The Edward Snowden Problem: Where is Jason Bourne When You Need Him?
As the Edward Snowden saga drags on the country is becoming split almost right down the middle on supporting the NSA contractor turned infamous leaker. Just today Snowden has released more documents that point to the United States being involved in cyber-attacks against many different countries but mainly Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland.
This revelation comes on the heels of a much-anticipated meeting between President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, in which President Obama was slated to pressure China to cease all cyber-attacks against the United States. In the opinion of this writer, I believe that Mr. Snowden, although never a “whistleblower”, has basically turned into a Chinese defector or informant at the very least.
It is in this spirit that I ask, where is Jason Bourne when you need him? If there was ever a need to shut someone up, it is now. Mr. Snowden has become a huge liability to our own national and person security.
Please do not misunderstand; I believe that NSA snooping operations like Prism or the Verizon warrants are not okay, I also understand that it is not up to individuals to reveal this information. Men like Edward Snowden or Bradley Manning have no idea the others that they put at risk in the field while they leak these things from their air conditioned offices.
We could compare Snowden and Manning to Robert Hanssen. For those of you who are unsure of whom I am referring I will give you some short background. Hanssen was an FBI agent who was caught and convicted of spying for the Soviets and then the Russians for more than twenty-two years. In that time he sold the names of American spies and Soviet informants to the Russian government for a grand total of almost one and a half million dollars. It is estimated that Hanssen was responsible for countless death within the U.S. intelligence community as well as the largest intelligence disaster in United States history. He did it all for money.
Snowden hasn’t announced how much money he has been paid for his information but I can assure you that this man has been compensated and for what? Selling sensitive intelligence. There is no difference.
The only thing worse about this latest story of treachery is that people are reportedly donating money to Snowden and petitioning the government to pardon him. What people need to understand is that Snowden didn’t do this for Americans although he may try to pretend that he did. I am going to let you hear it out of his mouth instead of mine.
