America's Hero: Edward Snowden
Who is the greatest living American hero? Edward Snowden is a strong candidate. I just finished listening to his book, Permanent Record. It is mostly about how he came to make his famous disclosures, how and why he did it. I’ve also seen some video interviews with him. Everything he says comes off as informed by sincere concern for American ideals, yet at the same time completely reasonable and not ideological. It’s almost shocking how rational and moral this man is. Nearly every other public figure periodically says some jerky nonsense, or just comes off as phony (particularly politicians).
But government officials from both parties agree, almost unanimously, that Snowden is “a traitor”. They say he harmed national security in ways that the government can’t detail or provide evidence for, but we should take their word for it. This is “beyond dispute”, as one pro-government editorial put it. House speaker John Boehner and Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Snowden a traitor. Hilary Clinton even absurdly suggested that Snowden was a Russian spy.
So here I’m going to briefly explain why Edward Snowden is an American hero.
1. The obvious
He massively sacrificed his own interests, for the good of the country as he saw it. He now has to spend the rest of his life in exile, leaving behind his family, his friends, his career, and his country – which is actually about the best outcome he could have expected. He might instead have been murdered by government agents (who would have said they were just “defending themselves”, like they say whenever the police kill unarmed people), or sent to prison for life. How many people have the courage and moral commitment to do that? Less than 1 in a thousand, maybe 1 in a million.
Meanwhile, the politicians sit in their comfortable thrones, serving themselves, never sacrificing, never showing a bit of moral courage, but denouncing as “traitors” those who expose their abuses.
2. What would a traitor do?
Had Snowden been an actual traitor, he could have made millions of dollars by secretly selling his information to a foreign government.
Instead, he gave his information to journalists, publicly acknowledged what he'd done, then he permanently deleted all information from his own computer, retaining no way for himself to access the information ever again. That was to ensure that no foreign government could coerce him into giving them the information.
Now, regardless of whether you agree with the government’s mass surveillance policy, you should recognize the above two points. Even if you disagree with his views about privacy rights, Snowden’s personal integrity is beyond question.
3. Why was the information about the government’s mass surveillance worthy of being exposed?
Because
(a) it is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, which U.S. government officials and employees swear an oath to defend “from all enemies, foreign and domestic” -- that includes enemies within the government. Specifically, it violates the Fourth Amendment:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The Constitutional violation has been acknowledged by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/03/edward-snowden-nsa-surveillance-guardian-court-rules), but this would never have come out if not for Snowden.
(b) This was a secret program, which the government was obviously never going to tell us about. Democracy cannot function if the government makes controversial, rights-violating policies and then conceals and lies about them. The American intelligence community even concealed it from Congress. They're like a self-appointed shadow government.
Obviously, the government does not need to reveal detailed pieces of intelligence that they gather on foreign adversaries. But the general existence of a program of spying on the entire population, including citizens who have never been suspected of any crime, can’t be a state secret – unless we've decided we prefer dictatorial rule over democracy.
4. Why didn’t Snowden go through “the proper channels”? He could have just reported the government’s crimes to other government officials, instead of the media.
Here's an analogy for Game of Thrones fans: Ned Stark found out that Queen Cersei had cheated on King Robert. Ned decided he would have to inform Robert, but he decided to tell Cersei first, so that she'd have a chance to escape and not get killed when Robert found out. What Cersei did instead was immediately arrange to have Ned and the king both killed. Ned never got to tell his story. That is why, when you discover a crime, you don't go to the criminal first, unless you are an utter fool.
Now, in the case of the U.S. government, maybe they wouldn’t actually kill you. But they would sure as hell make sure you never again had access to any of the information that they’re trying to hide. Then they start up a disinformation campaign, claiming that you’re mentally unstable or “disgruntled” or “a traitor”, so that no one will listen to you (which they actually tried with Snowden, even though he had the proof). You’d then never be able to prove your allegations, and the government would continue business as usual. That is obviously what would happen. That is why you don't take a complaint about government crimes to the criminal.
5. Why doesn’t Snowden come back to America to face justice in the courts? Surely, if his cause is just, he has nothing to fear, right?
I’ve heard people say this sort of thing, but I don't know if anyone believes it; this might just be a propaganda line from government officials. Anyway, the answer is that the government has already promised that he will never receive a fair trial, because he will never be allowed to present his defense. Snowden has always maintained that he would be perfectly willing to face a trial, provided that he was allowed to present his actual defense – to explain why he leaked the classified information. It’s the government that refuses to allow this. All the trial would discuss is whether he actually leaked the information or not.
Apropos of this, one of the most insane ideas I’ve heard is that Snowden (and other people "guilty" of civil disobedience) should voluntarily accept the government’s punishment for their “crimes”. The government is the one that acted wrongly, but Snowden should volunteer to be punished, by them, for exposing their crime. This seems to me part of the “might makes right” philosophy – just siding with the people in power, and wanting to hurt anyone who challenges that power. As though the problem wasn't the government's illegal behavior but the fact that someone told us about it.
A similar idea would be that if you’re a Jew living in Nazi Germany, you should turn yourself in to the Nazis and ask them to send you to a concentration camp. Or that, if you’re a black American, you should go seek out the KKK and volunteer to be beaten by them.
6. But if Snowden is so great, why do both Democrats and Republicans in government agree that he’s a vile traitor?
We all know the answer to this, right? Because people in power, whatever party they belong to, hate accountability. They want the government to be able to abuse its power with impunity. The people who say Snowden should have gone through the proper channels are well aware of everything I explained in point #4 above. That’s why they wanted him to go through the channels: So that the government could carry on its crimes, keep lying about it, and never be held accountable.
I don’t think Republicans and Democrats in general are power mongers. But Republicans and Democrats in the government are nearly all power-mongers. That’s why they’re in government.
If anyone in this story is a traitor, it’s the government officials who covered up the NSA’s mass surveillance program, plus the ones who tried to discredit Snowden to allow the program to continue. Those people all took an oath to defend the Constitution, not to defend government power. Edward Snowden is the only person in this story who lived up to his oath.