Edward Snowden is not our biggest national security problem

Okay, I've got your attention now, don't I? Greetings all you fellas at NSA.
I'm going to piss a lot of people off today. All the drones in the news media are harping on what a terrible thing Edward Snowden has done by exposing the NSA's domestic spying program. Oh, what a terrible thing he's done, ohh our national security has been exposed to the whole wide world of terrrorism (there's another code word, boys!), blah blah. And they swallowed the Government line hook line and sinker, no questions asked. That's the sound of Thomas Paine spinning in his grave that you're hearing, by the way.
The truth is that Snowden has not named any names; no agents in the field have been exposed thanks to his revelations. He exposed a program of government paranoia that would make Nixon smile, and which really should come as no surprise to anyone.
Nobody seemed to raise a stink when Dick Cheney outed CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003--an act, by any definition, which constituted high treason. And he did that because her husband Joseph Wilson spoke the truth, that Cheney's justification for the Iraq War was all lies and horse pucky.
It takes a special kind of coward to go after a man by attacking his woman. Ohh, but never mind the 4,500 U.S. troops who died for that useless war, never mind the half a million Iraqis killed for no good reason so we could harvest their oil. Close to 8,000 Iraqis have died this year alone as a direct result of terrorist attacks, which are a direct result of our military intervention. But that doesn't matter, 'cos it's happening to somebody else. Who really gives a rat's ass?
The best that can be said for the NSA is that they don't actually carry out the dirty jobs their work is enabling. Let's leave that to the CIA. The NSA collects intelligence; it has helped our national securuty in the past and its a job they do very well, more than can be said for the CIA.
Here's the rub; they're part of the system of spies (including CIA and Homeland Security) that reports directly to the government which apparently has operated since the Bush Administration on the assumption that the people of the United States are not to be trusted. That's a paranoid, very Nixonian delusion which may only go to prove that the reverse is true.
The ultimate aim of any police-state is always power and intimidation. They want the people to live in a constant state of fear and helplessness. I'd shed that attitude very quickly, boys. Fear and powerlessness is not an attitude that has ever gone down well with the American people.
You parrots keep saying Snwoden has undermined our national security? Horse feathers. Oh yes, trot out that old chestnut. Tell me--how did he do that? Are you spies so mono-talented that you weren't prepared to adapt when the Chinese or Russians did break your spy codes--assuming that hadn't happened long before Snowden exposed your ditty lil' secret? Let me tell you, you blinkered children, our merest involvement in the warped politics of the Middle East is a bigger threat to our national security. Our kissy-ass kow-towing to the Saudis and the Israeli lobby is a bigger threat to our national security.Throwing up that 'ohh he;s a threat to our national security' argument is a blind, a distraction from your blind violations of the U.S. Constitution, and it's turned around to bite you square in the ass.
Thank you, NSA. Pleasant night's sleep.