You're more or less arguing my point. Just like I said, there was very little debate, even fewer laws (mainly the patriot act, which was passed with huge support). The federal government's power grab was basically carte blanche - do what is needed to make us safe, and by reelecting Bush (although to my own recollection Kerry didn't really offer much opposition to it or really bring it up for debate) the public threw more support behind it, and yes, a lot of the reason for that was because no one really knew what was going on. In short, its a mess, but its a mess we, the people, let happen, and now its very firmly entrenched and its going to take a lot for it to be removed.

If it's not the will of the people, then why do so many people still cling to the idea of "I don't have anything to hide, so I don't care of the government watches!"? That attitude and the creation of the monitoring that we now enjoy are practically chicken-and-egg.

As is often the case, you're generalizing as bad about Americans as you think they're generalizing about you.

Somehow I doubt that.

I'm gonna get blasted for this, but its my view. I'd like to state beforehand that I do not agree with what I believe happened, this is just how I see it. We, the people (that's an important distinction, meaning the body politic), essentially asked for all this after 9/11. We didn't tell our government to surveil us, we didn't directly request the erosion of our rights and privacy, we simply said "we're scared, protect us from the evil people who want to crash all the things into our buildings", and the government did (whether or not they've been successful is a debate for another day). Now that we're starting to realize (through the actions of Snowden et al) exactly how this protection was put in place, and we're puffing out our collective chests and declaring how wrong it is, and it is, but that doesn't change the fact that we demanded it happen. That being said, yes, what Snowden did was morally correct, but that doesn't change the fact that if Uncle Sam manages to get their mitts on him he wont see the outside of a prison again until he is a very old man, if at all.

There's a reason the Constitution is referred to as a living document.

You said it yourself: this is a democracy with the rule of law. What he did was against the law. You can debate the status of whether or not it was civil disobedience, whether or not it was morally right, or whether or not he was a hero, but you cannot debate whether or not it was against the law. The Boston Tea Party was very much against British law.

You act like this is a theory that I've crafted myself for the purposes of getting modded down on slashdot. It's not.

I said there was a chance, not that I thought that was what he did. There's absolutely a chance (even if it is a small one, which I believe it is) he did this until he comes out and says it isn't true, which, unless I missed it, he hasn't done. Treating the guy like Saint Snowden of Privacy does service to no one.

He certainly thinks hes a hero, I'm not sure if I agree. I think Bill Maher said it best (this isnt a direct quote): Just like the founding fathers couldn't have foreseen a world with automatic weapons/assault rifles when they wrote the second amendment, they couldn't have foreseen a world with religious fanatics with potential access to access to nuclear weapons that can destroy a whole city in the blink of an eye when they wrote the fourth amendment. Both gun control and privacy are tough topics, and there needs be some sort of balance between rights and protection, and currently we've maybe gone a bit more towards protection when it comes to our privacy. Is Snowden a hero? Maybe. Was he trying to impress his ex-gf. I would say there was a chance. Was what he did wrong? Yes, whether or not you agree he was a hero, he was wrong.

I gotta admit, I just took a Nelson rating diary survey, and all its done is made me realize how much I'd like to cancel my increasingly expensive cable service. I watched maybe 8 hours of broadcast TV during the week I kept the diary.

How is that a lengthy process beyond the skill of most android users? My father could do that easily and he barely knows how to dial his android.

Lots of people pay for cable, and there's a ton of ads on it. Just saying.

...promoting healthy body image and all, but no one expects General Motors to advertize their latest car in south central LA, why should clothing companies be required to advertize their products on ugly fat people?