The latest meme being floated by the apologists for the NSA is that Edward Snowden must have been a spy who received aid from the Russians. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was busy pushing that theory on the news shows lately even though, admittedly, he didn’t have any evidence other than a gut feeling that it must be true. His senatorial counterpoint Dianne Feinstein opined that it was certainly possible and should be investigated. Put aside for the moment that there’s absolutely no evidence for this, the whole thing doesn’t even make sense.
Snowden, who is apparently back to being a screw up who could barely walk and chew gum—after being an evil genius after being a screw up—is said to be incapable of arranging his flight to Hong Kong and then Russia. Because, you know, when you have trouble chewing gum, you certainly wouldn’t be able to book reservations even with all those on-line sites. And if he was a Russian agent, why not quietly go to Russia, give them the documents and disappear? The whole theory is ridiculous and doesn’t stand even a second’s scrutiny.
What does Snowden have to say about all this? He terms the charges absurd. So now we have a they said, he said. Who to believe? It’s not that hard to decide. On the one hand, everything Edward Snowden has claimed has turned out to be true. On the other hand, almost everything the government has had to say on the matter, including the denials of Snowden’s claims, has turned out to be false.
So we have Snowden who has been proven correct in his claims against the government which has repeatedly lied, often replacing one lie with another when the first was shown to be false only to have the second lie exposed as well. It’s not hard to know who to believe.