I would not Describe Edward Snowden as a hero - anyone who flies off to countries like RUssia and China with flash drives full of his countries espoinage secrets is a traitor by any definition. And the enemy isn't just traditional powers - fighting an asymmetric war against people who will willingly plant a bomb in a public waste bin as happened not far from where I live , and kill a couple of 10 year olds , requires intelligence and sometimes the line has to blur if you want to prevent tragedy. In the UK we suffered from a 25 year war conducuted against the UK civilian population by the IRA , of which the 1996 South Quay bombing affected me personally . Inalienable rights are little use to a corpse , and now the the islamic world is now targeting the UK and US this is the wrong time to expose survaillance methods to potential mass-killers . As an Aside the Guardian Newspaper only agreed to redact/destory the hard drives smuggled out of moscow because the UK government threatened arrests under anti-terrorism law otherwise