Is A College Degree As Important As It Used To Be? Google Says No

I think the crux of this is whether there is a need to gather the information or not. I think the question for the US is whether the relevant Congress and Senate Oversight Committees are doing the job for the US public. If not, then you have a serious problem that has to be resolved politically. Because we are outside the US political paradigm, we need to protect the interests of our citizenry from the US and China in the main, but there would be more in the mix.

It is in our interests, however, to have the US strong in respect of its capability to react to issues related to politically inspired violence. I do not frame terrorism in a religious framework as I consider that it always has a political agenda. I also consider what is going on in the Northern Pacific eclipses the issue of terrorism, but I guess that this flies under the media radar. There are provocative acts occurring between Japan and China, Taiwan is under threat (do not be confused about that), Vietnam has issues with China, North Korea is its usual self, Tibet is being systematically decimated, although the world ignores all that. Afghanistan has more issues about Chinese dominance than about the Taliban. The Chinese are highly motivated to access the mining wealth in the north of the country. Something is going to bump together that will have a highly unpleasant result. The Lowry Institute here recently published research data that Australians mostly trust the US (with some reservations), but do not trust the Chinese government, albeit our biggest trading partner.

In respect of Snowden, maybe he is a hero, I don't know enough to say one or the other definitively. I do think that he has damaged the prestige of the US. The difference with the US, it tells the world about its problems. Try travelling to Tibet. See how well you get around Russia. I can still remember the Ukrainian President getting radiated by the Russians, under Putin, in an attempt to assassinate him.

In respect of the bit players (the terrorists), I think it is dangerous to think that they just gave up after 9/11 and decide to do other things. If they did not just give up, then what stopped them? I think the huge intelligence global network has impeded their operations. This is not simply the US agencies, but the entirety of the western world and its allies cooperating to prevent attacks on the US which is in our interests to do. Whatever the incompetency of the US govt, I don't think it can be assumed that all govts and their agencies in this network are incompetent.

I value my privacy as I am sure that Americans do. I remain doubtful about the manner that this information has been disclosed. I note from the news here last night that Snowden is now in the gentle embrace of the Russians who would not be at all interested in what he can tell them. I also note that a bloke called Masters was a whistleblower (NSA) in the US and faced up to the charges and won. He did not do what Snowden did.