Edward Snowden is a patriot and deserves freedom
What is the responsibility of public servants who believe that the government is abusing its authority? In most cases, US law encourages them to expose wrongdoing. The Whistleblower Protection Act passed in 1989 protects “any disclosure” that an employee reasonably believes indicates the violation of laws or rules, “gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, and abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety”.
Edward Snowden’s revelation of mass surveillance by the National Security Agency, including the bulk collection of phone records, would seem to conform to all of the criteria for whistleblowing.
Did he expose violations of law? Check. Last month, a federal appeals court held that the phone records collection programme was illegal. Did he reveal abuses of authority? Check. The NSA’s inspector general has acknowledged dozens of incidents in which employees tracked phone calls and emails of former girlfriends, objects of romantic interest, or in one case an “unfaithful husband”. Did he point out gross mismanagement? Check. The mere fact that Mr Snowden was able to walk out with a treasure trove of top-secret information more or less proves the point. Did Mr Snowden bring to light the waste of public funds? Quite possibly, check again. The government has provided no evidence that the costly programme has prevented a single terrorist attack.
Unfortunately for Mr Snowden, the Whistleblower Protection Act contains a major exception: it does not apply to people who work for intelligence agencies, including the NSA. The US justice department maintains that Mr Snowden’s actions fall under a very different kind of law, the draconian and anachronistic Espionage Act of 1917. The Whistleblower Protection Act protects you as long as you believe you are doing right in leaking information about government wrongdoing to the press — even if you are wrong. The Espionage Act treats you as a traitor even if you acted with patriotic intent, as Mr Snowden convincingly claims to have done — and even if you are right.
The chasm between the government’s encouragement of some whistleblowing and its severe punishment of other whistleblowing constitutes the limbo in which Mr Snowden finds himself.
This week, he and his allies claimed moral vindication, as Congress voted to prohibit the most notorious practice he brought to light. Following recommendations made by President Barack Obama in the wake of Mr Snowden’s revelations, a coalition of Democrats and libertarian-minded Republicans that included Rand Paul, senator of Kentucky, declined to renew Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. A court’s secret interpretation of that provision was what allowed the government to collect bulk phone records for more than a decade. In its stead, Congress passed the equally Orwellian-sounding USA Freedom Act, which ends that practice.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8fec9956-0ad9-11e5-98d3-00144feabdc0.html
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Mr. Snowden is a hero!
