I'm getting really sick of the whole "Comrade Eddie" BS from some

[JDPriestly]

50. And the antics with the Bolivian president's plane and the physical and very real attempts

to prevent Snowden from leaving Russian airspace? Were they also a charade? Was our government complicit with Snowden's charade of going to Russia and getting trapped there?

Where in the world is reason in this conversation?

It is absurd to think that Snowden had chosen Russia as is place of asylum before he arrived there. Just absurd. He landed there because he couldn't go anywhere else.

There are only two countries in the world in which an American whistleblower like Snowden can expect to be protected from the US government, only two countries big enough and strong enough to make it not worth the while for the US to go after a fugitive whistleblower within their borders: China and Russia.

A whistleblower might be able to hide in Brazil somewhere out in the jungle, but even that would not be a safe haven.

Once Snowden chose to be a whistleblower, his choices as to where to seek asylum were pretty narrow.

So that is why Snowden is in Russia. Snowden's revelations about the NSA spying serves the purposes of the Constitution which is the highest law of the land.

And no, some of what the NSA is doing is not lawful.

We have a right to privacy as to those things with regard to which we have an expectation of privacy: the interior of our homes, for example. I don't know about you, but I lock my doors. That is an expression of my expectation of privacy with regard to my house. Similarly, I have a password for my e-mails and for certain websites that I use. That is an expression, a proof if you will, of my expectation of privacy as to those extensions of my home. I have the right, under the Constitution, of free association with others. I have an expectation, thanks to that constitutional right of privacy in my communications and associations with others. In the absence of suspicion of wrongdoing, the government should not follow us around to see with whom we are associating. That would be a violation of the Constitution. It has happened, but it would violate the Constitution. Further, the government should not send agents to churches to see whether you are attending this one or that one. That's because we have freedom of religion. It is none of the NSA's or government's business with whom you meet, what church or other religious group you attend, what you write in your e-mails, or things you do in websites where your personal information is posted and where you have a password to protect the privacy of your identification.

1984 is here. It came and went. And sadly, Orwell predicted correctly the coming of the control-and-surveillance-state. Very sad that people don't see what has happened. Very sad.

When I see people criticize Snowden rather than the NSA, it makes me very sad. The NSA is the bad guy here. Violating our rights all over the place. That people don't understand what is happening to them is just too sad for words.