> Because keeping an eye on foreign governments is a legitimate task, this source is not a whistleblower. He or she could be a cryptoanarchist, or maybe even an agent of a foreign intelligence agency.
Interesting distinction: whistleblower vs cryptoanarchist ;)
Even more interesting is that someone besides us "government shills" has finally acknowledged the idea that something NSA does could possibly be legitimate...
The Cold War is probably the closest historical lab experiment about espionage. I've seen it argued that even the spies and traitors served a valuable purpose during the Cold War. Because leaks like these provided a way for valuable information to cross the barriers of antagonism and give insight into the real problems and the real fears of the other side. And this knowledge could in fact lower tensions and increase security.
To know and to tell secrets is a very human thing that laws and social norms (spying on the President! For shame!) will not erase.
Even if it was ultimately valuable in that way, cold war espionage was still an extremely expensive theatrical game of back and forth - often piggy-backing on morally-questionable methodology in order to get those results.
If you think that spying on a foreign nations president is legitimate, I have a question for you: Is it also ok and legitimate for you if other foreign nations spy on _your_ president?
Being legitimate "for the NSA to do" and legitimate "in the grand scheme of things" are not the same thing.
It [could be argued that it']s legitimate for the NSA to spy on France, just like it[...]'s legitimate for the french NSA to spy on the US.
That's not the same question as whether or not it's legitimate for allies to spy on each other. Oh, sorry, for the US to spy on France and for France to spy on the US.
Legitimate? Yes. "OK" is a function of how pervasive the spying is, but far from expecting other countries not to try at all, I'd honestly expect other countries to try mightily to get information on what the President of the United States is thinking on topics of importance to that country.
Interesting distinction: whistleblower vs cryptoanarchist ;)