To answer the several questions in this thread by answering this particular question of yours, yes, I think Edward Snowden will receive a fair trial according to the law if he stands trial in the United States, which I hope he does. (Federal trials and the trials in many states are NOT televised, as a default, but they are public except in very extraordinary circumstances. I have walked into trials in various places just because I can, as a member of the general public.)
In general, as I have said in other recent comments here on Hacker News, I can be appalled by several of the recent allegations about NSA activity without applauding Snowden's actions. I took my wife and my two younger children along with a home-made protest sign ("We support the Bill of Rights") to the lightly attended Restore the Fourth protest in Minneapolis. I did that openly and in full view of law enforcement authorities and news cameras because freedom is precious to me, and I don't think my freedom should be abused on any rationale, even the rationale of fighting terrorist networks. That said, I find that whenever I get out of the Hacker News hivemind, and deal with any of my friends from around the world who have actually lived and worked in multiple countries, and especially those friends who have children of their whose futures the friends are working for, there is remarkably little regard of Snowden as a hero or a freedom-fighter. It's not clear that he really has the technical chops to make a "dead man's switch" work as he intends against all possible attack surfaces, and it's not clear that all of his allegations about United States government activities are factually true, and it's especially clear already that Snowden's recent statements, with the ghost-writing help of Wikileaks, represent a badly unbalanced view of which countries in the world are the greatest enemies of human freedom, which is a cause I cherish all over the world.
> In general, as I have said in other recent comments here on Hacker News, I can be appalled by several of the recent allegations about NSA activity without applauding Snowden's actions.
I think this needs some further explanation. Without explanation it seems hypocritical to me, since you would not know about those NSA activites without Snowden.
> That said, I find that whenever I get out of the Hacker News hivemind, and deal with any of my friends from around the world who have actually lived and worked in multiple countries, and especially those friends who have children of their whose futures the friends are working for, there is remarkably little regard of Snowden as a hero or a freedom-fighter.
It's obvious that you do not have friends from Germany. Having suffered through multiple surveillance states in the past, Germans are very much aware of the dangers that are caused by massive surveillance. New technologies enable surveillance in an amount that has never been seen in history before. If your friends do not seem to care, they just haven't realised that there is a sword dangling right above their heads.
Why do you think that every single constitution of "free countries" (and also the human rights) have passages about the confidelity of spoken words, the confidelity of messages and so on. This is no coincidence. So many people paid with their lives for it. It is the only way of making sure that a democracy stays a democracy. You cannot organize an opposition, if the current rulers know all your moves, all your communications and all your contacts. This has been proven in history again and again, yet this is vital for a healthy democracy. Yet people seem to forget, because they "have nothing to hide" or their "life is not affected". But guess what, once you are affected, it is already too late and nothing can be done anymore. I would not want my children to live in a fascist surveillance state and I am very grateful for Snowden actions. Please talk to your friends and try to raise awareness. It's their children or their children's children who will have to pay the price. I know it's a little abstract, that's exactly why people fall for it again and again.
In general, as I have said in other recent comments here on Hacker News, I can be appalled by several of the recent allegations about NSA activity without applauding Snowden's actions. I took my wife and my two younger children along with a home-made protest sign ("We support the Bill of Rights") to the lightly attended Restore the Fourth protest in Minneapolis. I did that openly and in full view of law enforcement authorities and news cameras because freedom is precious to me, and I don't think my freedom should be abused on any rationale, even the rationale of fighting terrorist networks. That said, I find that whenever I get out of the Hacker News hivemind, and deal with any of my friends from around the world who have actually lived and worked in multiple countries, and especially those friends who have children of their whose futures the friends are working for, there is remarkably little regard of Snowden as a hero or a freedom-fighter. It's not clear that he really has the technical chops to make a "dead man's switch" work as he intends against all possible attack surfaces, and it's not clear that all of his allegations about United States government activities are factually true, and it's especially clear already that Snowden's recent statements, with the ghost-writing help of Wikileaks, represent a badly unbalanced view of which countries in the world are the greatest enemies of human freedom, which is a cause I cherish all over the world.