Edward Snowden, the former contractor who is credited with
pulling the veil off of PRISM, the massive federal surveillance program, is in Moscow at this writing, reportedly asking Ecuador for asylum.
Hero or traitor, he picks some strange places to escape U.S. charges: Hong Kong (China) and now Moscow. He reportedly considered Cuba and Venezuela. Perhaps since Julian
Assange was able to hide in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, Snowden figured he’d find some refuge
in that South American country.
Those who think he’s a traitor would no doubt prefer to see
him in the confined spaces of an American prison, but his other choices aren’t
so great. If I were choosing places to live, Hong Kong,
Russia, Cuba, Venezuela
and Ecuador
would probably not be high on the list. He can never again set foot in the United States
or a country that’s too friendly with us if he wants to avoid capture. Those
who want to see him paying a price for his misdeed might take some comfort from
the fact that he will always have to be looking over his shoulder. As for
Julian Assange, BTW, I don’t see the Ecuadorean embassy listed among London’s five-star
hotels. Plus, he can’t use any free tickets to those West
End shows.
It may be easy for others to conclude that Snowden is a
hero, but heroes don’t always get an immediate ticker-tape parade. We’ve only recently gotten close to the
concept of honoring our own service members who fought in unpopular wars.
Heroism usually requires a price of some kind, which Mr. Snowden is already
paying.
Personally, I would prefer we spend as little time and money as possible on this
fellow. And perhaps we’ll be a little more careful before we hire government
contractors in the future.
One piece of advice, though, Ed: If I were you, I’d be careful
to avoid open spaces. With this administration’s penchant for using drones,
well, a round of golf might be a really bad idea right now.
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