Hero/Leaker Worship

Wherever he is now, there’s no question that Edward Snowden, who revealed the existence of the massive PRISM data-gathering program (or metadata, or whatever that’s called) is the most famous man on the planet – but is he a hero?

Personally, I’m not sure I’m ready to see him fitted him for a red cape quite yet. I actually had a Facebook friend who said Snowden should be compared to patriots who won the United States its independence from Britain. Really? Didn’t he violate a secrecy oath? I’m also a little bothered by the fact that he fled to Hong Kong – a little too close to China for my taste. And it has been pointed out that there were existing channels for whistleblowing, that the world stage wasn’t necessary.

Fine. Perhaps he could have used existing channels, but it might have been a long time before any of us actually heard the whistle. This way, we all heard it instantly.

Maybe I should be outraged at the existence of this kind of program. I’m not. It may even be a good idea in some respects. But do we deserve to know about it and to have a debate about it? Absolutely!

There are a couple of things that bother me about it, aside from the concept of surveillance (that word is troublesome, only because it implies someone’s actually looking at all this data at all times – that’s not happening). But I heard the feds are building a zillion-dollar facility somewhere to house all of this stuff  – a home for the “haystacks” in which the security folks would look for “needles” when learning of a terrorist threat. How many such facilities will be necessary going forward? Second, why is a 29-year-old contractor with no college degree given access to top secret information – and paid $200,000 a year? How many more Snowdens are we relying on to keep our secrets (and some secrets have to be kept)? Now that we know what we’re paying for, are we getting our money’s worth?

As I’ve said before, the average American can’t get too upset about privacy loss when he’s willing to sell his soul to the digital devil after seeing an online deal for a $100 flat-screen TV.

In my view, the only thing that’s really going to protect us from government abuse is SUNLIGHT. Snowden did us a favor. He ripped the black curtain off the window – but he didn’t exactly topple the Berlin Wall. Before he ascends into heaven – or descends to the other place – we all have something to discuss first.