Tags: Edward Snowden | Snowden | Ellsberg | Pentagon | NSA

Edward Snowden Is No Daniel Ellsberg

Wednesday, 26 June 2013 11:24 AM Current | Bio | Archive

The NSA. I don't mind if (fill in the blank) is keeping an eye on me, but turning information over to the government to fight terrorism? How dare they? Betrayal.
And by the way, what was an IT guy doing with access? There's a conspiracy. I mean, I never call IT and say I need help, do you?
Oh, I understand the argument that a man like Edward Snowden, who risks everything to expose what he and significant numbers of others believe to be an exercise of government overreaching that threatens the very core of the Constitution, should be celebrated as Daniel Ellsberg ("Pentagon Papers") was and not hunted as a criminal. I hear you.
I just don't buy it.
For one thing, if this is the core of the Constitution, we have a problem — because it already isn't private. Truth be told, almost nothing about any of us is private. I tell that to young people applying for jobs all the time. So worry about how it gets used and by whom, and not whether it's "out" there. It's everywhere. Think before you post. How many politicians have learned that the hard way? Don't hit send. Even generals get that wrong.
Actually, other than this IT guy getting access — and like I said, I never call IT, but lots of other people seem to, and they want things fixed when there are bugs (I'm sure the NSA is already working on that bug) — I was actually impressed by the reports that said he had broader access than an analyst, and that analysts would need a reason to see particular data, and that if they accessed it without such a basis, they'd get fired. How many private companies have that rule?
Ellsberg released information that helped prove the government was not being honest about the Vietnam War, a conflict that was claiming more American lives every day. We say constitutional analysis should be "content neutral," but check out our checkered history, and you'll confirm that it isn't. Ellsberg saved lives. It has always mattered. It also has always mattered how afraid we are, and sometimes it's mattered too much, which is where that annoying grown-up idea of balance comes in.

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Wednesday, 26 June 2013 11:24 AM
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