My question is, what has Snowden released which confirms the idea that he had the type of broad-ranging access which you claim.
Nothing you just cited confirms that: the first is Verizon phone records. Again - public knowledge since 2007 if anyone was actually paying attention.
The second and third are a warrant of the type used to request surveillance (you know, due process and all that) and a document of procedures for minimizing data on US citizens.
Both documents, explicitly dealing with not collecting broad-ranging data on US citizens and demonstrating oversight and limitation to the process. So again, where is the smoking gun? Where is any proof that Edward Snowden has done more then simply make a copy of a library of guidelines and procedures for NSA employees? Because nothing you just linked proves that he has anything substantive which actually proves wrongdoing, overreach, or the NSA going beyond mission parameters.
Some of your assertions were simply untrue - if you want people to take you seriously, don't try to distort the truth. If the documents above were common knowledge they would not be stamped 'TOP SECRET/NOFORN', he released more than the powerpoint slides, etc.
Because nothing you just linked proves that he has anything substantive which actually proves wrongdoing, overreach, or the NSA going beyond mission parameters.
To take just this one example, I consider tracking the domestic phone records of all Americans daily to be a huge infringement of the NSA's stated mission and the privacy of hundreds of millions of Americans, which you so blithely dimiss as 'public knowledge'. YMMV on that, but frankly your arguments that this is nothing of consequence are absurd given the reaction of the US President, Congress, the NSA, Foreign governments, and journalists around the world to these leaks - clearly they are important and clearly the revelations have shocked many people.
People have been throwing hyperbole around liberally in this issue, so again: powerpoint slides or mundane documents, none of it proves what you're claiming it proves. Edward Snowden has not shown he had any of the capability or access he is claiming. The fact it's marked "Top Secret" does not prove this - confidential information is always "need-to-know" - you can have Top Secret clearance but you don't get to just go and ask for all the Top Secret documents in the archive unless you have a provable reason to have them. It was perfectly clear what I was saying, if you want to get pedantic then its certainly too early to wildly speculate on Edward Snowden's secret NSA leaking team (as in the parent of this thread).
You may consider the phone records a huge infringement but again: this program was public knowledge. There were articles written about it. In fact it was public as early as 2006:
[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-ns...]. Edward Snowden releasing anything on it is thus mundane except for the fact Edward Snowden is doing it, and again - doesn't prove that he actually knows anything significant or had the type of access he claims to have.
Which is the point here: not what you personally find invasive, but the idea that Edward Snowden has the goldmine of data and knowledge people are wildly speculating he does, despite scant evidence in that direction.
No you have it wrong. The rules, while explaining how to deal with data, provide loopholes to basically capture and store everybody (US citizens included). The point is that they are writing laws that should be illegal and are interpreting the patriot act in ways it was not supposed to be interpreted.
My question is, what has Snowden released which confirms the idea that he had the type of broad-ranging access which you claim.
Nothing you just cited confirms that: the first is Verizon phone records. Again - public knowledge since 2007 if anyone was actually paying attention.
The second and third are a warrant of the type used to request surveillance (you know, due process and all that) and a document of procedures for minimizing data on US citizens.
Both documents, explicitly dealing with not collecting broad-ranging data on US citizens and demonstrating oversight and limitation to the process. So again, where is the smoking gun? Where is any proof that Edward Snowden has done more then simply make a copy of a library of guidelines and procedures for NSA employees? Because nothing you just linked proves that he has anything substantive which actually proves wrongdoing, overreach, or the NSA going beyond mission parameters.