Abuse is certainly a problem and in my view a much stronger argument than just simply "my privacy must be respected out of principle, no matter the circumstances".

Abuse was certainly a huge problem with the KGB and other secret government agencies in the East and are still today in Third world countries so the potential for misuse is there, and power itself usually corrupts like you say, but I'm now aware of any severe abuse in Western democracies in modern times. Yes some abuse certainly happens but I simply don't know about many cases where a person's life has been destroyed because of government surveillance abuse in the West.

But I know for a fact that thousands of people's lives are being destroyed by violent crime and terrorism every year.

Mccarthyism?

Certainly, but we hardly even know how much the NSA's efforts would even begin to stem the tide of terrorism. According to them, their efforts stopped "dozens" of different terrorist attacks last year. But how many is dozens? How many of these attacks would have been preventable through other means? Who are these supposed terrorists to begin with, and when were they put on trial? Where is any credible evidence that proves these figures to begin with?

All that we have is the NSA's word that they've stopped "dozens" of terrorist attacks. Before an entire nation submits itself to secret government wiretapping that has the potential to be horribly abused, I would like a bit more concrete evidence that shows that this wiretapping actually prevents acts of terrorism, and if it does, how many attacks it prevents would be crucial as well.

Assuming they told us the truth, that's sound reasoning. They didn't. They lied through their teeth about this being "only metadata."  That, and I should remind you that when Social Security was enacted, there was a specific guarantee that the social security number would never be used for identification. Something about people not wanting to be numbers. I don't need to tell you how that wound up.

My problem is that this program is only a whisker away from abuse. Take what happened in the IRS scandal, where IRS agents were asking questions they had no constitutional authority to ask and then leaking that information to the press. If there's even a whisker of abuse in this system, the party in power when it got corrupted will never lose power. Now consider that the IRS doesn't have anywhere near the secrecy-quotient of the NSA, either: abuse would be very hard to detect and punish because the NSA security clearances.

Then there's personal abuse. You don't need to listen to too many random phone calls to find blackmail material. It is eminently practical for an unscrupulous person in the right place to turn something legal, but secret for those involved--like closet homosexuality or adultery--into personal gain.  And how they got the information is a state-protected secret.

Then there's the success issue. So they stopped one bomber. They also failed to catch the Boston Bombers when the Russians specifically warned us about them. The one they caught could be legit, or it could be a fluke.

Corruption would be very damaging. It would be hard to detect if it happened because it's behind a security clearance. It's debatable that it's had any effect. On all sides, this program isn't worth it.

I voted for snitch but I don't view him in negative light.  I voted snitch because he snitched on the government.  A snitch is a very negative word when it comes to snitching to the cops (organized crime).  However, I view the word snitch to what he did (snitch on government spying) in a positive light.  You basically didn't have good enough poll choices for me to pick from.  I don't view him as a hero nor a traitor.  I view him as someone who exposed an overreaching spying program that has a 51% probability to determine that you are a citizen and not foreign.  They might as well attach Social Security numbers to IP addresses.  Maybe then the USA government could more easily tell if you are a citizen or not.   FBI has wanted to tap into personal email for a long time (since 9/11 and probably before).  The whole NSA program didn't surprise me one bit even though they are supposed to only monitor foreign communications (they might as well move the program to the FBI).  A majority of USA citizens and elected officials were willing to give up their freedoms after 9/11 all in the name of national security.  I knew shit was coming or already in place.  At least most news channels (probably not Fox News) stopped reporting the stupid color levels of national security threat.  We are in orange!!! Wait we are in red!!! Watch out! Be afraid... I mean keep watching Fox News.

What has been revealed by Snowden is Pulcinella's secret. What is the big deal in spying on people? Isn't this what NSA suppose to do? 

I've got no actual opinion on the guy.

What he did was great, why he did it? Who knows.

Who cares.

Well, you know, there's that whole fourth amendment thing that kind of throws a wrench in the supposed legality of this, but outside of that, sure, it's no big deal.

I understand why patriots went bonkers over desecrated ideals they hold making hero out of Snowden, but in the argument between reality and ideals -- reality always wins. Too little, too late I'm afraid for call for legality.

He knows enough about how the spying works, that he assumes after the leak they could track the e-mails the Guardian got before and reduce fast the numbers of suspects. So anonymity wouldn't help him. He choose public, so it would raise suspicion if he 'accidently dies' or stuff like that.

I think he is a hero. The government in a democracy is (or should be) the servant of the people. Spying on the people and keeping that a secret is not exactly what you should do with your boss.

And people who complain that he fled to other countries, do they also think the Dalai Lama is a coward?