Snowden made the right call to flee the US: Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
It was a less punitive kind of America when I disclosed the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s.
Many people compare Edward Snowden to me unfavourably for leaving the country and seeking asylum, rather than facing trial as I did. I don't agree. The country I stayed in was a different America, a long time ago.
After The New York Times had been enjoined from publishing the Pentagon Papers - on June 15, 1971, the first prior restraint on a newspaper in US history - and I had given another copy to The Washington Post (which would also be enjoined), I went underground with my wife, Patricia, for 13 days. My purpose (quite like Snowden's in flying to Hong Kong) was to elude surveillance while I was arranging to distribute the Pentagon Papers to 17 other newspapers, in the face of two more injunctions. The last three days of that period was in defiance of an arrest order: I was, like Snowden now, a ''fugitive from justice''.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/snowden-made-the-right-call-to-flee-the-us-20130709-2po7q.html
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America needs more transparency, less gag orders on whistleblowers, & a bill of rights & obligations for whistle blowers that is transparent AND honest.
