Trust Me

It’s hard for me to see Edward Snowden as a hero. I don’t remember Daniel Ellsberg making a run for it. I understand Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail for his beliefs. If Edward Snowden believes he’s done the right thing, why run away from it?

My anger and disgust when the Patriot Act passed seems a long time ago. Maybe I’m just annoyed at this hipster cyber-criminal wanting me to thank him for the privilege of re-litigating the jingoistic hootenanny of Bush and Cheney and the post-9/11 world they led the way in creating. A world where there are enemies everywhere and the use of military force is always on the table. It’s a single shooter world. It’s a multi-player role-playing game, too. Whatever we plug into, though, it’s always a paranoid world. Computers are the nuclear bomb of the 21^st century. There’s always been secrets and intrigue in politics, but digital technology creates blizzards of information. Some information that isn’t secret is classified as such and some that is secret isn’t classified as such not because of some sinister and shadowy government within the government wreaking it’s wholly unjustified evil on a really not that sympathetic world; it’s overworked and overwhelmed office workers making mistakes.

But I digress.

Make no mistake, Edward Snowden is a spy. A spy who works for us, he says. He’s a hero. Glen Greenwald says so. Others, too. So, it’s cool right?

I remember how I felt when Valerie Plame was outed. I’m hard-pressed to see how this is fundamentally different.

Bu it isn't simple, either.

National defense is in our mission statement. And while I hate to think of this world as sinister and shadowy, well, I believe in the 80/20 rule. Okay, I believe in my own definition of what the 80/20 rule, as in 80% of the world is good and 20% is, you know, not good. I want to keep track of them. They’re the bad guys! And I’m not going to be the President when the next 9/11 happens.

Okay, I’m not going to be the President no matter what happens.

Anyway, I don’t want to give up on programs that are designed to protect us from the 20%. We’re going to fuck up, of course. Let’s say there’s an error rate of .003%. I’d say that’s keeping the overhead pretty low. Still. Overhead. It happens.

I guess I wonder why so many people who are so suspicious of the President and the Congress – odds are you voted for them – are so ready to trust a man who premeditatedly broke his word and the law and abdicated all responsibility for his actions.

Ultimately, the story isn’t (or shouldn’t be) about Edward Snowden. (Come on, you’ve seen his picture enough. He’s such and obvious douchebag. Am I right?) It shouldn’t be about smirky celebrity journalists having a slap fight in a Google Cage Match, either. (That is kind of fun, though.) Are we doing right? Are or we just lame-ass shit-for-brains totally fucked up? Are we lame-ass shit-for-brains totally fucked up but at least trying?

Are we trying to do the right thing?

Are we keeping the overhead low?

I guess when your approval rating is 10% it’s hard to say, trust me.