Edward Snowden has taken the world on a wild ride over the last two and a half weeks, revealing first a pair of massive NSA surveillance programs, and then his own identity, motives, and level of access to the sort of information he revealed. This weekend, Snowden himself became the focus of the story. On Friday, federal prosecutors formally sought charges against the former NSA contractor under the 1917 Espionage Act, and the U.S. formally requested Snowden’s extradition from Hong Kong.
Yesterday, Snowden boarded a plane “on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel,” according to the Hong Kong government. The destination turned out to be Russia, but the story was far from over at that point. This move seems to have been aided by Wikileaks, which is now helping the new fugitive seek asylum in “a democratic nation” that from all appearances has now been identified as Ecuador (Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks,
Julian Assange
is currently seeking asylum in that same nation, though the charges in that case are far less clearly linked to his political actions). During this globe-spanning journey, Snowden managed to create a great deal of consternation among those most critical of his revelations. For a few hours, it was rumored that his eventual destination was Cuba or Venezuela, prompting Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC) to comment “The freedom trail is not exactly China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela,” before the world knew that Snowden was not headed for such obvious U.S. detractors as his final destination.
It’s somewhat unusual that Wikileaks has become involved at this point in the story. The site specializes in leaking the sort of information Snowden released via the Guardian weeks ago, not international air travel, international diplomacy, or evading law enforcement. Wikileaks’s founder is somewhat comically trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. So, it’s an action that may serve to rehabilitate the site in the eyes of those disillusioned by Assange’s being charged with sex crimes. Whether the new association is beneficial for Snowden in the long run is anyone’s guess.
Unfortunately, this entire weekend-long exercise has served as little more than a distraction from the issues that make this story so important. The fate of a whistleblower is important, yes, but in the end, it matters far less what happens to Snowden than what we do with the information he shared with the world. Right now, what most Americans are doing is writing that information off as irrelevant. That frightens me far more than the prospect that Wikileaks might fail to fly a man to South America.
Basically, now that we’ve confirmed the Government is officially one step closer, if not already there, to literally monitoring and knowing when we are taking a crap, will anyone act differently, and actually wipe?