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At the time I was unaware of the curious limits Epstein had put on his outreach. Besides those of us who had met with Snowden in Moscow, Epstein "should have contacted" Sarah Harrison, who stayed by Snowden's side during his five weeks at Moscow's Sheremetevo Airport and then for a few additional months; Julian Assange, who pulled out all the stops to facilitate Snowden's sudden and safe departure from Hong Kong; NSA whistleblowers William Binney, Kirk Wiebe and Ed Loomis; and Diane Roark, House Intelligence Committee senior aide who had the NSA account for several years.
Epstein's book shows that -- while ignoring people who know Snowden or have had painful experiences trying to expose NSA wrongdoing by going through the "proper channels" -- he conducted many interviews with people who consider Snowden, as well as Putin, the devil incarnate.
There is also the issue of how much actual "damage" Snowden's disclosures caused. According to former NSA Technical Director William Binney, it is fair to say that the extent of the NSA's vacuuming up of bulk data on Americans and people around the world was a surprise, first and foremost, to Americans whose eyes were opened (as Snowden intended); that U.S. adversaries were generally aware of NSA's capabilities; and that damage to sources and methods typically has been exaggerated by those interested in overstating it.
Alarmist Complaints
Here there are shades of the alarmist complaints about the supposed damage caused by the disclosures about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.
After Defense Secretary Robert Gates had joined other senior officials in lamenting the "grave damage" from Manning's revelations, Gates was asked by Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin to put it in writing. Gates came back with an honest report: Early claims of damage had been, in Gates's words, "significantly overwrought."
Bill Binney and his colleagues tell me the same is probably true of the hyperbole used to portray the damage from the Snowden disclosures.
Yet, balancing whatever that "damage" was is the significance of Snowden's argument that the warrantless bulk surveillance of Americans was illegal under the Constitution and created the risk of a future leader imposing a "turnkey tyranny" on the United States because of all the embarrassing and incriminating information that would be collected on American citizens.
There is now no doubt that Snowden's constitutional concerns were well-founded and it is not hard to imagine how an unscrupulous politician might make effective use of people's personal secrets or their unguarded comments.
But it is easier to discredit Snowden by simply portraying him as a Russian spy. After all, we are now deep in a New McCarthyism that accompanies the New Cold War. Any contact with Russians -- no matter how unintentional in Snowden's case -- is regarded as somehow disqualifying.
So, that is the tack that Epstein took. However, the evidence isn't there.
Chris Inglis, who was NSA's Deputy Director when Snowden made the disclosures and who headed the initial NSA investigation, said about Snowden a year ago: "I don't think he was in the employ of the Chinese or the Russians. I don't see any evidence that would indicate that."
Epstein -- like so many others -- also shows a basic lack of understanding of the important, graduated scale of values that Ed Snowden and other whistleblowers take with utmost seriousness. At one point, Epstein glibly says of Snowden, "In signing this [nondisclosure] document, he swore an oath not to divulge any of this information."
But that's not correct. The only oath that we, as military or other government officials swear is: "To support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic."
Ethicists describe such an oath as a "supervening value," far more serious than a promise like that embedded in the contract one signs in agreeing not to disclose classified information that could be harmful to U.S. national security. In other words, what do you do when your oath conflicts with the contract language, which one has the priority?
Snowden's Choice
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