Jon Evans over at TechCrunch makes the case that America should give Edward Snowden a medal. To many, of course, that’s a non-starter; Snowden is the ultimate traitor doing his best to harm his country. Cooler heads, including Evans, are asking which enemy, exactly, did he aid if he is to deserve the traitor epithet.
How long, Evans wonders, should American authoritarians have carte blanche to do whatever they want in the sacred name of national security? He’s got a point. After a while, all that protecting does more to harm the nation than the enemies we are worried about. Those of a certain age will remember the Vietnam quote attributed to an American officer that they must destroy the village to save it.
In Evans estimation, Snowden’s revelations—even if we stipulate for the sake of argument that we was aiding some enemy—has done far more good than harm. He believes Snowden helped rescue our democracy before the government could destroy it in order to save it. As yesterday’s post makes clear, we have already traveled a good distance down the road of destruction. Our security apparatus apparently feels—in the name of national security, of course—that it is appropriate to spy on the Senate, who are, after all, our elected representatives.
We wouldn’t know any of this if it weren’t for Edward Snowden. I agree with Evans: he deserves a medal.