More on Edward Snowden

Here is an answer to an email I sent to a friend who worked for the NSA and supports its actions of recording our phone calls and emails.

I will hold Obama in the esteem I formally had for him when he pardons Edward Snowden and invites him to the Whitehouse where he will formally apologize to him. That would be the proper and honorable thing to do.

His actions now, as reported in this article, (New York Times, 24 March 2014, “Obama to Propose Ending N.S.A.’s Bulk Collection of Phone Records”), are only what he is forced to do because of popular pressure. The lies about the great harm this has done the country have been exposed, the world sees that his actions were done for his country, not against it. The fact that he did not give one document directly to be publish is now generally known. He exposed wrong done by his government the most responsible and careful way possible, by giving the documents to two respected newspapers and got their assurance that they would vet every document before publishing it. This is an action both papers do regularly with their own investigative reporting and have demonstrated themselves to be responsible publishers.

I hope to see a Snowden Metal or maybe even better an Ellsberg Metal given to those who risk their own wellbeing for that sake of their county by exposing this kind of unconstitutional and harmful actions of their government. An act of bravery done in the heat of battle is more a reflex action. An act of bravery to expose the wrong doing of very powerful men is an act the takes much thought and, in my mind, much more courage than an act to save a another person with no time to consider the consequences. We have a Metal of Honor. Now let us institute a Medal of Truth.