I'm interested to hear anyone's thoughts on the subject. Mine from another thread are quoted here:
I dont think I am as well read on it as I should be to comment, but Ill offer my opinion to this point:
I think he probably did more harm than good.
It isnt like our government was looking over all of our shoulders, at everything we do. Although some people do think like this I have come to realize. I know that some people even refuse immunization registry because they think that is on more thing the government is 'keeping tabs on me' with. (It is, but nothing more than to make sure they dont get another dose of the same shot, or to keep them up to date with ones they need)
From what I understand about the program, is that when there was a suspect of a plot against us, they would be able to use data from these services to investigate the person. I am not sure on this (feel free to clarify, or perhaps we should make a new topic for this), but I dont think they targeted American citizens with this either.
From the "successes" side of the program, I guess it stopped several terror plots on U.S. soil. The fear is that we will become a surveillance state, and the government will have too much power and control over people, rather than be a government for the people, by the people.
Now that this news is out there, it may have just made it harder for our intelligence to discover or confirm that these types of things are imminent.
I am very moderate politically. I can see both sides of this. I think I would say that what he did was bad though. If the system was indeed working to protect, he did a great disservice by leaking the information. If terror attacks were to happen more frequently and to a more dramatic degree, I think people would rather have something like this in place. The big problem with this is "how far will we go?"
The new spying news with the EU could be more of a problem I think. I hope we don't any positive relationships with other countries. For example: http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=885109