It is long past time for President Trump to pardon three people who told the American people the truth. Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning.
Let us remember the scandal they exposed. Our own government quietly built a surveillance machine that vacuumed up the phone calls, emails, and digital communications of millions of Americans. No warrants. No probable cause. Just a sweeping dragnet that stomped all over the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Apparently the Bill of Rights had become optional.
This is the sort of mass spying Americans used to associate with regimes we congratulated ourselves for defeating. East Germany did it. The Soviet Union did it. Police states do it. But when Washington does it, suddenly we are supposed to nod politely and call it “national security.”
Then along came three people who refused to play along.
Snowden revealed the machinery. Manning exposed the inner workings of the war machine. Assange published the documents so the public could actually see what their government was doing in their name. What did Washington do? Did the politicians who authorized the surveillance face investigation? Of course not. That would have been inconvenient.
Instead, the full fury of the federal government came crashing down on the whistleblowers. Exile. Prison. Prosecution. Character assassination. The message was crystal clear. If you expose government misconduct, the government will make an example out of you.
Revenge was the point. And revenge is exactly what they delivered.
Meanwhile the intelligence bureaucracy carried on exactly as before. Same agencies. Same powers. Same secrecy. Same lectures about how we should trust them. Trust them. Yeah right.
Snowden, Assange, and Manning are not traitors. They did not betray the American people. They informed the American people. That is the definition of whistleblowing, not treason.
If justice still means anything in this country, they should be pardoned immediately. In fact, pardons are not enough. After what was done to them, serious reparations would be more appropriate.
History will eventually sort this out. And when it does, the verdict will be obvious.
The whistleblowers must be remembered as heroes.
The people who persecuted them will be remembered for something else entirely.
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