Former Bush Official Lawrence Wilkerson Says Snowden Has Done a 'Service' (salon.com)

An anonymous reader cites an article on Salon: Lawrence "Larry" Wilkerson, former Bush official finds the revelations made by Edward Snowden a service. In 2013, Edward Snowden, a former contractor with NSA, worked with journalists to reveal a number of mass surveillance programs. In a recent interview, Wilkerson said, "I think Snowden has done a service. I wouldn't have had the courage, and maybe not even the intellectual capacity, to do it the way he did it. There's a logic to what he has done that is impressive. He really has refrained from anything that was truly dangerous, with regard to our security -- regardless of what people say. He has been circumspect about what he's released, how he's released it, who he's released it to."

Comments

I couldn't agree more

[DaMattster]

Edward Snowden blew the whistle on a serious abuse by government. I believe Edward Snowden is a hero for it. Government should not be spying on people. People should not fear their government, their government should fear them.

Re:I couldn't agree more

[rickb928]

Dead on, and absolutely correct.

Our government should be subject to both the rule of law and the will of the people, which should be either be the same or consistent.

Snowden exposed significant excursions of illegality, and did so in a less than most harmful manner. If by 'harmful' you would mean 'to have exposed what they are doing in secret', then yes, this is correct.

He didn't use insecure means, known to be subject to compromise, to disclose matters specific enough to risk the lives of intelligence operatives worldwide, nor to disclose precise methods. That was done by another government official, and so far they haven't been held to account. Mr. Snowden is not a criminal except in the strictest sense of having not been caught before he disclosed what he did. He is a whistleblower, and a genuine patriot. He is part of the process of restoring our government to a position of guarded trust it should occupy.