Mr. Snowden, considered an enemy of the state by some, is a hero, patriot and statesmen for others of us. His whistleblowing from inside the US Surveillance Apparatus revealed illegal, unconstitutional and immoral secret activities by the US government against its own citizens. As a result, he lives in exile in Russia, although he has attempted to negotiate a return to the US to stand a fair and open public trial with a jury of his peers. The US government has refused that offer, intends to prosecute him as a foreign spy through secret courts associated with the Espionage Act, and has only committed itself to not torturing him.
In this hour-long interview with Edward Snowden, he encourages citizens to not place their trust in politics or politicians, but to work with fellow citizens to demand transparency, to encourage the development of technologies and businesses that augment privacies and freedom, to learn to protect themselves, to distrust secretive government and corporate entities that indiscriminately collect our information for their own ends. He speaks of the qualities that are considered to have made America a great place to live – of citizenship, of voluntary interactions, of tolerance for others’ ideas and speech, of the protection of the natural rights of humans in their quest for progress and innovation as opposed to the promotion of a system of all-encompassing rules and laws that create an authoritarian rigidity of control, stagnation and intolerance.
Throughout the recent years of endless political speeches by a sea of barely distinguishable, philosophically malleable, self-serving public figures, Mr. Snowden’s remarks and insights stand out as singularly informative and inspirational. He is, thankfully, not an elected official. Quite the contrary. He is a leader, a thinker, a disruptor and an innovator. To have a thousand more like him!