> I am a pacifist, I'd much prefer that we wound down this (and most other) military activity

How are we to wind it down, or even know that we want to wind it down, if we don't know what it does? The reaction to all of this over-the-top foreign spying stuff is as loud as it is precisely because most people were not aware of its extent, regardless of the stated mission of the NSA. The NSA grew so large and powerful because its projects were secret and thus largely shielded from public review. In that light, the secrecy is a lot more than an operational detail; it's a deception directed at the American people in order to pursue unpopular security policy. Note, for example, that even the NSA's budget is classified. They've built something very big, and they were only allowed to do it by keeping it in the dark.

To put that another way, if it really is merely the NSA's stated mission and revealing its secrets is mere sabotage, why is it scandalous that they tapped Angela Merkel's phone? Why is it outrageous that they're spying on Google's intra-datacenter communications? Why is tracking the world's cell phone locations an embarrassing thing to have done? Because if we'd been asked, we wouldn't have let them do it. But we weren't asked, because secrets.

Thus, I think that revealing the extent of NSA spying, including all of the foreign stuff, falls in this bucket:

> Revealing that an entity is doing things it should not be doing so the correct oversight can be put in place.

In my view, our government doesn't have a fundamental right to secrecy. We provisionally granted it the privilege of keeping some things secret from us (remember, we're The People) because we felt it was in a good position to make the tradeoffs required there. It has systematically abused that privilege and now it's lost its claim to it.

I see your point, but I think you may be making too coarse a distinction. There is a difference between gathering intelligence on certain high-value foreign targets and en-mass foreign surveillance of the nominally innocent. Further, I am not convinced that the agency has made a proportional contribution to counter-terrorism in proportion to its budget. Stopping a few questionable donations cannot ever justify building such a dangerous infrastructure -- which will inevitably be abused for political purposes.

Even if he was doing sabotage. It would be morally acceptable in his case. Systematic surveillance in this scale changes power balance between government and citizens very fundamental way.

I'm curious as to what you think was sabotage though? It seems to me he didn't reveal any technical details -- only a high-level overview of what he saw as systematic abuse.

But there will always be overlap between the two. If you disclose secrets of an organization you act against its rules and harm its capabilities. It's merely a difference in what interests you will acknowledge as you act.

The latter often describes civil disobedience.

Sabotage and civil disobedience don't really overlap.

Sabotage: I will secretly undermine your operations and try not to get caught. My sabotage is operational- it is most effective when undiscovered.

Civil disobedience: I will publicly defy your rules with every intention of being apprehended. My defiance is political- it achieves nothing by itself, and must be public.

Yes, both involve breaking rules, but that is where the similarities end.

Why should someone consent to being apprehended if they are protesting the same laws that they are breaking?

Because it's civil disobedience. If you fight back, resist arrest, evade the police, etc it is just disobedience. :)

The point behind civil disobedience is to publicly demonstrate the unjustness of the law, not fight it head-on. Remember when those nonviolent University students a little while ago got pepper-sprayed? Much, much better press for them and their cause than "students start brawl with police".

Some people believe civil disobedience doesn't have to be nonviolent, but most people agree on nonviolence and all the famous examples of civil disobedience were nonviolent (Rosa Parks, Thoreau, Gandhi, etc)

Both Snowden and Assange are avoiding apprehension while being non-violent.

I said nothing about violence - in fact, your comment is the first on this page to mention violence - so I don't really understand where you're coming from.

Ok, what's a better word? I mention violence because it is most common dividing line, but I think what I mean could be called "resistance". Whether we call it violence or resistance doesn't change my previous comment; as I clearly described, civil disobedience is typically considered to be passively accepting the consequences as part of a public display.