He is the toast of the libertarian left and the libertarian right. But for most of the political establishment, across the ideological spectrum, it has taken only a few days to conclude that Edward Snowden is nothing less than a dangerous villain.Continue reading.
If any part of Snowden hoped for a Pentagon Papers-style response to his leaks – a round of applause across Washington and New York at the daring revelation of secret national security information – this week certainly shattered any such illusion.
Ask nearly anyone in a position of authority in Washington and you will get a similar judgment on Snowden, the 29-year-old former defense contractor who exposed a vast National Security Agency surveillance program in multiple newspapers last week.
And then check Kirsten Powers, "The Sickening Snowden Backlash":
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper blatantly lied to Congress about the activity of the NSA, and there seems to be no ramifications. Yet the Washington establishment wants to put Snowden in jail and throw away the key for telling the truth. We are told to blindly respect an institution that persecutes whistleblowers for leaks of overclassified government information while watching the Obama administration’s leaking of secret government information to aggrandize the president during his reelection campaign. So, please tell us more about how we should have more respect for our institutions.She has a good point.
More at the link.
But as readers know, I don't trust the motives of people like Snowden --- who is no patriot in my book --- and I consider government's most basic role as protecting its citizens, Hence, I accept the tradeoff between liberty and security. To the extent there's a problem, it's in the context of this administration's serial scandals, complete lack of accountability, and utter hypocrisy. It's progress for the leftists to be criticizing these programs. But we're nowhere where we were when Bush was in office, during which Democrats called for impeachment over warrantless wiretapping. No, there are some like Greenwald who're consistent. And I like Kirsten Powers, but folks should be thinking about finding the balance between honest disclosure and protecting the homeland. The full-blown crusade to turn this into the ultimate scandal of Big Brother totalitarianism is pretty laughable.
More from Max Boot, "Stay calm and let the NSA carry on":
The real scandal here is that the Guardian and Washington Post are compromising our national security by telling our enemies about our intelligence-gathering capabilities. Their news stories reveal, for example, that only nine Internet companies share information with the NSA. This is a virtual invitation to terrorists to use other Internet outlets for searches, email, apps and all the rest.Continue reading.
No intelligence effort can ever keep us 100% safe, but to stop or scale back the NSA's special intelligence efforts would amount to unilateral disarmament in a war against terrorism that is far from over...
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