>> If Snowden really felt beforehand that the civilian justice system was so completely inequitable it seems weird that he'd have been so insistent on its involvement elsewhere.
The 'justice' system fulfils what power requires from it. It will be as inequitable with a trial as it has been with this whole fiasco.
>Then there was never a reason to involve the 'justice' system in surveillance measures at all, was there?
"...But Obama’s Justice Department, like Bush’s, has not been above an opportunistic (and occasionally downright Procrustean) reading of particular statutes to permit whatever it is that the White House wants to do."
The 'justice' system fulfils what power requires from it. It will be as inequitable with a trial as it has been with this whole fiasco.