He downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents. He had no idea what he had in his stash. He was not trying to right a wrong.

Everyone who has ever been granted a security clearance understands what the consequences of disclosing classified information to unauthorized parties. If he didn't think he would get caught, well that's his problem. History is full of people serving life sentences or given the death penalty for unauthorized disclosure or espionage (Lonetree, Ames). He did the crime, he must face the consequences.

Amen

I loved the article, especially: "A spokesperson from ICE confirmed that it was a legitimate seizure and that there is an ongoing investigation into the matter." Shoot first, ask questions later!

New Hampshire state motto: "Welcome to New Hampshire; Now get the fuck out!"

Then it up to the Defense to provide context.

Ummm. He made death threats toward congress woman Giffords last year.

You need to read past the Constitution. The second amendment was indeed created to ensure the people had the means to change their government should the government get out of control.

Follow the Constitution?? I refer you to the Patriot Act.

The whole point of this initiative is to ensure trust between the ID media and the person, how could there not be a giant central DB involved.

Our corporations have bought our government for the last five decades at least, and thanks to the Supreme Court, it is now entirely legal for corporations to throw a gazillion dollars at their sweetheart candidate.

Social Security numbers are not national ID and neither are drivers licenses. Passports on the other hand are, but not every American is mandated to have one. There is no reason that a national ID number has to be secure, a number means nothing.

It is one thing to buy a digital certificate from a company and quite another to have one "issued" by your government. You say typical American paranoia, but give me one instance where the American government did not abuse its power and overstep its rights while trying to provide "service" to its people. There are countless examples today, nanny camera's, Social Security number, drones for fucks sake. The list goes on. Read the Patriot Act, this would be a sweet deal for government to be able to implement a way to track every US citizen without having to do much work in aggregating data from different sources.

Every day is Snake Whacking day for me!

Every decision ever made produces unintended consequences, technology is no different.