I consider Snowden the gold standard of government whistle blowers. Manning tried to do a good thing but was sloppy and trusted Assange a bit too much. I admired Assange during the early days of Wikileaks, but I really can't stand his grand standing. Before Snowden, people like Thomas Drake tried to address similar issues but got nowhere.
If the people in power don't like people like Snowden shining a light on their crimes, maybe they shouldn't be committing those crimes to begin with. There needs to be proper congressional oversight of these things. When that doesn't exist, it becomes the duty of the individual people involved in the government to inform the people about what the government is doing, and that's exactly what Snowden did. Not eagerly, and he paid a heavy price for it, but he recognised it as necessary and did what needed to be done.
Whistle blowing is a social service. Assange tried to do something that stepped outside nearly every social rule we have and challenged our bedrock assumptions about journalism and free speech... He did that irresponsibly and may have harmed people, but I admire the effort. He's the closest thing to a real life Bond villain there is.
> He's the closest thing to a real life Bond villain there is.
I guess we watch different Bond movies when you have guys like Kim Jong-un running some shows out there, having concentration camps and killing their brothers with nerve agents on the airports
That's more of a real villain. To be a Bond villain, you need more grand standing and scenery chewing. The biggest real villains prefer to do their damage quietly without anyone noticing, while Bond villains make for a better story.
Kim Jong is too wrapped up trying to keep power back home that he can't make a German/European crazy hair brained scheme to try and take over the world.
Building an informant culture in your populace and threatening collective gulagging on the rebel's family doesn't quite have the same flair as tying the rebel to a table with a slow moving laser aimed at his junk.
Do you expect me to talk? No Mr Bond! I expect you to die!
If the people in power don't like people like Snowden shining a light on their crimes, maybe they shouldn't be committing those crimes to begin with. There needs to be proper congressional oversight of these things. When that doesn't exist, it becomes the duty of the individual people involved in the government to inform the people about what the government is doing, and that's exactly what Snowden did. Not eagerly, and he paid a heavy price for it, but he recognised it as necessary and did what needed to be done.