Mr. President;
I watched your press conference today with a mixture of incredulous disappointment and outrage fatigue.
After all the revelations about the NSA and it's wholesale capture of all Americans' digital communications;
the revelations about warehousing both the metadata and the content of all Americans' phone calls - virtually unlimited warrentless wiretaps;
the revelations about the IRS and DEA utilizing covert NSA intercepts and then secretly re-constructing a legal rationale for having those leads;
the revelations by former NSA veterans William Binney and Russell Tice - including the latter's statement that he held in his hand dossiers on the private communications of Supreme Court Justice Alito and then Senator Obama;
After all these revelations how can you stand before the American people and proclaim that there is no domestic spying program?
Mr. President, why did they (accordingly to whistleblower Tice) pull the private information on General David Petreus? Was he a suspected terrorist?
How can you say that congress is fully briefed when there are articles this past week documenting several Senators' requests for basic information that have been snubbed or ignored?
How can you stand before the American people and say that these programs are well monitored and that there are no abuses? There are reported abuses in the news almost every day now. Do you think they're all false?
I am stunned about how you seemed to genuinely feel that Snowden could have simply gone to his superiors and said that something is wrong here and been taken seriously?
What do you think, in your heart of hearts, motivated Snowden to do something that he himself know would change his life in an adverse way? Aiding terrorists? Really?
As a long time progressive, I am used to republican presidents standing before the American people and lying. Lying regularly, brazenly and repeatedly. But I am not accustomed to democratic presidents doing what you did today.
The American people are starving for some honesty and candor from our leadership. These are difficult times and Americans sorely need to be inspired and renewed by the values of this country's revolutionary founders, our genuine "roots". I feel certain that they (Hamilton, Madison, Washington, Adams, right down to Paul Revere) would respect & support Mr. Snowden, as well as Mr. Binney, Mr. Tice, and Mr. Manning. I feel that these are courageous individuals compelled by conscience to break ranks on behalf of the rest of us - true selfless patriots.
Please take a deep breath, suck it up, and do the same.