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He did the right thingPersonally, I think he did the right thing. Some here have said he should have limited his disclosures to purely domestic spying, and he should have found a way to make his disclosures without leaving the country and doing it from nations that are hostile to us. Two points on those issues:
1. His first disclosures, the collection of U.S. phone records and PRISM, did involve domestic spying. And, even with just those disclosures, the government had branded him a traitor and wanted him in jail.
2. As for where he made his disclosures from, see point 1. There is absolutely no way the government wasn't going to go after him, no matter what he said or from what country he said it. If he made his disclosures on U.S. soil, he'd be in jail, and if he'd made them from a country even remotely friendly to the U.S., he'd be in jail. He didn't really have too many options as to where to go. Some people will say that he should have just sucked it up and faced the music. That's easy to say when you aren't facing a potential death penalty or life in prison and when you know that you're going to face the full wrath of the federal government for bringing its dirty laundry out into the open.
In short, Edward Snowden was screwed, no matter what he said or from where he said it.
And now we have the president saying that maybe there needs to be a national conversation on these issues (whatever that term means). Funny, we never heard that until Snowden brought these facts to light. Where was this needed conversation before then? And how can we have one when it's still obvious that the government isn't divulging what it's doing, and that information has to be released by a whistleblower, even now. Kind of hard to have an open and honest discussion when one side is either keeping silent or, when it does speak, is clearly lying through its teeth. And incidentally, why is James Clapper still employed, after he blatantly lied to Congress about what the NSA was doing? Either he knew about it and lied, which should be grounds for dismissal, or he didn't know, which would mean he's incompetent and should be fired for that reason. |