The motivation of a traitor must be revenge or the promise of a better life by the enemy.
If you examine Edward Snowden’s case you find none of the motivations mentioned above. Snowden shows only love for his country but distrust of his government. He recognized that what he was paid to do was unconstitutional and not permitted by the 4th Amendment in particular. He, as a patriot, could not live in this contradiction of freedom so he told the American people what their government was doing and that is the secret he exposed.
The press and the government keep screaming that he gave secrets to our enemies. If he did tell the enemies many secrets, what were they? Since they are no longer secrets, the government should tell the American people what they were as they would not cause any further damage. But no, all you hear is an embarrassed government saying he told the enemy secrets.
Now some people say that although what he was doing is unconstitutional it was good for our country. Benjamin Franklin once said that if you give up freedom for security you end up without freedom and without security. What is the government doing? They are listening in to all phone calls and e-mails and searching for important key words that will allegedly help us avoid acts of terrorism. Short-term it sounds good but long-term it is a road to slavery. What if they decide to use other key words like Catholic, Jew, Italian, Libertarian, Irishman, Democrat or Republican? How about charities, churches or race or any other group they want to persecute?
Now can you see why we have the 4th Amendment in our constitution? Our forefathers knew that there might be a downside to what they wrote but the upside greatly outweighed the downside.
John Procida
