I went off on this on Twitter last night, and I am no less disgusted today: Ed Snowden does not, in fact, care for the United States of America.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday that the NSA had bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks where it was able to read documents and emails. United Nations offices were similarly targeted, reports Der Spiegel based on information provided by Mr. Snowden.

Of course the National Security Agency bugged them! That is what the National Security Agency does!

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances.

The Information Assurance mission confronts the formidable challenge of preventing foreign adversaries from gaining access to sensitive or classified national security information. The Signals Intelligence mission collects, processes, and disseminates intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations. This Agency also enables Network Warfare operations to defeat terrorists and their organizations at home and abroad, consistent with U.S. laws and the protection of privacy and civil liberties.

Bolding mine, and that’s from the NSA’s own website. And before anybody says Well, I didn’t tell them to go spy on friendly countries let me just preempt you: I am telling the NSA to go spy on friendly countries, and neutral countries, and foreign NGOs. Because they’re doing it to us, and that is how the game is played, and I didn’t ask for a twenty-something arrested-development anti-American man–child to arrogantly decide that American national security was less important than his frankly puerile transnational fantasy ideology. In fact, I would like the American government to go collect said man-child, and try him for espionage, please.

Feel.

Freaking.

Free.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Notice how the only revelations of the NSA’s actual activities all involve stuff that the NSA is expected and permitted to do? No, think about it: on domestic issues we’ve heard a lot of things of what the NSA might do or could do, and almost nothing about what the NSA has done. But Snowden and Greenwald keep revealing past activities that will hamper the USA’s ability to gather and process foreign intelligence. This is because Ed Snowden and Glenn Greenwald hate you, and want you to die in a grease fire. And they hate you because you actually love this country as it is, and not as it could be after a thoroughgoing revolution, and probably a purge or two.