day. They just have not had the whistle blown on them (yet.) It is pretty common knowledge that Israel spies on the USA continuously.

Snowden's revelations about the NSA spying on American Citizens should earn him immunity from prosecution as a whistleblower. That was a valuable and risky thing he did.

However, his revelations about NSA spying outside the USA have caused severe and lasting damage to the USA's reputation, and to the USA's ability to collect intelligence that it needs to defend it's interests, **including national security interests**. That was a dangerous and over-the-top thing he did -- it **is** treason, and the severity of that (IMHO) outweighs any potential immunity he might have deserved from the above.

Snowden dropped a tactical nuke when he could have used a stick of dynamite. This indicates to me that his goal was to bury the NSA, not to reform it. In my opinion, this moves him from hero to traitor, and he needs to answer for this.

I think he is relatively safe if he stays in Russia. "Relatively". Should he leave there, he should prepare to be dragged into a van with a canvas sack over his head -- the subject of an "extraordinary rendition." (This is of course illegal. I don't condone it, but I do expect it.) He's barely safe in Russia, and probably not safe anywhere else. He made his own bed, now he gets to sleep in it.

I fully expect this post to get down-moderated into oblivion.

Maybe these poor souls should step away from the game for a while and enjoy interacting with living people.

Are you twelve?

Government programs are **never** more efficient than private counterparts. The US Government is so full of graft and waste it is utterly infuriating to anybody who has any idea of what is going on. There is **no** accountability. This is not tied to any administration, this has been happening for years, through many administrations. At least for most private enterprises, there is somebody who wants to see a return on their investment.

Medicare is going to run out of money, most likely before you are eligible. Social Security, too. I hope you were not counting on either of those, because our inefficient, wasteful, and corrupt government has been blowing those trust funds like a cokehead in Vegas.

You need to step back from the bong and take a look at what is going on.