the surveillance whistleblower Edward
Snowden actively aided America's enemies.
They are just missing one essential element
for the meme to take flight: evidence. An op-ed by Representative Mike Pompeo
(Republican, Kansas) proclaiming Snowden,
who provided disclosed widespread
surveillance on phone records and internet
communications by the National Security
Agency, "not a whistleblower" is indicative of the emerging narrative. Writing in the Wichita Eagle on 30 June Pompeo, a member of the House intelligence committee, wrote that
Snowden "has provided intelligence to America's adversaries". Pompeo correctly notes in his op-ed that "facts are important". Yet when asked for the
evidence justifying the claim that Snowden gave intelligence to American adversaries, his
spokesman, JP Freire, cited Snowden's leak of NSA documents. Those documents, however,
were provided to the Guardian and the Washington Post, not al-Qaeda or North Korea. It's true that information published in the press can be read by anyone, including people who
mean America harm. But to conflate that with actively handing information to foreign
adversaries is to foreclose on the crucial distinction between a whistleblower and a spy, and
makes journalists the handmaidens of enemies of the state. Yet powerful legislators are eager to make that conflation about Snowden. The Twitter account of Representative Mike Rogers (Republican, Michigan), the chairman of
the House intelligence committee, on 18 June placed Snowden and accused WikiLeaks source
Bradley Manning in the same company as Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, two infamous
CIA and FBI double-agents. (The tweet appears to have been deleted.) When I asked about the conflation, Rogers' Twitter account responded: "All 4 gave critical national security information to our enemies. Each did it in different ways but the result was
the same." Never to be outdone, Peter King, a New York Republican and former chair of the House
homeland security committee, proclaimed Snowden a "defector" on 10 June. Days later, Snowden left Hong Kong to seek asylum in an undetermined country – a curious move for a
defector to make. Once elected and appointed leaders casually conflate leaking and espionage, it is a matter of
time before journalists take the cue. For insight into the "fear and isolation that NSA leaker
Edward Snowden is living through", CNN turned to Christopher Boyce – who sold US secrets to the USSR before becoming a bank robber. There are understandable suspicions that Snowden may have aided foreign intelligence
services in order to aid in his escape from American criminal justice. While some have
speculated that the Russian or Chinese intelligence services might have snuck a look at the
highly sensitive intelligence material Snowden is carrying, that material is heavily encrypted.
For what it's worth, in a Guardian webchat I asked Snowden directly if he would trade access
to his documents for asylum. He said he would not. Perhaps Snowden lied. Perhaps he might change his mind. But all of that is far off in the
realm of speculation. As things stand now, there is no evidence Snowden has aided any US
adversary or intelligence service, wittingly or not. Even the Obama administration has stopped short of terming Snowden a spy, even in the
course of attacking his character. (Yes, he was indicted under the Espionage Act, but the actual charges against him are theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and willful communication of classified intelligence
information to an unauthorized person.) In an email meant to discredit Snowden in the
press, an anonymous "senior administration official" told reporters on 24 June that
Snowden's ostensible idealism "is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen: China,
Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador". That's something to remember the next time
Washington wants to talk about its commitment to human rights while cooperating with, say, China and Russia.
When asked directly if there was any evidence that Snowden had cooperated with any
intelligence service or American adversary, the administration and Congress declined to
provide any. The office of the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, declined to
comment for this story. The Justice Department and the House intelligence committee didn't
even respond to inquiries. By all means, consider Snowden a hero, a traitor or a complex individual with a mixture of
motives and interests. Lots of opinions about Snowden are valid. He is a necessarily polarizing
figure. The information he revealed speaks to some of the most basic questions about the
boundaries between the citizen and the state, as well as persistent and real anxieties about
terrorism. What isn't valid is the blithe assertion, absent evidence, that the former NSA contractor
actively collaborated with America's enemies. Snowden made classified information about
widespread surveillance available to the American public. That's a curious definition of an
enemy for US legislators to adopt.
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