Isn't the practice of the NSA just plainly treason? And why would it not be?
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Did the NSA levy war against the US?
Did the NSA give aid & comfort to the enemies of the US?
He violated several laws around the general topic of national security, he made the work of US intelligence agencies harder and he did endanger US troops abroad. He also helped along Putin's general interest of destabilization.
So colloquially, there may be a case to call him a "traitor". It's impossible to clear him from the accusation that he worked with/for a foreign government, maybe even before he fled to Russia. And at the current point in time, he wouldn't be able to refuse any request the Russian government made of him. He also featured in a fake "ask-me-anything" with Putin, just to make that point.
I would say implementing mass surveillance would equally make it impossible to clear the NSA from such accusation.
A lot is going wrong there, but there are limits imposed by the transparency and rule of law. Compare that situation to a country like the Russian Federation.
So oversight probably isn't effective enough for agencies like the NSA and I am reliant on first hand information such as provided by Edward Snowden. Which have shown that it happened again.
And you are imposing your personal views on those doing the overseeing, namely the branches of government. From their point of view, such "overreaches" may not necessarily be that far. Also, the respective presidents didn't only know about the programs, they ordered them. And the oversight committees mostly new about that, also.
I'm not saying that nothing went wrong, but the level of oversight in the US system of government does provide better "worst case" guarantees than in many other nations. And in the end, pretty much every significant wrong-doing seems to come to light, often through the political process or in case that is too slow, the media.
The only check on that is their higher-ups' jealousy of their income, provided they know of it.
The people in counter-espionage are not subject to such regulations, nor are generals, and the evidence is that the only people they are used against are those who make any kind of fuss about rule-breaking or, you know, felonies.
The US or the people of the US?
The US suffered a cyberattack that was only possible due to NSA's subversion of Juniper Systems.
This could well and truly be considered 'giving aid / comfort to enemies of the USA' ..
I don't know why people are so hung up on trying to come up with bizarre explanations for why "treason" must be the right word here. It isn't and the explanations aren't even especially arcane. Just pick a different word already.
As can Iraq, Iran, and North Korean hackers.
So, whatever your particular issue is with 'treason', the fact that the NSA has subverted our - the publics - technology, and in so doing allowed us to be susceptible to real and true danger from 'our enemies', means that yes: the NSA IS FUCKING TREASONOUS.
I know there are some judges and institutions that enabled this madness, but I think they might be guilty as well.
These judges should be accountable to the public in theory.
I am not saying the everyone working at the NSA is a criminal. But maybe Snowden was the only one with perspective.
The NSA as an institution certainly did more damage to the US than most of its enemies.
The US has judges and legislation to enable the NSA.
Russia, China, Iran, NK, and many other authoritarian states seek to use their power to attack America 24x7 and do so without any oversight.
Personally, I think the "cyber war" is the typical scare to reduce civil rights. That is a pretty common pattern to bolster and justify disregarding the law.
In reality, the cyber war is probably still focused on the classical industrial espionage. I fail to see the need to subject citizens to mass surveillance.
When society has no great way of preventing, let's say for example, the Boston Marathon bombing or the Las Vegas Concert shooting, providing an appearance of activity, however mindless, like a bunch of ants feverishly running around when a stone is thrown into the anthill, is just the default setting of the security establishment. You can't blame them for that because we aren't yet psychologically, socially or politically sophisticated enough to do anything better.
But today after collecting and sitting on top of shitloads of useless data they themselves admit its unnecessary. You don't find who the best Tennis player in the neighborhood is by monitoring the entire neighborhoods conversations but by just watching the local tennis courts.
What you can do is ask why it took so long, with that nudge from Snowden, for the establishment to admit this. That kind of questioning prevents them jumping into further "we can do it so lets do it" bullshit projects down the road.
(IIRC / I believe)
Many would disagree with that perception, and I also believe that amount of surveillance to have been wrong and counterproductive, but there hasn't been any evidence or significant hints into possible corrupt motivations.
One mustn't forget that all of this was put into motion after the 9/11 attacks, and both the Bush and Obama administrations where still working under (somewhat irrational) pressure from citizens afraid of a repeat performance.
We could better say there is no indication that nobody who had access to illegally-obtained information misused it.
We have plenty of evidence of cops misusing databases they have access to, and that stuff is way less juicy.
Accusations of treason at every corner hinder rational democratic discourse.
The rabbit hole on this one is extremely deep. Hint: What agency did Snowden work for before the NSA?
That criminal misuses of the data were not also exposed suggests that he knew what line not to cross.