Uncommon Commentary #402: Miscellaneous Musing #54 (and MM #54 Update) Follow-Up

All the revelations by Edward Snowden embarrass Uncle Sam, but, with just one possible exception of which I know, they in no way compromise our security. (An intelligence professional has said that targets of US government surveillance will change their behavior now that they know that the NSA is snooping on their, and everyone else's, electronic mails and telephone calls and so forth.)  The man is technically guilty of betraying a trust, but to speak of him as if he belonged in the same category as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who stole secrets that facilitated the USSR's acquisition of atomic weaponry, does more than strain the limits of credulity; it bursts right through them.