It’s logical, given this background and mind-set, that Snowden would sacrifice his career to expose data mining procedures of the National Security Agency. Even if he has not been able to point to any specific abuses, he was bound to be horrified by the confidentiality endemic to military and intelligence activities. And, of course, he’s right that the procedures he’s unveiled could lend themselves to abuse in the future.

But Big Brother is not the only danger facing the country. Another is the rising tide of distrust, the corrosive spread of cynicism, the fraying of the social fabric and the rise of people who are so individualistic in their outlook that they have no real understanding of how to knit others together and look after the common good.

This is not a danger Snowden is addressing. In fact, he is making everything worse.

For society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things.





David Brooks complaining about the rise of distrust in government is a bit like Tywin Lannister moaning about the rise of the price of bread in King's Landing with all this war going on. Bobo's argument would be measured and even on-point if it wasn't for the quibbling little fact that Brooks has spent much of the last four years telling us that we can never completely trust Obama or his government because he's different from us, not like us, etc. etc. blah blah blah.





So now we see Brooks actually can make a salient point when it's convenient to him, that yes, Snowden arrogantly took it upon himself as arbiter of the entire national security apparatus and that he directly betrayed the government he took an oath to serve, circumventing the Constitution's checks and balances.





That of course makes all his other vile drivel all the more hacktastic.

Bobo has decided in today's column that the only thing he can't stand more than the suspect, anti-colonialist, not-like-us President and his government is the notion that a Millennial Paulbot can cause so much damage to Bobo's status quo