Refrains against Snowden frequently castigate him for avoiding prosecution, rather than stand for prosecution and do his time in Birmingham Jail or wherever, as a proper form of civil disobedience. Civil rights leaders went to jail, Ellsberg went to court, so why not Snowden?
The problem that line of reasoning, as frequently happens in the Age of Ad Hoc, is you could make the same argument about any number of people. Why didn't Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and the other 53 signers of the Declaration of Independence stand and face prosecution from the British Crown to be "proper"?
How about Mark Felt? Was he a coward to remain anonymous for 30 years, only to out himself in his 90's as Deep Throat? How about Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman?
Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Harriet Tubman Didn't Turn Themselves In, Why Should Edward Snowden?
A hundred sixty-some years ago Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass violated state and federal laws by stealing valuable property – their own persons – and fleeing north. While living quietly as a fugitive, Tubman armed herself and returned south again and again to steal an estimated 300 more pieces of human property. While also a fugitive Frederick Douglass became a public and highly illegal whistleblower. He lectured audiences on the evils of slavery, and eventually fled to Europe to avoid the long arm of the law. John Brown freed slaves in Missouri, led expeditions against pro-slavery death squads in Kansas and was a wanted fugitive for the remainder of his life.
Should Jefferson and Douglass have surrendered to the authorities of their day? If not, why not? This line of reasoning seems to have more to do with partisan loyalties than with anything else. Is Snowden
really a "coward" to want to avoid prosecution, after how Manning and other whistleblowers have been treated? When the Department of Justice is willing to blow up charges of petty vandalism and trespassing into charges of
interfering with national security with a possible 30 year sentence?