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Liberty’s lost decade

economist.com
6 pointssamd2 comments
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The majority of those supporting Manning/Snowden maintain that neither man did anything wrong. This seems to be a much more reasonable and fair-minded approach.

"Mr Manning’s public-interest defence is especially thin: he leaked over 700,000 files with little judgment about what harm or good this would do."

I agree - it was irresponsible and unwise, and it may have ultimately harmed the country more than it helped. I think Snowden has generally used his best judgement; we can disagree with what he saw fit to leak, but at least he takes some responsibility for the information he holds.

I also agree that we've gone way too far in restricting liberties. We have a bill of rights for a reason: individual rights the government shouldn't be able to ignore, even when it's inconvenient.

It depends on your point of view:

Does government exist to serve the people, or do people exist to serve Washington?

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