The U.S. government is chasing Edward Snowden across the globe, charging him with espionage for exposing the government's super dooper scooper snooper program that monitors what people do by telephone and Internet.
But espionage suggests he was working for a foreign power, delivering government secrets to an enemy. If so, what enemy? The view from here is that he was working for the American people in exposing government snooping. He delivered the documentation not to foreign powers, but to news media.
Consider also, however, that the reporters, editors, newspapers and broadcasters who published the revelations have not been charged. Not The Guardian, The New York Times, the Washington Post, nor the Associated Press, which distributed the story to thousands of smaller newspapers and other media. Nor have any charges of treason been leveled.
News media, of course, have battalions of lawyers who can argue First Amendment protection, as The New York Times did in the Pentagon Papers case, when it was shown that the government lied to the American people about its Vietnam war progress.
In this Internet Age, doesn't Snowden also have First Amendment rights? Don't we all? Hasn't this always been so?
For centuries, as far back as John Milton's Aeropagitica, it has been argued that people have a right to question and criticize government policy.
Perhaps more relevant is the idea that Snowden performed a public service in exposing government wrongdoing. The question then becomes, should he be punished for that?
Or is the government seeking revenge?
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