As an unabashed liberal, I am dismayed at the number of liberal pundits, academics, politicians, journalists, and businessmen who have hailed Edward Snowden as a veritable Patrick Henry of the information age. In fact, their herd-like opinion in this respect is such that liberals would probably consider me a far greater traitor to my political ideology than they consider Snowden a traitor to his country.
Many of them took exception, for example, to my characterizing Snowden’s motivation as follows:
Edward Snowden strikes me as little more than a narcissistic, egotistical, publicity-seeking idiot who is to national intelligence what Kim Kardashian is to media celebrity.
What’s more, he seems every bit the media whore she is, and is probably hoping that his NSA leaks will make him even more famous than her sex tape made her.
Not to mention the idiocy inherent in Snowden seeking political asylum in China to protest a lack of government transparency in the United States. At least the spies who betrayed their country during the Cold War had a reasonable expectation that a political and ideological Shangri-La awaited them in the Soviet Union…
All of which is why this NSA story is really all about the leaker, not his leaks. And with their hysterical and overblown coverage, the media are willingly, willfully, and wantonly making him into an international cause celebre who, in his deluded mind, has the two most powerful nations in the world fighting over him. Indeed, Snowden probably finds being in this hot seat positively ecstatic, if not priapic….
(“Complaints about NSA Spying Are Schizophrenic…and Misguided,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 14, 2013)
And I did not inspire much camaraderie when I insisted that, if his intentions were more public-spirited than narcissistic, Snowden would have taken the following patriotic, even heroic course of action:
I too would be championing Snowden’s professed cause if he had taken his treasure trove of NSA secrets to a reputable newspaper, like the New York Times or Washington Post, instead of entrusting it to a news hustler like the then-obscure lawyer/journalist/blogger Greenwald.
Recall that Snowden initially claimed his only mission was to inform the American people about the NSA’s surveillance activities. Well, with apologies to George W. Bush, he had just cause to declare, “Mission Accomplished,” six months ago.
Moreover, rather than fleeing like a fugitive, Snowden could have become a confidential informant (like a latter-day Deep Throat), continued on with his seemingly idyllic life in Hawaii, and left it to his newspaper of choice to expose all of the secrets that are fit to print … in a manner that does not compromise national security.
Instead, this narcissistic, self-righteous, naive and self-appointed arbiter — not only of what metadata the government can collect, but also of what documents it can classify as top secret — conspired with Greenwald to make his face every bit as famous as his leaks. In the process he wittingly (or unwittingly) handed the ‘NSA’s crown jewels’ over to America’s two most-formidable adversaries, China and Russia, on a silver platter. No Chinese or Russian spy could ever have achieved such a feat – even in his wildest dream.
(“Judge Ruling on NSA Spying…,” The iPINIONS Journal, December 18, 2013)
Well, imagine my sense of validation and vindication a few days ago when I read a Rolling Stones interview with Bill Gates (for its March 27, 2014 edition) in which he echoed my take on Snowden:
I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn’t characterize him as a hero. If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience or something of that kind, or if he had been careful in terms of what he had released, then it would fit more of the model of ‘OK, I’m really trying to improve things.’ You won’t find much admiration from me.
Now I’m sure nobody would even suggest that the unabashedly liberal Gates is either uninformed or a traitor to our ideology. But I like the odds of having the liberal intelligentsia face off against Bill and me – not just on Snowden as a national hero, but on NSA spying as a national imperative as well.
Related commentaries:
Complaints about NSA…
Judge ruling…
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