Edward Snowden Is apparently More Thoughtful than His Critics

© 2015 Peter Free

 

25 February 2015

 

 

The United States — a nation others (perhaps forgivably) see as predominantly comprised of violently inclined dullards — still has not come to conscious grips with its fall from Liberty

 

Even with Edward Snowden’s leaked revelations, a recent Pew Research Center poll indicated that only 37 percent of us had a negative impression of the National Security Agency (NSA) — despite its voluminous tramplings of the Fourth Amendment.

 

Public discussion since, to the minimal degree that it exists, has centered around the degree of Snowden’s traitorousness.

 

Virtually no one prominently in the public political eye has grappled with the issue of properly balancing Liberty against totalitarian security.

 

 

Contrast the public’s unreasoned complacence with Mr. Snowden’s recent comments

 

He reportedly said on Reddit:

 

 

When we look back on history, the progress of Western civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of law.

 

America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often born from acts of unrepentant criminality. Slavery. The protection of persecuted Jews . . . .

 

We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights.

 

You can see the beginnings of this dynamic today in the statements of government officials complaining about the adoption of encryption by major technology providers.

 

The idea here isn't to fling ourselves into anarchy and do away with government, but to remind the government that there must always be a balance of power between the governing and the governed . . .

 

“Our rights are not granted by governments,” Snowden said. “They are inherent to our nature. But it’s entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.”

 

© 2015 Will Oremus, Edward Snowden Has Just One Regret, Slate (23 February 2015) (extracts)

 

 

Sounds philosophically old-fashioned, doesn’t it?

 

Quintessentially American, in fact — circa 1789 through mid-2001.

 

We can argue about whether these statements were Mr. Snowden’s work or someone else’s (given that he now lives in the Russian Federation). But that distinction is irrelevant because it is the content that makes the Liberty statement that we Americans have pretty much avoided considering.

 

 

 

The moral? — Who are the real traitors to American freedom and privacy?

 

Not Edward Snowden — who has sacrificed more, for better reasons — than the overwhelming majority of his ignorant and unthinking detractors. The road to American autocracy has been paved with slavering and sleeping dopes.

 

Neil Patrick Harris’ Oscars joke about Mr. Snowden’s “treason” typifies the conveniently mindless trivialization that the United States today so frequently exemplifies.

 

As Stephan Richter said a while back, “[I]ndications are that America is not a serious country.”

 

Involved seriousness is a necessary condition for freedom. Guess who has that and who doesn’t.