In a recent interview on Al Jazeera’s Head to Head show, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, described Edward Snowden as a "hero" for his revelations about NSA overreach.
It’s difficult to have a judgement in such a short period of time on a person I don’t know, and were we don’t know what might appear in the future. But, given everything that I know today, he is a hero. He is a person that has been very careful in the materials that he has leaked, they have been in the abstract, he has never leaked anything that would put any particular agents at risk and so forth. He has exposed what I believe to be, very likely to be judged, criminal wrongdoing, lying to Congress and certainly a shock and an affront, in America, an affront to the 4th amendment. I think that history will judge him very favourably.
Cue the predictable outrage among Snowden's detractors, as they clamor to add Wales to the list of "haters." Al Jazeera of course was already prominent on the list.
Forgive me for interrupting the endless DKos recital of the antics of silly Republicans and defense of the ACA rollout with this brief reminder that the rest of the planet--and many Americans as well--have other concerns. I agree; history will indeed judge Snowden favorably... but only if the spies aren't allowed to write the history books.