Never mind whether Mr. Snowden is a hero or a traitor. Now that we know that our government is collecting information on our every move, what do we want to do about it? That is the important question, and it is a hard one. It will take several years for all the issues that this data collection raises to be addressed.
One interesting point to consider is this: An op-ed piece in the New York Times of June 30, 2013, by a German national, says that the experience of his country over the last 80 years – which starts with Hitler and includes 40+ years of the Stasi in eastern Germany – makes it clear that the massive data collection now being conducted in the US is a grave threat to personal liberty, and Germans think it is dangerously oppressive. If Germans think it’s dangerously oppressive, that’s probably a good indicator that this massive data collection is a threat to liberty in the US.