Citizen Snowden: Why he matters

And how's this for a bizarre perversion of justice? Barack Obama now concedes that he was totally ignorant of how far his own appointed spymasters had strayed from their constitutional tethers, and he admits that he would've paid no attention to this danger to America's liberties except for the historic revelations by the 30-year-old guy he insists must be severely punished.

Hysterics aside, Snowden is no radical, certainly no commie, and no self-serving opportunist. He didn't sell the evidence he took. He gave it to us, along with a dash of common sense about espionage: "There is a far cry between legitimate law enforcement -- where it is targeted, it's based on reasonable suspicion, individualized suspicion and warranted action -- and the sort of dragnet mass surveillance that puts entire populations under a sort of eye and sees everything, even when it's not needed," he said late last year from his forced exile in Russia. "This is about a trend in the relationship between the governing and governed in America."

Let Snowden tell you who he is: "I'm neither a traitor nor a hero. I am an American."

Rise up, America

In earlier times of intense internal assaults on our sovereignty, the American people themselves have had to rise up to face down the authoritarian power plays of our leaders. This usually involves a lone Snowden type or a small group of people who see gross wrongdoing, are deeply offended by it, and feel a powerful moral obligation to defy the system perpetuating it. It's not easy to be a whistleblower, but it is important, for the ones who risk all to blow the whistle give the rest of us what we need to respond and rise up.

One of the shallowest assaults on Snowden is the assertion that his leaking of top-secret documents is an unusual and un-American betrayal of trust. What a scream! First, leaks of classified information flood out of Washington practically every day, coming not from whistleblowers, but from top officials themselves who're seeking some political advantage. Obama's Machiavellian former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was dubbed the "leaker-in-chief." The media have even come up with a standard official phrase to protect these leakers: "A high-ranking source who asked not to be identified because he/she was not authorized to release the information."

Second, far from being un-American, big disclosures like Snowden's have proven throughout our history to be a higher form of patriotism. As reported by Time in December, one of the earliest and most useful revealers of secrets was old Benjamin Franklin. As postmaster general under the Continental Congress in 1773, he helped leak letters from American officials who were collaborating with the British crown. And in more recent times, whistleblowers have alerted us to such secrets as the Nixon Watergate break-in and enemies list, J. Edgar Hoover's dirty tricks campaign against civil rights activists and Vietnam War protestors, the Bush-Cheney WMD scam, and Obama's secret drone wars.

Too much of the media's coverage of the NSA story is focused on what should be done with Snowden: Leave him in exile, throw him in prison, or give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to him. All of this is just cocktail party chitchat, trivializing the astounding importance of the whistleblower's revelations. For having opened our eyes, Snowden should be allowed to come home and be left alone. The question is what are we -- progressives, constitutional conservatives, and all others of good will -- going to do now that we know what Snowden knew?

It's obvious that the NSA herd intends to hunker down like cattle in a hailstorm, hoping it'll all blow over soon. Feinstein, Rogers, & Company are taking a hard line, see-no-evil position, giving a blanket endorsement to the agency's actions and pledging to defeat even meek reforms.

Speaking of meek, Obama tried to deflect action by appointing a high-powered Review Group that he assumed would recommend nothing more than a new coat of paint for the Big Honking Spy Machine. However, the group stunned the White House with a list of reforms that would put some real clamps on NSA's electronic vacuuming of everyone's data. One distraught intelligence official told Politico that he was "slobbernockered" by the proposed restrictions. (I don't know what that means, but I'm pretty sure I'd pay to see it.)

He needn't have worried, for Obama finally did his straddle dance, issuing a few feel-good reforms, but leaving the sweeping domestic spy operation intact, while entrusting key details to his director of national intelligence, James Clapper. Clapper is an infamous cheerleader for scoop-'em-up spying, best known for lying to Congress last year when asked directly if NSA is spying on Americans.

The fight now shifts to the countryside and to a Congress that is undecided on whether to "mend or end" the illicit data grab. One big factor is that this is an election year with all House seats and 33 Senate seats up for grabs. Another factor is that NSA's assault on our liberties is not a polarized left-versus-right issue: Many conservative-libertarian voters side with most progressives in favor of stopping the needless assault. In short, this is a time when aggressive grassroots action matters.

Notes:

1.  A timeline of NSA domestic spying  [ Check out and share our infographic on the history of this vile practice. ]

2.  Do something!  Several organizations are challenging  the government about its domestic  spying programs. You can get information  on how to help from the following groups: [ read more ]

3.  Senate and House "intelligence"?  In January, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the intelligence committee, teamed up with her House counterpart, Rep. Mike Rogers, to do a version of the old Joe McCarthy Red Scare shtick. [ read more ]

4.  Why keep an expensive, illegal, invasive spy program that doesn't even work?  A critic of President Obama's policy of allowing everyone's electronic communications to be dumped into the NSA's computer netherworld recently said... [ read more ]