Edward Snowden is not a Traitor

Last month I discussed the sorry fate of NSA whistle blower and American hero Edward Snowden in the wake of United States government statists, politicians and talking head pundits left and right calling him a traitor to his country and howling for his blood, by posing this simple question: Will the Real Traitors Please Stand Up?

Snowden, as of this date, with his U.S. passport revoked, is still a man without a country, holed up at Moscow airport seeking asylum from a furious foaming at the mouth American government out to get him and to thwart his opportunities for safe passage and a new life elsewhere.

The U.S. government Authority wants to punish this man as a traitor.

But Edward Snowden is not a traitor.

By definition, a traitor is a person who is guilty of treason or treachery, in betraying friends, country, a cause or trust. An enemy collaborator, saboteur, spy, turncoat, subversive, double-crosser, Judas, or back-stabber, for example, is commonly referred to a traitor.

An American citizen like Edward Snowden, on the other hand, who faithfully attempts fidelity in regard to his solemn oath to preserve, protect and uphold the United States Constitution is not a traitor, but in fact a true patriot to his country. He is doing his sworn duty to his fellow countrymen.

The real American traitors are those agents of the United States government and their collaborators who violate or condone violations of the very Constitution they took an oath to preserve, protect and uphold.

When politicians vote for legislation which violates the Constitution they are traitors. When government agents seek to enforce such laws they are traitors. When ordinary citizens condone violations of the Constitution they are traitors.

The NSA clandestine spying and surveillance activities together with any “laws” which purport to authorize such conduct are not permitted by the United States Constitution. Likewise, secret laws, courts and judges as well as classified secrets of government wrongdoing are unconstitutional.

It is treachery to the American people and those government agents involved in it are all traitors. Snowden simply did his sworn duty to the American people by exposing those traitors for who they are.

Let’s suppose, for another example, that Congress passed a series of secret laws in furtherance of its so-called war on terror, which laws authorized the Department of Justice, including the FBI, to initiate a completely classified global operation to round up, kidnap, assassinate or imprison American citizens or foreigners all in secret without affording any due process of law and at the whim of the government authorities.

That is not such a farfetched scenario in light of what we now know the government has been doing. Such a scheme would be patently unconstitutional and treachery against the American people.

Suppose further that everyone involved in the scheme were sworn to absolute secrecy and that all of the documentation regarding it was classified as top secret.  

Now suppose that one honest government agent with a conscience and a sense of obligation to honor his oath to the United States Constitution decided to blow the whistle on the unconstitutional scheme and publish all his information about it with the news media and on the Internet.

We know that’s all Edward Snowden did.

Would you consider that whistle blower a traitor or a patriot?

The answer is obvious: Edward Snowden is not a traitor.