Alison Smale reports:
Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American security contractor granted temporary asylum by Russia, has appealed to Washington to stop treating him like a traitor for revealing that the United States has been eavesdropping on its allies, a German politician who met with Mr. Snowden said on Friday.
Read more on the New York Times, where they have also uploaded a copy of Snowden’s “To Whom It May Concern” letter.
Years ago, when I started my personal blog, Chronicles of Dissent, the tag line was a quote from Edward Abbey:
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
I do not view Edward Snowden as a traitor but as a patriot. Yes, he may have broken the law or violated an oath he took, but in service of defending this country from our own government that has run amok with surveillance. He felt a moral duty to expose what was going on because our government lied to its people. We owe him a debt of gratitude, not prosecution.