Even though such designations are superfluous, they fulfill natural urges to ponder milestones like year’s end. Thus we see writers at outlets like Slate and The Daily Beast beknighting Edward Snowden as “person of the year.” Editors of TIME magazine said Snowden was their second choice for the laurel, which narrowly went to freshly-minted Pope Francis.
Snowden also recently snagged an award from a group of retired CIA officers. In his acceptance speech for the Sam Adams Associates Integrity in Intelligence Award, Snowden said America’s spying techniques “hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely.”
Image representing Edward Snowden as depicted ...
It’s true that a free press is a signpost for a vibrant democracy. It’s true that transparency enables trust, which is the currency and building block for a high-functioning economy and overall society. Yet Snowden is no hero. He undermined trust and transparency among the ranks of public servants who protect Americans. And even though Slate’s Matt Yglesias tries to soft pedal his designation by saying Snowden’s not necessarily the “best” but simply the most “influential” figure of the year, he’s wrong.
Snowden revealed tactics, not exploitation from the federal government. He abetted the enemy by revealing secrets in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. He did not reveal one single abuse by the U.S. intelligence community against anyone’s “ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely.”
The perversity and naivete of Snowden’s logic is manifest in his fleeing to China and Russia, where speaking, thinking, living and being creative can actually lead to imprisonment and death. We see this time and again as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s enemies are poisoned, arrested and beaten. Similar fates befall Chinese dissidents who dare oppose Communist leaders. Neither country allows free expression, and if Snowden were from either place he’d likely be executed rather than receive the due process or potential amnesty floated by the United States.
TIME called Snowden “The Dark Prophet,” yet the man showed us nothing inspiring, nothing damning and nothing visionary. Snowden didn’t reveal similar lies and doublespeak from the Johnson administration displayed in the Pentagon Papers. Snowden showed us how intelligence sausage gets made. We always knew Oz hid behind an intelligence curtain, and Snowden showed us no malfeasance by this wizard. He merely showed the world–including our sworn enemies–how the plumbing worked. And this disclosure endangers us by giving a roadmap to terrorists seeking to bypass our digital citadel. The intelligence community will recover from Snowden’s blow, but if his behavior triggers rogue copycats, then trust underpinning our entire national security system will collapse. The same can be said for any government or business institution.
Though I’m not often on the same page as legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, I find myself leaning to his persuasion that Snowden is “a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison.” The fact that he chose to flout, out and flaunt himself begs the question, why? If he truly sought only the public interest, why did he not remain anonymous, a la Deep Throat, the man who exposed Richard Nixon’s wrongdoings? Why did he fail to use other, legal methods (for example, an Inspector General or sympathetic members of Congress) to expose what he perceived to be gross abuse of power?
Snowden trumpeted Monday’s ruling by U.S. District Court judge Richard Leon that the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone metadata might be in violation of Fourth Amendment protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” The key word is “unreasonable.” Snowden did nothing to show that intelligence agents were unreasonably targeting either the specific plaintiff, Larry Klayman, or any other American. Leon issued a preliminary injunction barring the collection of phone-call records and other “metadata” from Klayman’s Verizon accounts and to destroy any data it had already collected, but because of “significant national security interests at stake,” he stayed his own ruling to allow NSA appeal. The narrow ruling by Leon should and will be overturned.
There are plenty of other global figures, people like Mario Draghi, Shinzō Abe, Malala Yousafzai, Pope Francis and Xi Jinping, who massively altered history in 2013. These folks made lasting impact on the course of human affairs beyond the egoism of Snowden’s cursory betrayal.
Edward Snowden Is Not 'Person Of The Year'
Snowden also recently snagged an award from a group of retired CIA officers. In his acceptance speech for the Sam Adams Associates Integrity in Intelligence Award, Snowden said America’s spying techniques “hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely.”
Image representing Edward Snowden as depicted ...
It’s true that a free press is a signpost for a vibrant democracy. It’s true that transparency enables trust, which is the currency and building block for a high-functioning economy and overall society. Yet Snowden is no hero. He undermined trust and transparency among the ranks of public servants who protect Americans. And even though Slate’s Matt Yglesias tries to soft pedal his designation by saying Snowden’s not necessarily the “best” but simply the most “influential” figure of the year, he’s wrong.
Snowden revealed tactics, not exploitation from the federal government. He abetted the enemy by revealing secrets in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. He did not reveal one single abuse by the U.S. intelligence community against anyone’s “ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely.”
The perversity and naivete of Snowden’s logic is manifest in his fleeing to China and Russia, where speaking, thinking, living and being creative can actually lead to imprisonment and death. We see this time and again as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s enemies are poisoned, arrested and beaten. Similar fates befall Chinese dissidents who dare oppose Communist leaders. Neither country allows free expression, and if Snowden were from either place he’d likely be executed rather than receive the due process or potential amnesty floated by the United States.
TIME called Snowden “The Dark Prophet,” yet the man showed us nothing inspiring, nothing damning and nothing visionary. Snowden didn’t reveal similar lies and doublespeak from the Johnson administration displayed in the Pentagon Papers. Snowden showed us how intelligence sausage gets made. We always knew Oz hid behind an intelligence curtain, and Snowden showed us no malfeasance by this wizard. He merely showed the world–including our sworn enemies–how the plumbing worked. And this disclosure endangers us by giving a roadmap to terrorists seeking to bypass our digital citadel. The intelligence community will recover from Snowden’s blow, but if his behavior triggers rogue copycats, then trust underpinning our entire national security system will collapse. The same can be said for any government or business institution.
Though I’m not often on the same page as legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, I find myself leaning to his persuasion that Snowden is “a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison.” The fact that he chose to flout, out and flaunt himself begs the question, why? If he truly sought only the public interest, why did he not remain anonymous, a la Deep Throat, the man who exposed Richard Nixon’s wrongdoings? Why did he fail to use other, legal methods (for example, an Inspector General or sympathetic members of Congress) to expose what he perceived to be gross abuse of power?
Snowden trumpeted Monday’s ruling by U.S. District Court judge Richard Leon that the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone metadata might be in violation of Fourth Amendment protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” The key word is “unreasonable.” Snowden did nothing to show that intelligence agents were unreasonably targeting either the specific plaintiff, Larry Klayman, or any other American. Leon issued a preliminary injunction barring the collection of phone-call records and other “metadata” from Klayman’s Verizon accounts and to destroy any data it had already collected, but because of “significant national security interests at stake,” he stayed his own ruling to allow NSA appeal. The narrow ruling by Leon should and will be overturned.
There are plenty of other global figures, people like Mario Draghi, Shinzō Abe, Malala Yousafzai, Pope Francis and Xi Jinping, who massively altered history in 2013. These folks made lasting impact on the course of human affairs beyond the egoism of Snowden’s cursory betrayal.
Edward Snowden Is Not 'Person Of The Year'
