Thursday the House of Representatives voted on the U.S.A. Freedom Act, supposedly to end the NSA bulk phone records program. Even Congress can see that something needs to be done to put a stop to the kind of illegal surveillance that came to light as a result of the heroic efforts of one young man, Edward Snowden. He deserves the gratitude of every American. Efforts to expose the abuses of our constitutional rights had come to a dead-end, with James Clapper's lies, as he committed perjury before congressional hearings. We would never have known the extent to which our government has gone to spy on ALL OF US, if Mr. Snowden hadn't risked it all to do what he did.
It may not be too late for Americans to rise up in righteous anger and demand big changes to the way our intelligence gathering agencies operate. If enough time had been allowed to pass, maybe we would all be too afraid to speak out against this; once we allowed Big Brother to become too powerful, too all-seeing and all-knowing.
But our government has tried to slander Edward Snowden by raising suspicions that he is even working with the Russians against his country. This is obviously false, and illogical to anyone who followed the way this thing played out. It is public knowledge that as he was in transit to another location, he was stopped in the airport in Moscow, by having his passport revoked (illegally) by our government. This is what landed him in Russia, unable to proceed. If they are willing to slander him in such a way, should he trust the legal system here, and do as John Kerry has said, to "man-up", and return to face the charges against him? Mr. Snowden has recently revealed that he knows more about the secret workings of our government than most of us do. He has NO FAITH that he would be treated fairly. Has Chelsea Manning been treated fairly? (Formerly Bradley Manning). What about Julian Assange?
But Snowden has been labeled as a criminal. It has been falsely said that he has aided the enemies of our country. He has embarrassed the U.S. of course, but our leaders should be embarrassed, if they've been exposed as trying to spy on nearly everyone in every country on the face of the earth. If any harm has been done, it is the fault of the NSA, the CIA, and other agencies, for doing the very things we have been loudly accusing other countries of doing against us.
The NSA has been working tirelessly, with an ever-expanding budget, to gather as much information as possible about as many Americans as possible. Supposedly, they were working under the auspices of a FISA court which we have been assured was not merely a 'rubber stamp', but which has never denied them free reign to do anything they wanted to.
What if some foreign entity had been caught systematically robbing every American of our privacy? The agent who discovered it and exposed them would be paraded through the streets with crowds cheering, and marching bands. But Mr. Snowden has been prevented from coming back to his home, a country where it is a crime to obey one's conscience, as these whistle-blowers have done.
It should be universally recognized that anyone who exposes government malfeasance, following the morality of his conscience, is to be treated fairly, and protected from overzealous prosecution. This is true, even if their actions are, technically, illegal. They may be exposing criminal acts. Both Snowden and Manning saw things that they knew would shock the citizenry of this country, and they both knew that things would never come to light, if they didn't act boldly, knowing that it would cost them, personally. But they did the right thing.
In both cases, they were careful not to irresponsibly distribute materials to the wrong people, and very selective in not revealing anything that would truly hurt us, or aid our enemies.
It is time to acknowledge these true patriots with gratitude. We should be demanding their freedom, and their pardon from all charges.