Snowden's Documents Help Terrorists

Last year, Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) released a flood of documents to the news media concerning NSA's operations. He disclosed how the agency eavesdrops, including spying on Internet communications such as emails and on the Web’s ubiquitous social media. His main point was that an agency of the US government was violating the constitutional privacy rights of citizens. NSA first denied the charge, but later at least partially admitted to its truth, which could not be denied based upon Edward Snowden's document release
Edward Snowden was castigated and remains a fugitive from the "justice" of the US government. Meanwhile, the very large liberal section of the US populace continues to support NSA's incursion on US citizen privacy rights through rationalization that it is necessary to control terrorism.
The question now has specifically arisen as to whether terrorist organizations have used the released Snowden documents to more effectively operate as terrorists. The answer is obviously "yes". But, the question still remains as to whether the incidental release of helpful information to the enemy justifies the deprivation of constitutional privacy rights to US citizens. Liberals, who incidentally do not believe in constitutional rights, say that it does. Constitutional scholars say that it does not. In fact, the reading of the U.S. Constitution does not allow any exceptions to justify privacy rights deprivation.
The "man on the street" likely doesn't care. He is concerned with his job, if he has one, baseball, football, his next vacation, working on his boat and various family matters involving his children. Because of his lack of attention, the federal government invokes various restrictions piecemeal on his life. I call this the "salami effect", in which government continually cuts off thin slices of privacy rights, unnoticed by the public because the slices are so thin.
This then behooves those of us who are paying attention to try to protect ourselves from government and also to protect the uninitiated who are not paying attention. One could say that the uninitiated are justified to lose privacy rights because of their inattention, but that contradicts the unstated "brotherhood" clause in US citizenship. We need to protect our fellow citizens, even if they know no better. The extreme example is the protection of our children, who because they are children, are unable to judge for themselves. It is also the basis of why some men are drafted by government to fight in wars, while mothers and children are protected.
On balance, Edward Snowden did a great public service in releasing information showing the incursion of the federal government on the privacy rights of citizens. The fact that the enemy can also use a small portion of this information is not significant.