You haven't read about the outrage from countries, citizens, human rights activists, etc? Lawsuits from the ACLU? Ecuador dropping their favored trade status (trade favors go both ways). At the very least, this has harmed the public image of the US government just by the very nature of its public reveal.
There is something that angers me a bit about this sentiment, and I am speaking as a US citizen here. Snowden has harmed the US government by embarrassing it, causing civil rights groups to file lawsuits, and by causing a trade agreement to possibly fail over his request for asylum? It sounds like you are saying we should just keep quiet about government abuses, which is basically the opposite of what America is supposed to stand for.
I'm not arguing right or wrong. Just that yes, in fact, the US has been hurt by this. I want to know why you're jumping to the conclusion that I think this is okay. I never once implied anything of the sort.
If I tattle on the school bully and he gets detention, he has been hurt by me (even though once he catches me I'll be hurt worse).
A bully's actions are detrimental to his own self as well as others and to awaken a bully has no implicit cause to harm the bully. On the contrary, it is motivated by love.
Under the guidance of those who are in power currently, the US will be run into the ground. Do you know why that will be the result? It's because of falsehood that our society is being ruined. It will never happen that revealing the truth will ruin a society.
So our efforts to reveal the facts of what is happening in reality are not to the detriment of the country - it is to save it from destruction.
That's why I demand evidence of your words.
How has the US been hurt by this? You said it is fact, so please show us something we can confirm.
Seriously how does a simple comment like "yeah, getting called out hurts" lead to this much fucking witch-hunting? I feel like you guys are about to dox me and send SWAT to my house. Why aren't you ganging up on kalms, who responded in agreement?
I already answered your question that you're somehow still demanding an answer to. There's a TV channel devoted to people who want to ignore the fact that someone responded to their question and make conveniently and intentionally false accusations in an attempt to discredit them.
I broke my hand once, and before I could get to the hospital the bone started to heal. It needed to be rebroken in order to heal properly. Sure the doctor broke my hand out of love for his patient. IT STILL FUCKING HURT.
Snowden didn't begin the spying program, he is the one who informed people about the fact so that they can protect themselves from being cheated by a lie.
The thing which hurt the US is the activities that its present government has been taking - and those activities are what people overseas are upset about.
Indeed, you need to re-break a break sometimes, but it is not an action that harms the break or the person: it is the only action that enables them to heal. We judge if they are harmed or not by the result, and the result of this method of treatment if correctly followed is decidedly good. So it's not true that temporal pain is implicitly indicative of harm.
The people who are in power in the US right now do not represent the real will of the people and thus they do not have the people's mandate. As such, no matter whether the EU withdraws from a trade deal with the current US government, it is not withdrawing from a government which is of the real people. As such, it would in fact be right of the EU to withdraw its agreement with the current US government so that more truth about the degree of legitimacy of the current US government is revealed. It's only by admitting the truth that we can finally start to go on the right path. To continue the way things are going now, where these dire problems are hidden, is even more painful to truthful people than it is to have the truth come out. Because the truth always exists.
Again: not what I'm arguing. I don't know who you're arguing against, but it's not me, so I'm going to bow out of this conversation. All I mentioned was the negative reactions from this leak that were directed towards the US government as things that have hurt the US government.
As far as I remember this country was created for the living people, not for the wealth and power of the aristocracy that has assumed control of it.
No matter how much the media conflate the two, the USA is not equivalent to its government. Nor is it the same as its foreign policy or international political image. US society is made up of real people and there is no evidence that Snowden's information has harmed the society.
But let's take it further. If you suppose that the USA's image was harmed, you should realize the fact that Snowden did not harm its image. It was harmed by the activities which Snowden's leaks revealed.
It would seem like EU dropping their planned trade agreement would be a much bigger blow. Not to mention the animosity it has created towards the US in general. European leaders are demanding answers, and the US is staying silent. It's not good, that's for sure.
Most or all EU countries have programs that spy on their own citizens and on US traffic. And, they oft do so in cooperation with the US government.
Additionally, the politicians who are calling for trade agreement cancellation are doing so on the stage of the world – with specific political agenda. They do that because if they don't, they invite exploitation and will lose their own power.
The revelation of all the facts about the reality of the power structures in the world must occur, and it must occur so that the people can finally live without latent animosity towards each other. The fact that the surveillance was not leaked with documents via a publicly accepted media outlet before Snowden does not somehow mean that the problems did not exist before and have continuous affect on people, society, and further, the world. On the contrary, as long as people live in ignorance or denial of important problems, it means those problems are hidden by the society, and the society will become dark and the society in turn causes people to do wrong things.
In a dark society, justice becomes lost.
When justice is lost, the society will fall.
That's why this effort to reveal the reality has quite the opposite effect on our society of harming us.
It is absolutely necessary if we are to survive the next decade and if we are to truly live with worldwide cooperation.
I'm not oblivious to the intelligence services here in Europe, although their focus hasn't exactly been the US. I'm aware of the political shenanigans, and of course they're trying to exploit the situation to their own benefit. As a European I'm furious, but right now I don't care about internal politics. I care about external threats, since that's what the USG just demoted their own country to.
I love the States, but it's a tough love right now.
