So the supposedly liberal hosts of a supposedly liberal cable news show on a supposedly liberal network just finished what amounted to a near-blanket defense of the rights of the United States government to commit espionage trumping anything like transparency and privacy rights. One of the hosts did make a distinction between domestic spying on Americans and foreign espionage. I am not taking a specific stance on the Edward Snowden leaks at this time, but I will take a swing at answering the question "Who have these leaks benefited besides Edward Snowden?" that was posed by one of the hosts.
My answer as to "who benefited" is simple: the fundamental concept of free information in a free society benefited; every American benefited by the NSA being scrutinized under the rule of law we purport to cherish; the global community benefited by being brought into the loop on American activity that is antithetical to the idea of us being a fair player on the global stage.
You know who has not benefited tremendously? One Edward Snowden. He is an exile, a fugitive, a man without a country, held at the mercy of nations with a human rights record we decry...and all this instead of the benefits he could have garnered from anonymous sale of the information. Shame on the supposedly liberal media for their supposed journalism on the actions of this supposed traitor.
Expecting anything less than functional support of the Big Brother State by commercial media was, I suppose, foolish on my part.
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