While I don't disagree that the NSA's directive is international information gathering, and that should be the limit of its scope, I think Colbert's wrong to think that's something that can exist without ever going far beyond its scope. By natural consequence of having an extremely well funded organization with zero oversight, if we don't have whistleblowers, they're going to take advantage of the situation.
Which brings me to the counterpoint which is that Snowden shouldn't spend the rest of his life in jail, which is what would invariably happen would be go to trial in the US. I think it's of little matter that he revealed how we spy on other countries. I think the point of that was to show that that's how we're being spied on by the 5 Eyes, who will freely share their spying information.
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