Edward Snowden is a patriot [View all]

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Does Barack Obama think we’re stupid?

That’s the only conclusion possible after watching Friday’s bravura performance, in which the president announced a set of proposals meant to bring more transparency to the NSA — and claimed he would have done it anyway, even if Edward Snowden, had never decided to leak thousands of highly sensitive documents to the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald.

But even as he grudgingly admitted that the timing, at least, of his suggestions was a consequence of Snowden’s actions, the president declared, “I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot.” When you look at what has changed over the last two months, though, it’s hard not to wonder, “What could be more patriotic than what Snowden did?”

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But Risen made another, less publicized appearance this week at the annual National Press Club awards dinner. What he said there is even more poignant. “I don’t think there’s any personality that’s more American than a whistleblower,” he said. “The entire personality and DNA of America [is made up] of people who wanted to have their own kind of government and be free of oppression. And I think that is the heart of what a whistleblower is. It’s somebody who believes civil liberties or freedom or corruption are important issues that they need to talk about and their right as an American is to talk about it with the press.”

If Congress passes meaningful NSA reform, Edward Snowden may go down in history as the most influential whistleblower in American history. What could be more patriotic than that?

Trevor Timm is executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and defending public-interest, transparency journalism.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/edward-snowden-is-a-patriot-95421.html#ixzz2bdAvfMcl