Oliver Stone's new movie gets released today. The House Intelligence Committee's new report got released yesterday, or not really released since it is classified. The common theme found in both of these is Snowden.
I have said before that Edward Snowden is a traitor and for my two cents, he remains a traitor. Snowden offered nothing more to the U.S. public than what many people already knew or suspected--your government spies on you. I had been explaining this to students for over a decade as part of teaching about national security matters. Snowden simply brought a few documents with him that supported these arguments and then potentially shared them with the Chinese and Russians (hard pressed to believe that he did not share them with those governments). This action could--I repeat could, because I do not know the technical details of the classified documents Snowden ran off with to Hong Kong and then to Moscow--provide material support to the development of counter-measures to U.S. intelligence gathering capacity to foreign governments--which definitely would fall within the definition of treason.
I do not know Snowden, I can only guess at his personality from statements reported through news outlets. I could go watch Stone's movie--which I suspect will be quite sympathetic to Snowden and quite well crafted based on the history of Oliver Stone movies--and hope to learn about Snowden the person. On the other hand it could be another JFK-like flop of a movie. Stone has a track record of glorifying negative aspects of history and over-stating and even rewriting episodes to make them appear more conspiratorial. Great theater, not the greatest of history, though his cinematography captures events, people, and most importantly settings in awesome quality--particularly his work in the 1980s and early 1990s.
I do not consider Snowden to be a hero, I consider him to be a traitor. I can admire his zeal for wanting the truth about spying on the citizens of the U.S. by the U.S. government to be known, but I cannot condone his stealing of and potential sharing of classified documents--I am not Hillary Clinton for whom such behavior is a routine day of emailing. I am also alarmed by indications in the heavily edited executive review of the House Intelligence Committee report we are allowed to see that Snowden actually took more military documents than data collection program documents. But again, the report we can read is a heavily edited 3 pages, not the classified 36 pages plus supporting documents. Regardless of his character, regardless of whether it was good or bad to show in detail that the government spies on us, what Snowden did was illegal and rises to the level of treason. President Obama, if you pardon this man, you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt your disdain for this country and the true rule of law.
I have said before that Edward Snowden is a traitor and for my two cents, he remains a traitor. Snowden offered nothing more to the U.S. public than what many people already knew or suspected--your government spies on you. I had been explaining this to students for over a decade as part of teaching about national security matters. Snowden simply brought a few documents with him that supported these arguments and then potentially shared them with the Chinese and Russians (hard pressed to believe that he did not share them with those governments). This action could--I repeat could, because I do not know the technical details of the classified documents Snowden ran off with to Hong Kong and then to Moscow--provide material support to the development of counter-measures to U.S. intelligence gathering capacity to foreign governments--which definitely would fall within the definition of treason.
I do not know Snowden, I can only guess at his personality from statements reported through news outlets. I could go watch Stone's movie--which I suspect will be quite sympathetic to Snowden and quite well crafted based on the history of Oliver Stone movies--and hope to learn about Snowden the person. On the other hand it could be another JFK-like flop of a movie. Stone has a track record of glorifying negative aspects of history and over-stating and even rewriting episodes to make them appear more conspiratorial. Great theater, not the greatest of history, though his cinematography captures events, people, and most importantly settings in awesome quality--particularly his work in the 1980s and early 1990s.
I do not consider Snowden to be a hero, I consider him to be a traitor. I can admire his zeal for wanting the truth about spying on the citizens of the U.S. by the U.S. government to be known, but I cannot condone his stealing of and potential sharing of classified documents--I am not Hillary Clinton for whom such behavior is a routine day of emailing. I am also alarmed by indications in the heavily edited executive review of the House Intelligence Committee report we are allowed to see that Snowden actually took more military documents than data collection program documents. But again, the report we can read is a heavily edited 3 pages, not the classified 36 pages plus supporting documents. Regardless of his character, regardless of whether it was good or bad to show in detail that the government spies on us, what Snowden did was illegal and rises to the level of treason. President Obama, if you pardon this man, you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt your disdain for this country and the true rule of law.
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