From public servant to traitor?

Q: Did Edward Snowden do the right thing in going public?

William Binney: We tried to stay for the better part of seven years inside the government trying to get the government to recognize the unconstitutional, illegal activity that they were doing and openly admit that and devise certain ways that would be constitutionally and legally acceptable to achieve the ends they were really after. And that just failed totally because no one in Congress or — we couldn’t get anybody in the courts and certainly the Department of Justice and inspector general’s office didn’t pay any attention to it. And all of the efforts we made just produced no change whatsoever. All it did was continue to get worse and expand.

Q: So Snowden did the right thing? Binney: Yes, I think he did. Q: You three wouldn’t criticize him for going public from the start? J. Kirk Wiebe: Correct. Binney: In fact, I think he saw and read about what our experience was and that was part of his decision- making. Wiebe: We failed, yes. Jesselyn Radack: Not only did they go through multiple and all the proper internal channels and they failed, but more than that, it was turned against them. ... The inspector general was the one who gave their names to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act. And they were all targets of a federal criminal investigation, and Tom ended up being prosecuted — and it was for blowing the whistle.

Q: There’s a question being debated whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor.

Binney: Certainly he performed a really great public service to begin with by exposing these programs and making the government in a sense publicly accountable for what they’re doing. At least now they are going to have some kind of open discussion like that.

But now he is starting to talk about things like the government hacking into China and all this kind of thing. He is going a little bit too far. I don’t think he had access to that program. But somebody talked to him about it, and so he said, from what I have read, anyway, he said that somebody, a reliable source, told him that the U. S. government is hacking into all these countries. But that’s not a public service, and now he is going a little beyond public service.

So he is transitioning from whistle- blower to a traitor.

Thomas Drake: He’s an American who has been exposed to some incredible information regarding the deepest secrets of the United States government. And we are seeing the initial outlines and contours of a very systemic, very broad, a Leviathan surveillance state and much of it is in violation of the fundamental basis for our own country — in fact, the very reason we even had our own American Revolution. And the Fourth Amendment for all intents and purposes was revoked after 9/ 11. ...

He is by all definitions a classic whistle- blower and by all definitions he exposed information in the public interest. We’re now finally having the debate that we’ve never had since 9/ 11.

Radack: “Hero or traitor?” was the original question. I don’t like these labels, and they are putting people into categories of two extremes, villain or saint. ... He fits the legal definition of a whistle- blower. He is someone who exposed broad waste, abuse and in his case illegality. ... And he also said he was making the disclosures for the public good and because he wanted to have a debate.