This Snowden kid has had me tongue-tied; I haven't blogged
for a month because people keep asking me what I think, where I come out --
traitor or hero? It's taken me time to
take my eye off Snowden and look at the real story.
A novelist coming up
with this plot would be laughed out of his editor's office. Yet here is Snowden, on ice in Moscow, passport-less,
cooling his heels in the Sheremetyevo Novotel's in-transit wing -- as deep in a
freezer as the journalists' cell phones he demanded be checked into his hotel
room refrigerator back in Hong Kong. Bizarre.... No, he hasn't entered the Russian border
their foreign secretary sanctimoniously assures us. But you can bet his computers and thumb
drives have crossed many a border -- seized. copied and cracked by China's MSB
and Russia's SVR, FSB and FSO.
OK, so traitor or hero?
Clearly, he is a traitor to his oaths, to his employers and
their trust. And among his employers to
whom he swore oaths were the NSA and the CIA.
In releasing information about snooping on foreign governments --
friend and foe -- he has betrayed US government secrets. His grand motive, he alleges, is to alert the
US public to illegal snooping on us -- but that is quite different from his
information on international snooping, which is merely unethical, immoral,
embarrassing, unwise, self-damaging and stupid -- but not, unfortunately,
illegal. Now we learn that his real
job was not system administrator but infrastructure analyst -- searching for
ways to penetrate secure systems for intelligence gathering and, potentially,
sabotage. This, too, he has
revealed. So, yes, he is prima facie a
traitor. And his treachery has hurt the
US -- with adversaries, allies and those on the sidelines simply keen on indulging their
schadenfreude at our expense.
Hero? Hardly. Nothing heroic about this self-absorbed
computer geek anointing himself as defender of truth. His allegations about his plans, his job
history, his course work at Johns Hopkins, his adoption of Buddhism in Japan
while not liking their culture, running off to Hong Kong because of their
dedication to liberty??? What kind of naif is this? Facebooking
about his sexual prowess; unable to finish high school or community college; claiming
he broke his leg in special forces training in the Army Reserve (there isn't
such a thing -- there are two National Guard special forces units, otherwise the only five others are regular Army.) No, no
hero is this Snowden.
What of redemption?
Well, perhaps he has performed a public service if -- a big if -- the public
ire is finally aroused to demand a wholesale change, a dismantling of the
intelligence-contractor-congressional complex. Whatever happens to Snowden will be
punishment -- whether put on trial here, eking out a living in Ecuador, accepting asylum in
Russia, being a pawn in the game of let's embarrass the United States. Whatever happens to Snowden is not the story.
The story is how our government has prostituted its values
in the name of security. Abraham
Lincoln said "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we
falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." The intelligence-contractor-congressional system of circular authorizations bolstered by sweeping warrants granted by a secret judiciary is no different than the star chamber
justice of Tudor England. That was
finally overturned in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and we reiterated our
rejection of such process in 1789.
I
could rant several more pages about the intelligence swamp we are hip deep in:
about the contractors who hire geeks like Snowden despite a crazy personal and
professional history, and pay him twice what a comparable civil service post can
pay; about 850,000 people or more with top secret clearance, of whom 1 in 3
work for for-profit contractors rather than for the taxpayer; about Defense
Secretary Gates testifying that "I
can't get a number on how many contractors work for the Office of the Secretary
of Defense;" about the training of CIA spies being contracted out to a
for-profit company. But I won't indulge
....
Suffice to say that information empowers. And many believe that withholding information
empowers absolutely, despite that information is fungible and eventually -- always -- leaks. Yes power corrupts, but
more to the point, John Adams warned that “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast
views beyond the comprehension of the weak." We have seen it over and over -- the
beguiling quality of "secrets" whether wielded by J. Edgar Hoover
tempting the Kennedys, or IRS files tempting Johnson, or CIA tempting Nixon,
and on and on. The Frank Church hearings
in 1976 restored some constraint on the Executive Branch, but it leaked away
again in Iran Contra under Reagan, and again after 9/11 under Bush, Cheney and
Obama. I'm shocked to list Obama in that set but the hubris is the same. In 2004, we learned of domestic spying; in
2010, The Washington Post explored the runaway intelligence establishment. Haven't we come to see that these intelligence czars are just as self-anointed as Snowden, thinking alike
that they know what's best for us? When
will we learn to distrust any and all of them?
