Even if you believe he did the right thing, he did it the wrong way. Badly wrong. And not one of his disclosures have revealed clear violations of the law. What exactly is he blowing the whistle on? The NSA was authorized to do this.

• Compromised national security
• compromised the security of important US allies and other foreign governments
• embarrassed the United States diplomatically
• hurt our ability to track terrorists
• revealed covert practices by our intelligence agencies
• damaged our ability to conduct covert intelligence
• allies may choose not to cooperate with US anti-terrorist efforts.

To fight terrorism? Sure. How does it hurt me for the NSA to know who calls me or who I call. Not a bit. I ain't a terrorist. All I worry about is if the NSA allows this data to be used by the police to go fishing, by marketeers, and most importantly by politicians. There exists the possibility of abuse by police, marketers and political operatives. If the NSA only shares this data with anti-terrorist agencies, then I see no problems. Why would we want to hurt that effort? With proper oversight, I think this is not only OK, it makes good sense.

But it's not just the phone call metadata. Snowden released 1.7 million classified documents that have set back U.S. efforts against terrorism, cybercrime, human trafficking and weapons proliferation. The most closely held secrets by the United States are what we know about everyone else's secrets and how we came to know them. Military operations have largely been downplayed for security reasons. But the NSA, which is part of the Pentagon, is both a combat support and intelligence agency. Terrorists and their support networks now have a better understanding of our collection methods and they are taking counter measures.

U.S. cloud computing companies may lose an estimated $35 billion in business from customers abroad, concerned NSA spying compromises their security. U.S. diplomatic relations with Brazil and Germany have been frayed by the news that the NSA spied on their leaders. If terrorists are using tougher encryption, or switching from easily intercepted digital communications altogether, they may be going dark to the NSA and other government spy agencies. And that could mean that it is harder to stop attacks on embassies and troops in places like Afghanistan.

Google knows more about us than the NSA does. NSA only cares if we have been corresponding with known terrorists or with terrorists havens abroad. They don't care if you smoke dope. Homegrown terror is a real threat. These perps all reveal phone and internet correspondence with radicals overseas who encourage them to kill. It's nice to catch them before they act and we have done so many times due to our vast intelligence network. Intelligence shouldn't stop if foreigners conduct terror within our borders by proxy.

I didn't say that. I just pointed out two high-profile instances of a republican President pardoning one of his own high-profile people (Dub) or his former boss (Ford) other than an assortment of people for an assortment of reasons.

Most pardons occur on the last day in office. And for the sake of accuracy, Reagan pardoned 406, not 40. Also it was Dubya's father who pardoned 75 in his single term. Dub himself pardoned 200. Nixon pardoned 926. Johnson and Eisenhower--over 1,000. Truman--over 2,000.

Republican prosecutor James Comey, who investigated the Clinton pardons, found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part.

Not true. You made that up. I voted for Reagan, Bush I and even Bush II in 1980 (a mistake).

Not true. Your link does not even allege this. Journalist Robert Novak had learned of Plame's employment, which was classified information, from State Department official Richard Armitage. Both have stated this for the record. Armitage was smart enough not to lie to the FBI.

Uhh, Nazi's are on the extreme right wing, Chester. Communists are on the extreme left wing