No. Don't say this. Ever. I personally agree that privacy law needs to be rewritten and strengthened massively, but when you try to link actively murdering people to infringement of privacy I get so angry that I want to disagree with you

You are absolutely right. The two certainly should never be compared in terms of actions.

Let me clarify a bit, which may make things worse, but I hope you can somehow get a glimpse into how I'm looking at it.

You have people in Germany who were going with the flow

You have government employees who are going with the flow

You have actively murdering Nazi's, hate, etc.

You have people actively invading peoples privacy - those people who were the brains behind Prism, those people who are doing things to expand the amount of data collection and storage of citizens.

You have people who are following orders - actively spying/actively murdering but not the decision makers or the people who are 100% dedicated to the their actions, simply 100% dedicated to their paycheck/self sustaining/etc.

No, they are not the same at all. No, they shouldn't ever be compared in terms of what they are participating in.

But when you look at the different groups of people solely based on the way they are doing things - the active decision makers vs the self-sustainers vs the go with the flow- not the actual things they are doing - think it is a valid comparison.

Back to the original quote:

And it is simply grotesque that Snowden compares these thousands of government workers—all doing their jobs to protect the United States—to the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.

This is a false callout by the author and/or a false comparison by Snowden. You can't compare the go with the flows to the active decision makers. But you can compare the go with the flows to the go with the flows, and the active decision makers to the active decision makers. Not in terms of their actual actions (murder/hate vs privacy/intrusion) but the hierarchy and...

Fuck, that's even more convoluted. I give up.

For what it's worth, I tracked down Snowden's direct quote:

I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”

Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.

I think everyone is comparing things that are completely different to each other and it's pissing everyone off, including me. I'm going to stop here.