Snowden - Man of the Year... Almost

Mr. Snowden for right or wrong has exposed just how far, in the name of national security, the government has gone as it continues to pummel the 4th Amendment.

In 1979 the Supreme Court created the "third-party doctrine" which still applies today.  Without a specific warrant government cannot access the content of mail and consequently email.  However, Mr. Snowden has exposed the NSA is tapping the main trunk lines of Google, Yahoo, Micorsoft, etc... and it's likely the contents of our correspondence is computer processed and then stored away like phone call metadata.

Under current law if you freely gave information to a third party, be it your local library, credit card company, VIP grocery account, Google, banker or phone company your data and activity are likely NOT protected by the Fourth Amendment. There may be privacy issues against sharing this information, but typically there is no constitutional protection, and it is often very easy for government "agencies" to gather these third party records without you ever being notified.

More than likely, Mr. Snowden hasn't revealed the full extent of the NSA's data gathering capability but the enormity of the facilities being constructed out West would indicate that every credit card transaction, internet search, email, phone call metadate, etc... Is being collected and filtered in real time, within days or just stored for future searches.  It's 100% clear to me that our privacy if not our constitutional rights are being trampled upon.

Man of the Year?  I don't think so, but clearly Mr. Snowden has started the conversation.