New Greenwald Guardian Op/Ed: Edward Snowden's Worst Fear Has Not Been Realised – Thankfully [View all]

[Hissyspit]

http://www.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/edward-snowden-worst-fear-not-realised

Friday 14 June 2013 14.00 EDT

Edward Snowden's worst fear has not been realised – thankfully

The NSA whistleblower's only concern was that his disclosures would be met with apathy. Instead, they're leading to real reform

In my first substantive discussion with Edward Snowden, which took place via encrypted online chat, he told me he had only one fear. It was that the disclosures he was making, momentous though they were, would fail to trigger a worldwide debate because the public had already been taught to accept that they have no right to privacy in the digital age.

Snowden, at least in that regard, can rest easy. The fallout from the Guardian's first week of revelations is intense and growing.

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In the wake of the Guardian's articles, I heard from journalists and even government officials from around the world interested in learning the extent of the NSA's secret spying on the communications of their citizens. These stories have resonated globally, and will continue to do so, because the NSA's spying apparatus is designed to target the shared instruments used by human beings around the world to communicate with one another.

The purpose of whistleblowing is to expose secret and wrongful acts by those in power in order to enable reform. A key purpose of journalism is to provide an adversarial check on those who wield the greatest power by shining a light on what they do in the dark, and informing the public about those acts. Both purposes have been significantly advanced by the revelations thus far.

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