Edward Snowden’s misplaced trust in a do-nothing Congress

For a guy who thought the established system was so broken he had to circumvent it, Edward Snowden sure seems to have a lot of faith in America's legislature.

The former intelligence contractor spent much of his livechat with Twitter users pressuring lawmakers to reform US privacy and whistleblower protection rules. He made reference to a just-released governmental report urging President Barack Obama to end the National Security Agency's bulk phone records collection program, and turned it instead against members of Congress whom he expects to act. "I don’t see how Congress could ignore [the report], as it makes it clear there is no reason at all to maintain the 215 program," Snowden said before quoting the document at length. Later, Snowden called on legislators to extend whistleblower protections to government contractors and to beef up the law's existing guarantees. To see Snowden turning to Congress makes a lot of sense. The president has said he'll change the Section 215 program -- not eliminate it. But if Snowden were familiar at all with the nation's legislature, he'd also know its recent track record provides little cause for hope.