This country is so damn rotten. I can't wait for grandpa to die already.
Note that
Americans overall say by plurality that Snowden has done "more to hurt" U.S. national security (43 percent) than help it (20 percent).
doesn't mean that grandpa thinks that Snowden is a terrorist or that Snowden did anything wrong.
The problem with surveys like this is that any interpretation of them will be skewed. Without knowing how the person interpreted the question you can't say anything about the answer.
Say that you find a wallet containing $1000 on the street. You have the option to return the wallet to the owner, keep it or keep the money and return the wallet.
If you ask someone if they will be financially better off if they keep the wallet/money compared to if they return it then the answer will be that they are better off if they keep the money. If you ask what they think is the right thing to do you get another answer. (Hopefully.)
Short term I can agree that Snowdens actions probably hurt national security and the revelation clearly damaged the U.S. image.
Over a longer timespan it was the right thing to do and will in the long run help with creating a global stability based on mutual trust.
The NSA idea of security is to strike first against the neighbor. The ideal scenario is to have a neighbor that you can ask to look after your house while you are on vacation.
No. The fuckers "running" the US damaged the US's image. The NSA has all kinds of support in looking at the OTHER GUY's citizens.
The toolbags in charge turned all that around and used the government AGAINST the citizens, 99.995% of whom were doing nothing wrong and who's rights were absolutely violated.
If Snowden didn't do what he did, somewhere, someone else, would have. And the thing is, if you aren't doing anything wrong when your shit gets revealed then you don't have a lot to worry about.