Q. & A.: Edward Snowden Speaks to Peter Maass: First question NYT asks: Why didn't you leak to us?

[BlueStreak]

69. What should Snowden have done?

Last edited Tue Aug 13, 2013, 09:58 PM - Edit history (1)

The answer to the NYT question cited in the OP reveals a man who give this whole thing extremely serious thought. He was well aware of the risks and consequences. The easy thing would be to simply to ignore the corruption and illegality that is taking over our country. The only plausible explanation for why he didn't just ignore it is conscience.

Once he made the decision to bring this information into the public eye, he had to plan a course of action. He concluded that there was absolutely no way to work this through the NSA internally. After all, they were the ones breaking all the laws.

And sadly, he also concluded that there was no viable means for a whistle-blower to work through some other part of government to get the issues exposed. And saddest of all, he concluded that there is absolutely not a shred of a viable free press remaining, at least at the major media level, in the US.

Knowing everything we now know, seeing everything that has happened since he made his move, is there anybody who can honestly argue there was any other way to get this information into the public eye? He couldn't work through Congress. We see how tightly they have Wyden locked down, for example.

So I ask the anti-Snowden people this. If the goal was to subject these illegal operations to scrutiny that would get them stopped, what other alternative was there? Please be specific.

I submit Snowden picked the only possible scenario, and therefore anybody arguing he did the wrong thing is actually arguing for the continuation of the illegality in our security apparatus. If that is what you believe, you are entitled to that opinion. But at least have the integrity to say that is really where you stand.