The Big Snoop – The divergent views of four respected experts help frame the debate over the future of the NSA in the Snowden Era – Stuart Taylor, Jr.:  “With the approach of the first anniversary of the most copious and sensational leakage of intelligence secrets in history, the consequences of his actions continue to reverberate. In addition to evidence that the NSA had been collecting and storing some of the phone records of most Americans as well as the emails and other private Internet correspondence of many citizens, Snowden revealed that the agency has the ability — and indeed the practice — of listening in on phone conversations of foreign officials, most notoriously (but no longer) Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany. America’s diplomacy has been hobbled, its image abroad tarnished, its alliances strained, its government’s standing in the eyes of its own people damaged, its policies challenged in court and, in some cases, already undergoing major revision at the behest of the White House. The NSA itself is in trouble with otherwise friendly foreign governments and also with the giants of the American high-tech sector on which it depends for hardware, software, systems-design, encryption and decryption techniques, and cooperation in providing information about their customers… I have focused my own attempt to cover this story on four prominent, knowledgeable, and respected experts whose differing perspectives on the problem and its solution help frame the debate.”