[image: Wikipedia]

Edward Snowden: Patriot or Traitor?

I watched the interview on television last night with Edward Snowden. He is a 30-year old high school dropout, so I was not expecting much of a defense from him for his part in releasing a large quantity of documents from the National Security Agency. He immediately showed Brian Williams and us, however, that he is nobody’s fool. He is very intelligent, quite articulate, and he was well-prepared for this interview—even better prepared than was Brian Williams.

Snowden is holed up somewhere in Moscow, not a city of his choosing, but a location that affords him at least temporary asylum from prosecution by U.S. authorities. Apparently he faces 20 years in prison for stealing and distributing high-level classified information. His permission to stay there expires on August 1st of this year.

Snowden has been portrayed by top U.S. officials has a low-level hacker, a common thief, and a law breaker. Snowden demonstrated, however, that he is a very bright, well-informed systems analyst whose abilities likely far out strip most, if not all, of his critics. He answered all questions forthrightly, with examples, and with consequences far beyond those articulated by Brian Williams. He left little doubt that he likely could outgun any of his critics in a head-to-head confrontation that deals with facts, analysis, consequences, and the Constitution. He has received no money from anyone, and he has no book deals in the offing. He sees himself as a simple, modest, patriot who has alerted an apathetic public to the dangers of an intrusive government—here, or in China, or Russia, or any nation that gathers high tech information.

To be sure Snowden is an idealist, driven by youth, and facts, and outrage at what he discovered in his activities as a contractor with the CIA and the NSA. The same conditions applied to John Kerry, his most vocal critic, when he returned from Vietnam back in the 1970s. Kerry, you may recall, through the same medals over the White House fence in protest against the Vietnam War that he used as credentials for the Presidency 30 years later. The same can be said of Daniel Ellsberg and his release of the Pentagon Papers. Today, both are “elder statesmen.” Views change with age and responsibilities. But show me an old man—any old man—who can master the intricacies of today’s high tech systems and who can also see the hypocrisies in their use as can a young idealistic mind. And therein lies the crux of the matter.

A well reasoned defense of Snowden and his actions is posted on Ellsberg’s website:

“The secrecy system in this country is broken. No one is punished for using secrecy to conceal dangerous policies, lies, or crimes, yet concerned employees who wish to inform the American public about what the government is doing under their name are treated as spies. Our ‘accountability’ mechanisms are a one-sided secret court, which acts as a rubber stamp, and a Congressional ‘oversight’ committee, which has turned into the NSA’s public relations firm. Edward Snowden had no choice but to go to the press with information. Far from a crime, Snowden’s disclosures are a true constitutional moment, where the press has held the government to account using the First Amendment, when the other branches refused.”

It is unlikely that Snowden could return to the U.S. today and get a fair hearing in any court of law. His actions are too recent, and there has been little public dialogue on the issues articulated by Ellsberg or Snowden. Until that happens, he will have to remain holed up somewhere—a man without a country—awaiting the day when our collective consciousness and our consciences catch up with his actions and his motivations.