They don't have souls any greater than yours and mine.
The
American public accepts this pernicious intrusion because they've been sold a
"War on Terror." There's the
root of the problem: the paradigm of war,
that sense of imminent danger which allows those empowered by information to trade
us "security" in return for giving up our rights. But they didn't forestall the Boston Marathon
bombers or the guy who tried to blow up Times Square or the guy wearing explosive
jockey shorts. There is no such thing as
"security." And now, the administrations'
(plural) lies and wholesale snooping are naked before us. James Madison wrote "no nation can preserve
its freedom in the midst of continual warfare" but that's what we've been
sold -- and we have been losing our freedom.
Talk to those denied airline flights with neither explanation nor recourse. Madison was talking about the danger of concentrating
power in the executive long before NSA, CIA, DIA and a hundred other snoop
bureaucracies were even dreamed of.
Snowden
isn't the story. The story is we are
overdue for a sweeping change in what rights we cede to our government and how
it accounts for its protection of our rights and its constraint of them. Now is the time to begin writing that story....
Okay, I read through the whole post. Vehemently disagree that Snowden isn't a hero - but I agree wholeheartedly with the rest. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Very well written. We'll debate when I return to Seattle in a week!
ReplyDelete- Grant
My friend Tom Coad e-mailed this comment (which I have had to edit to fit Blogspot's space restrictions) and allowed me to post it on his behalf:
ReplyDeleteFletch:
Everything you say about Snowden is true. As are the observations about the intrusion of U.S. intelligence on individuals' lives. The expansion of NSA and its ability to record most telephone conversations in most countries gives the U.S. government the potential ability to perform all sorts of mischief
It's an alarming capability. But would we have known its dimensions without Snowden's revelations? Snowden has violated his oath of secrecy, and is a traitor. He is not an admirable character. But he has told us something we should have known. And apparently he is going to tell more, including secret intrusions into inner operations of allied governments.
Some government activities are secret, intrusive, and have the potential to damage our freedom. But, if one is convinced that the threats are real, that the perpetrators are clever and exceedingly dangerous, and that the U.S. is the primary target, what should be done to forestall catastrophes? Has the public anywhere to turn except to its government? And should the government have some latitude to develop tools to deal with mortal dangers to the entire society?
Police can deal with religious-based barbarism if the potential destruction is limited. But they do not seem sufficient to discover nuclear devices that could destroy our cities, or prevent devastating chemical or biologic attacks.
To destroy secret cells, we must know where they are. Listening to telephone conversations is one of the techniques. Others involve planting agents in social organizations and private gatherings, screening travelers, using drones to track activities of suspected terrorists, and planting moles within hostile organizations.
Paradoxically, if the surveillance efforts succeed and the drone and special forces accomplish their assignments, the apparent need for unusual measures is diminished because nothing really terrible has happened.
I think we are caught in a Catch-22 situation. The government, while clumsy, is proceeding on a path that may well have prevented major damage. With the winding down of two expensive, senseless wars, the government apparently is testing new techniques that save American lives, and protect our interests more effectively than spending trillions of dollars to "put boots on the ground."
The problem really hinges on a the answer to a simple question: "Is there an actual, imminent threat from unidentified terrorist groups that are capable of acquiring and using nuclear, chemical or biologic methods to destroy U.S. cities and/or disable key targets in the U.S. infrastructure?"
If the answer is "Yes," we must continue invasive activities. There should be more transparency, and Congressional oversight should be improved, but not termination.
If one's answer is "No," they are living in a Panglossian society where reality is ignored.
Living in the first half of the last century, even with its major wars, might have been a better option than keeping life together in the next 87 years of this one.
Tom
Tom's is a false dichotomy. Why not convert the billions from armaments and obsolete nuclear weapon maintenance to assisting with education, health care and economic development so our enemies have no reason to hate or fear our imperial designs? There are a lot of creative ways to destroy ourselves and our nation; why not defuse the motivations, the lies, the economic disparities?
ReplyDeleteI believe in another way; not an overnight transformation, but movement to a culture of peace; we might just save the planet too.
Amen.
ReplyDelete