The US debate over the NSA scandal, but not the wiretaps are the focus. Instead, it’s all about the role of whistleblowers Snowden  US President Barack Obama is the location.

Edward Snowden is a traitor and a spy, and this also applies to the people to whom he handed his sensitive information ? In the prestigious NBC’s “Meet the Press” came on Sunday for the slugfest between host David Gregory and Glenn Greenwald, so that bloggers from the “Guardian”, which the whistleblower Snowden had leaked the documents on the US-British sniffer actions.

Gregory: “Inasmuch as you have helped and supported Snowden, why should not you, Mr. Greenwald, are accused of a crime?”

Greenwald: “This is very extraordinary that someone who calls himself a journalist, publicly speculates about whether other journalists accused of a crime should be …”

Gregory: “The question of who is a journalist here, we like to discuss with a view to what you do …”

A few minutes later, Greenwald tweets: “Why do we still need the government’s attempt to criminalize journalism, when David Gregory takes over?”

You can read this strongly worded dialogue between the two Americans in different ways. On the one hand as proof that even U.S. journalists such as Gregory the monitoring programs of their state do not really question: Why he states in his question to the fellow to have Snowden supported? On the other hand, as evidence of independent journalism: Why should the role of the learned Advocate Greenwald, who always gives himself as an activist, not really be critically examined? Anyway, discusses America’s elite interpretation for two days awake, as is to be understood.

“NSA story has become the story Snowden”

And the U.S. population? What do the people facing the NSA scandal? Various opinion polls in recent days also prove: on the one hand, on the other. 54 percent of Americans believe, according to a survey commissioned by the “Time” magazine, Snowden had proved with his revelations to the public a service. At the same time turn say 53 percent who published classified material which was to be punished. And while 43 percent believe that the government should restrict the monitoring programs, 28 percent agree with the current policy. 20 percent would even be willing to give up more privacy to prevent potential terrorist attacks.

That is: There is a certain sympathy for the whistleblower, but basically the majority of U.S. citizens safety is more important than privacy. The fear of terrorism is omnipresent. Why is that, of all the self-proclaimed “Land of the Free”? And why Europeans seem far indignant in the current case?

“Both Americans and Europeans put absolutely value their privacy, but in different ways,” says Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis – and the English. There are areas where U.S. citizens “privacy” is far more important than Europeans about when it comes to financial information or physical nakedness. In contrast, Americans have, for example, shocked by the extent of CCTV in the UK. “And then they argue quite similar and, for the British games of privacy not matter,” Richards told SPIEGEL ONLINE. In addition, the NSA surveillance less cause for concern in this country than in Europe, because they primarily directed just against foreigners, according to the government.

In fact, U.S. politicians of both parties have been put on exactly this argument. President Barack Obama has time and again assured it would not read e-mails from Americans. President Barack Obama has time and again assured it would not read e-mails from Americans. However, it remains to be seen what impact the revelations of the past weekend at the massive sniffing actions of the British intelligence agency GCHQ to the U.S. public – after all, American services have access to the data of the allies. Mind you, the British Journal of the transatlantic cable. How should U.S. citizens be spared because of the espionage?

The most important question: Where is Edward Snowden?

This question, however, has been sidelined by Edward Snowden itself: Ever since the weekend, not his revelations, but his escape dominate the headlines worldwide. “Now the whole world knows, in which he is suspected aircraft and which countries he is considering as a refuge,” writes the “Washington Post” columnist Ezra Klein. The name of the sniffer programs however be disappeared from the news: “The NSA’s story has become the Snowden-story.”

President Barack Obama can only be good. Although the case Snowden distracts from the issues that he wanted to score points this week – immigration reform, major speech on climate change, Travel to Africa – but that his government must now answer questions about extradition or Hong Kong and Russia criticize, instead of sniffing programs information to give.

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