USA Today Names Edward Snowden Tech Person of the Year

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from the USA Today tech column: "...But until a lone information-technology contractor named Edward Snowden leaked a trove of National Security Agency documents to the media this summer, we didn't know just how much we'd surrendered. Now that we do, our nation can have a healthy debate — out in the open, as a democracy should debate — about how good a bargain we got in that exchange. For facilitating that debate, at great risk to his own personal liberty, Snowden is this column's technology person of the year for 2013."

Comments

USA Today

[egr]

And yet by the government he is named as traitor and fugitive.

Re:If ever there was a "Conscience Award" ...

[Bob9113]

Of the untold numbers of spooks working in / for NSA, Ed Snowden is the only one who has the conscience and the courage to reveal the dastardly unconstitutional secrets of the NSA.

Actually, two other guys did; William Binney and Thomas Drake. Unfortunately, they went through official channels, so they got harrassed and prosecuted by the government, and without the massive trove of documents Snowden exfiltrated, they were ignored and marginalized by the major media. Their experience is what convinced Snowden that he had no choice but to go outside.