October 31, 2014

Edward Snowden on the Meaning of Patriotism

For his leaking of classified government documents, Edward Snowden has widely been accused of being a traitor to the United States (including by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Speaker of the House John Boehner), and charged with felonies punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Consideration of the history and character of those who call Snowden a traitor makes it clear what their motives are. Secretary Gates’ primary focus as Director of the CIA under President Reagan was to manipulate intelligence to provide propaganda in support of Reagan’s ideology and thereby facilitate U.S. support of right wing Central American governments and paramilitaries, which had brutal and fatal consequences for the people of El Salvador and Nicaragua. As the most visible leader of a political Party that almost exclusively serves the interests of the wealthy and powerful, at the expense of everyone else, John Boehner’s castigation of Snowden makes perfect sense.


The meaning of patriotism

In a recent interview with Katrina vanden Heuval, Editor and Publisher of The Nation, Snowden was asked how he defines patriotism. In my opinion, Snowden’s response is especially instructive and valuable because of the clear distinction it makes between acts that benefit a country’s government vs. acts that benefit its people:

How our government’s war on whistleblowers threatens our democracy

So why all the animosity and charges directed against Snowden by our government? Snowden explains:


This tendency of autocratic governments to lash out against those who reveal things that embarrass them, to escape their own embarrassment by charging the whistleblower with “treason” or violating and impairing “national security”, is not new. History is chock full of such things. In fact, it is the rule rather than the exception.

Those who believe that the United States is immune to this sort of thing are naïve. Unfortunately, with oligarchic control of our national news media, the situation in our country has become progressively worse in recent years.

The charges against Edward Snowden represent the 7th time that the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act of 1917 to punish government workers who shared information with the press. Prior to that, there had been only four such instances since the Act was enacted in 1917, the most well-known being the prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers. In some cases the Obama administration has also gone after the press for publishing the information.

The purpose of the Whistleblower Protection Act is to enable government workers to bring government wrongdoing to public notice without fear of reprisal. As such, it serves to protect the American people against government abuse and is therefore an important part of our democratic system. Without the protection of the Act, revelation of government wrongdoing by government employees can pose great risk to their career and even their freedom. Even with its protection, it takes a good deal of courage for government employees to accuse their government of serious misdeeds. Consequently, the progressive tendency of our government to ignore the Act has posed a substantial threat to our democracy. I’ll conclude this post with a comment by former U.S. Foreign Service employee Peter van Buren, on how our government’s war on whistleblowers threatens our democracy: