Edward Snowden and the Dreyfus Affair

[frazzled]

1. Dreyfus did not do anything: someone else did it

It was a plot against him to accuse him of what someone else had done—namely, selling secrets to the Germans. And he was tried in a court-martial, wrongly found guilty, and unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment on an island.

The Dreyfus and Snowden affairs have nothing, zero, in common. Dreyfus never took or sold any state secrets, so I don't know how you can even compare these events. The controversy over Dreyfus was that he was unjustly accused, and because anti-Semitic sentiments in France allowed him to be blamed for the spying event.

Please read the book Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters, by Louis Begley (Yale University Press).

Jeebus, historical comparisons are usually wrong, but at least they should have a shred of historical facticity attached to them.