I can completely understand your position if you are an American. And I'm sure you can understand us foreigners trying to show our appreciation for a man who uncovered this extensive evil intrusion into our lives.
Most people complain about having their privacy taken away when using free online services. All I see are a bunch of ignorant loud mouths who got angry too late.
/s
So, right, how dare the government hold someone to their word? You're basically advocating lying and not honoring your promises.
BTW - I basically make a living honoring promises and contracts, otherwise we wouldn't have customers ;)
Yes, obviously. There are situations where you ought to lie. The typical example: "Are there any Jews in your basement?"
Decency is more than keeping to the words, sometimes it even requires you break them to keep the spirit of promise. We generally give promises contingent on implied good behaviour from the other parties. When others break their promises the stack built on that mutual honour collapses.
And I'm fine living in the world where that's the way people treat promises, I massively prefer it to the world where people can be tricked into promising something and then have to keep to it when it turns out to be abhorrent.
If you think he chose to break the wrong one, then that might be a valid point, but you seem to be implying that if you were in that position you'd keep both o_O
It's actually possible to lie or break a promise.
Sometimes the ethics to do so are stronger than the ethics to not do so.
If the government doesn't represent the people anymore, does it still deserve the loyalty of the people? A lot of people would say no.
re: getting angry too late. Yes that is typically how it works. Not every person can be fully informed on every complex issue. At some point however a line was crossed on this issue and it became part of the public consciousness. To say these people don't deserve their privacy because they were too late to the party is disingenuous, unrealistic and frankly a really disturbing approach to take.
"You don't deserve your health because you weren't protesting when they _started_ to secretly dump chemicals in the waters - oh now that it's common knowlege you're pissed off? You got angry too late, you ignorant loudmouth."
re: traitor. He's a traitor to the U.S. military. Treason is not a global binary thing. You can be a traitor to one person and a hero to another. In this case he has done far more good than harm to most people on this planet. You are at once short-sighted and narrow-minded for refusing to look beyond this fact.
Free online services do not have a monopoly on force. The government does. My choice to use Google means that they will know more about me, but the Google SWAT team cannot kick down my door in the middle of the night and drag me to a black site for an indeterminate length of time because I said something that Larry Page did not like.