Edward Snowden is a patriot. He is not a traitor. He is a legitimate whistleblower and, in a surprising decision last September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit:
Said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans’ telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and may well have been unconstitutional.
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This comes seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records. Snowden exposed the details of a massive NSA program that used the fear of terrorism to trample on the Constitutional rights of American citizens. The U.S. Government is following the same twisted plan in prosecuting American citizens who entered the Capitol on January 6.
Snowden was somewhat shocked by the outcome. He posted the following on Twitter:
“I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSA’s activities as unlawful and in the same ruling credit me for exposing them. . . . The Supreme Court once said, “It is difficult for the People to accept what they are prohibited from observing.” That’s why I blew the whistle in the first place: the public has a right to know decisions that redefine the territory of their rights.
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The courts got this one right. The flame of liberty and the fire of freedom have not yet been extinguished in America. It is the ultimate irony that Snowden enjoys more freedom and protection of his civil rights in Russia than in America.
