Snowden Self-Incriminates

Some perhaps relevant excerpts from the author's CV:

Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2009

Assistant Secretary for Policy, Department of Homeland Security, 2005-2009

General Counsel, Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004-2005

General Counsel, National Security Agency, 1992-1994

Last paragraph tl;dr:

"To sum up, for the last several months, while living in Russia, Snowden has been putting forward a justification for his acts (a) that he knows is not true, since it doesn’t explain his actions, (b) that is approved at the highest levels by the Russian government and (c) that gravely harms the US and helps Russia in its confrontations with the US around the world."

Thanks tokenadult, as usual, for the regular updates from an opposing view on Snowden. I'm still undecided whether the man was operating for attention from the start, or got scared and changed his plans after the leak already got under way. In either case, I've come around to accept Snowden as a non-altruistic actor.

Snowden broke his oath and the law. There is no argument about this.

However, the fact that people can't see past the law to the bigger picture is more than a little disheartening.

I don't support massive surveillance dragnets, but I also find it laughable to suppose that the USA is the only country that has them.

At the same time, the author seems to be insinuating that Snowden was a Russian agent. If that's true why didn't he go to Russia very quickly? Why did he try to go to Hong Kong and South America first?

It also eludes dealing with the question of whether the NSA's programs are good or justifiable. Just because other people do it too doesn't mean it's a good thing.