Ever feel like you can't keep up with all the doom and gloom echoing around the internet? Motherboard's here to help. With GIFs. Welcome to THIS WEEK IN HELL, a feature that brings you hard-hitting animated coverage of the week's most apocalyptic events, straight from the digital pen of Jay Spahr.Edward Snowden should go to jail.This, at least, is the opinion of former National Security Agency general counsel Stewart Baker. Asked whether he feels the US government's charges against Snowden, the former National Security Agency systems analyst whose ongoing document leaks continue to expose America's global surveillance dragnet, are appropriate or not, Baker told NPR that not only are the charges appropriate but that he thinks Snowden knew full well that his actions would be treated "as a serious crime."If Snowden finds himself with no place to go after his one-year asylum in Russia is up, then, Baker thinks he must face the consequences—call it the case against clemency for Snowden. While there are countless subtleties to any argument in favor of showing some or zero mercy for Snowden, Baker's particular stance rests on the scope of what Snowden stole. How much is too much?It's hard to say exactly how many classified documents Snowden pilfered; estimates range from tens of thousands to over a million. Baker says that Snowden could've gotten away with exposing the NSA's domestic spying program with just "one or two" documents. For all we know, the Snowden files number at least in the thousands, and detail NSA goings-on far beyond American soil. Baker cites one leak in particular, one that shed light on an entire catalog worth of "exploits" (the various techniques the NSA uses to determine if they've got the right target on their hands, and which of the hundreds of ways the agency could then use to access that target), that has put the US's surveillance toolkit at risk."Now, thanks to Snowden, authoritarian governments all around the world are going to have new tools and our tools are going to be less effective," Baker told NPR. "That I think is sort of a surprising but very damaging consequence of just one leak.""He did the crime — he should do the time," Baker added.Baker isn't alone in that sentiment. A rash of articles published over the past few days have all added to the case against clemency for Snowden. Most of these serve as pushbackto a New York Times editorial that, among other things, argued that Snowden, who the Times calls a "whitstleblower," should be offered some sort of "plea bargain" if he cooperates in answering some questions about what he did, why he did what he did, and what he feels are the consequences for carrying it all out.@thebanderson
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