Panama Papers source issues statement

Now, this was the first, thoughtful reply I got in this. I'm addressing it last as it deserves a bit more thought. Let's look at the points.

" If you're the state of Germany, they probably don't think it's legal for others to spy on them."

It's true. An NSA proponent we shred on Schneier's blog made one good point: each country makes spying on everyone else legal for them but makes it illegal for anyone to spy on them. I call this The Game where they all gripe if they're getting spied on but keep doing it themselves for the benefits. Truth told, major nations have to do it just to break even or else they're going to loose contracts/territory to better equipped nations. NSA always claimed countering that sort of stuff was all they did at economic level with rest being political negotiations and self-defense against threats. I know, I know... ;) Yet, that probably-false claim is a good idea of what spying nations find acceptable in reality and don't do anything besides punishing individual spies as long as it's within the unspoken rules of the game.

"But, isn't a whistleblower someone who believe they are serving the common good by uncovering illegal, immoral and unethical behavior?"

Yes. The Panama Papers, Pentagon Papers, Snowden's leaks of unconstitutional behavior, Snowden's foreign leaks of destroying an ally's telecom (Belgium)... these kinds of things are illegal and abusive to the point they should be leaked. Key factor is they go against what country's citizens has deemed acceptable and endorsed. We're fine with them recording chancellors, business negotiations, whatever to look out for us. Disrupting innocent parties, breaking their oaths to us, selling individual companies' secrets, and so on? Not part of any deal I was made aware of between U.S. voters and intelligence community.

"Can it not be argued that Snowden was helping out the countries (especially our allies) that there government and people were also being spied on? "

Reality: over twenty nations spy on us even stealing our I.P. for their nations' benefits and trying to rig foreign contracts. Many of them are "allies." It's just the real-world in action. They want us to not spy on them? Then they need to disband their own spy agencies or imprison anyone caught spying on us.

"you spy on our citizens, which we can't do as it's illegal, and we will spy on your citizens"

Very worth whistleblowing. I've called out NSA & GHCQ on that for years as have Brits I know. They can't collect info on their own. I don't care how many intermediaries they put between point A and B. Just tells me how guilty their intent was. :)

"If Snowden is a traitor, what does that make the NSA?"

I said Snowden is a whistleblower and traitor depending on specific leaks. This polarization people do is childish and unrealistic. People, organizations, are often a mixed bag. NSA is an organization that has many honest people working to get legal intelligence or more rarely protect us from hacking. It's also got its share of scumbags and illegal activity that betrays its oath to Americans and mandate. Reward the good, punish the bad, and increase accountability where needed. Always my answer.

Right, so no evidence that Snowden's leaks hurt American ops. Sure, we can infer that the terrorists (or whoever) may have tweaked their opsec in response, but it's not like that will drive them to do anything that wasn't simply an opsec best practice all along. If the NSA was simply relying on people being sloppy (not using encryption, etc.) and that changed, well... that was inevitable over time anyway.

As for backdoors in routers, etc... again, it was always just a matter of time until that stuff got caught. And it's not like people haven't always suspected that they were doing that stuff.

And even if some small percentage of what Snowden leaked did harm US operations somehow... I'd argue that it was justified in light of the big picture, in regards to the illegal stuff. Finding out about mass surveillance of US citizens, etc., justifies any collateral damage the spook complex may have suffered, as far as I'm concerned.

Legality aside, those ongoing operation are Un-American and many reasonable people, perhaps a majority, in this democracy of ours never had chance to vote or have any say in their creation.

Then taking into account legality, many consider them a violation of the 4th amendment. And again such a policy was instituted without ever a public discussion in relation to the constitution.

Someone revealing such policy to the Democracy it was forced on can never be a traitor.

I don't like this attitude. In fact, some whistleblower protection laws already exist (whistleblower protection act).

I'm sure there are forces that act on politicians other than loyalty to their constituents, but there's no reason in the American democracy we couldn't (theoretically) get to a point where we elect representatives who understand the importance of whistleblower protection and care more about their constituents than other influences.

"Right, so no evidence that Snowden's leaks hurt American ops."

The ops are classified so it's a bogus point anyway. You're requiring them to commit a felony to prove specific damage. Further, you've already dismissed anything coming from spy agencies as a lie. You've set that line of questioning up to be a fail no matter what they show you. The only exception I'm seeing is a 3rd party or foreign nation detects their ops, then reports on it. Kaspersky already did with Equation Group plus used Snowden leaks to show it was probably NSA.

Anyway, we don't need them to publish anything. Just answer quick question: do you believe that the Snowden leaks improved people's ability to resist NSA surveillance and increase privacy through technological responses? Does that include foreign businesses or governments? If so, then you are already admitting that it reduced NSA surveillance and impacted their operations. One follows the other logically. Either Snowden leaks had no effect on NSA spying, making him a fail outside of legal reform, or they did negatively impact NSA by disrupting their operations.

"even if some small percentage of what Snowden leaked did harm US operations somehow... I'd argue that it was justified in light of the big picture,"

He wasn't justified because he didn't have to leak it. That simple. He could've just leaked the ones that targeted Americans or showed gross abuse rather than a lot of what we already, as Americans, allowed NSA to do. Instead, he turned over everything to many foreign media.

Btw, do you remember why he did that? Did you ever read the reason? He gave two actually. One sheds a lot of light on whether he had to do this and just how heroic he really is.