Snowden: hero or traitor?

I fail to understand how our leaders continue merrily along without giving any serious regard to the backgrounds of people they employ in sensitive positions. The latest example of this is Edward Snowden. His handlers surely must have known he reads the Guardian and that alone should have been grounds for refusing employment. We are overwhelmed with men of conscience who feel duty bound to download every accessible piece of secret information into the public domain. In the process, these agents of righteousness act as judge and jury by rendering and acting upon their own interpretation of American law, public policy, ethics and standard operating practices.

I always believed the Patriot Act was an abomination that gave government far too much power without sufficient oversight. Employing the Act is legal and I therefore conclude that collecting and analyzing data from our big communications brokers, search engines and social networks is okay. Not for a minute do I trust the government to keep its sticky paws off the content of the information they subpoenaed. Counting calls, their origin and frequency is one thing, but listening in on the conversation is decidedly illegal.

I am forced to admit that electronic data resources are not confidential. To those people who rely on such confidentiality, a tremendous resource has been lost.  In a period of just a few short years, an information technology has mushroomed, prospered and will now die as far as data security is concerned. The sad truth is that whatever firewall somebody can invent to keep information secure, someone else can either subvert or circumvent it. As of now, one might say that by circumventing firewalls through the use of its power to subpoena information, the US Government is the greatest hacker in the world.

Snowdon will get lost in all of this mess, just as Julian Assange did, but we the public will be left with damaged, broken and unreliable data systems. Perhaps we will all have to resort to simply writing letters to be delivered by special runners bearing notes on a forked stick.