Enter The Media Martyr

Enter The Media Martyr:

Here are the problems I have with Ed Snowden and his choice to leak NSA information to news organizations.

The DoD and classified programs have a variation of the Ethics Hotlines that most corporations have to support employees who have concerns about bad behavior. Snowden could have worked his concerns with this hotline. Barring that, he could have worked his concerns with the members of Congress briefed on the program. He could have even gone to a member of Congress who wasn’t briefed and gotten him or her involved. There were numerous responsible ways to deal with the conflicts he was wrestling with. Instead, he chose to go to the Guardian and the WaPo and data-dump our capabilities to the world. I heard his interview on television and he seems to be painting himself both as a (quite paranoid) martyr and as a latter-day Assange. For somebody who was entrusted with the nation’s most delicate secrets, such behavior is appalling.
Edward Snowden is not a hero. He was a weak man who took an oath to protect the nation’s secrets, found something he felt was contrary to our ideals, and decided to resolve the issue in an irresponsible manner by making the biggest, loudest bang he could. He failed the country he claims to want to save.