There has been a lot said in the past two days about Edward Snowden, the individual responsible for leaking the alleged* NSA spying program known as PRISM. Snowden has been lauded as a hero by many from both sides of the aisle and outside of Washington. Yet assuming that everything that Snowden says is 100% accurate (and that’s a bit of an assumption), his methods of revealing it go beyond whistleblower and cross the line towards traitor.
What was wrong with Snowden’s methods? He fled to Hong Kong before making his leaks to a foreign press entity (The Guardian). Snowden had many legal (or at least more ethical) avenues for publicizing this information, if he did indeed feel that it was his moral obligation to do so. He could have hired a lawyer to help him navigate the issue. He could have stayed in country, leaked the info once, and then gotten out of the spotlight. He could have simply leaked the info to the press quietly, and remained anonymous. Yet he chose to become a public figure and flee to one of our nation’s rivals.
Yet the most damning thing that Snowden did happened a few days ago. He gave NSA secrets to the Chinese press. In an interview in Hong Kong, Snowden revealed information about NSA surveillance of Chinese interests
The United States government is hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to gather data from millions of text messages, former intelligence technician Edward Snowden told the Sunday Morning Post in Hong Kong.
US spies have also hacked China’s prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing and Asia Pacific fibre-optic network operator Pacnet, the Post quoted Snowden as saying.
Whatever your view of the NSA, the Obama administration’s handling of the provisions of the Patriot Act, or domestic spying in general, one thing is clear: Edward Snowden is not a hero. His continued actions against the interests of U.S. security interests internationally assure him of that.
* I say “alleged” because while I have no doubt that a domestic spying program does exist, the sparse details leaked by Snowden are a little contradictory and don’t mesh with how the technology of the Internet works. I suspect that Snowden got a hold of a PowerPoint presentation that had this info in it, and either misunderstood some of it out of context, or intentionally released only the slides that made his case. But that’s the subject for another post.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
These left wing wankers think they are saving us from our governments. All they are doing is giving the advantage to the terrorists and foreign governments with no freedom of speech to allow exposure of their ciber-war on us.
Perhaps our governments step over the line from time to time, but wholesale release of sensitive information is not the way to address this.
Leaking NSA secrets to china is heroic in what way ?
He is no hero !!!
And I question anyone who thinks he is ?
Secret Recording of Edward Snowden and NSA Supervisor: http://youtu.be/ojQ__92bFwM