"Mr. Snowden revealed that the NSA and FBI were obtaining warrants from the FISA Court as a subterfuge. Thus, Mr. Snowden revealed, the feds do get FISA warrants, but only as a cover for their mass undifferentiated warrantless spying. This means that NSA and FBI use of the FISA Court is largely symbolic and unneeded since the NSA and the FBI can more easily break the law and spy without warrants than they can follow the law. The degree of NSA and FBI unconstitutional and criminal spying is breathtaking. Because of Mr. Snowden, we now know that all the data the feds mines, if printed, would fill 27 times the holding capacity of the Library of Congress every year. This is unconstitutional because it defies the Fourth Amendment. It is criminal because it constitutes computer hacking, even if presidentially authorized. When Mr. Snowden began his work at the CIA and the NSA, he took two oaths. The first was to keep secret whatever his bosses told him was secret. This presumably includes not only the data that the NSA mined but also the unconstitutional and criminal means that it used to acquire all that data. The second oath that Mr. Snowden took was to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. This means not only its plain text but also the values that underlie the text... Today he is an American banished from his homeland. Yet he remains a symbol of greatness of historic proportion and a reminder of the privations that heroes for the truth often must endure."