Whistleblower praises Edward Snowden's 'magnificent act of civil disobedience' (video)
LEIGH SALES: What do you say to the argument advanced by those with the opposite viewpoint to you, especially in the US Congress and in the White House, that Edward Snowden is a traitor who made a narcissistic decision that he personally had a right to decide what classified information should be in the public domain?
THOMAS DRAKE: That's a Government meme, it's a Government cover, it's a Government story. The Government is desperate to not deal with the actual disclosures, the contents of those disclosures, because they do reveal a vast, systemic, institutionalised industrial-scale Leviathan surveillance system that has clearly gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with terrorism - far beyond.
...
THOMAS DRAKE: Well, you know, we'll see how things develop (inaudible) plead for leniency. He's outside the US and that does give him some advantages in terms of the long arm of "US justice". I believe he committed a magnificent act of civil disobedience. He knew full well what risk he was taking. And he knew that he was potentially sacrificing his own safety, his own well-being and ultimately even putting his entire personal freedom at risk in disclosing top secret information regarding surveillance programs conducted by the United States Government.
LEIGH SALES: But if everybody acted like that, wouldn't the entire system crumble?
THOMAS DRAKE: Well, the system's outta control. I mean, amount of information - this is what's happening. Not only the amount of information that's continually classified, but also the number of people that have access to that classified information, it's in the millions now. It's in the millions. If Americans only knew the extent to which the executive branch has secretly interpreted even the legislation that was passed and signed into law by the President, they'd be angry and very upset. Well, we're now starting to see the contours of that.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3788632.htm
= new reply since forum marked as read
