Chris Graham: Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

Edward Snowden, like the tail gunner in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, didn’t get to unpack his bags. The modern-day Snowden isn’t dead, not yet, unlike Heller’s Snowden of yesteryear, who died on his first mission. The Snowden of yesteryear was a victim of circumstance; Edward Snowden is the master of his, for now, anyway.

Surely he will sometime soon be dragged into court and forced to answer to his crimes against the state, which consist of pointing out that the emperors in Washington have no clothes.

We didn’t vote for the Patriot Act apparatus that came to life after 9/11. George W. Bush ran in 2000 as the candidate who would not get us entangled in the foreign actions that his predecessor, Bill Clinton, did in the 1990s. Barack Obama ran in 2008 as the candidate who would put an end to the wars and hypersensitive internal security state of his predecessor.

What we got from the Bush and Obama years is snoops listening in on cell calls, TSA agents feeling us up at airports, the thought police putting people in jail for Facebook comments.

Is Edward Snowden a hero? Too early to tell. A traitor? Absolutely not. A criminal? By the laws as they’re now on the books, yes.

We should all feel good that we live in a country where people are willing to give up their freedom to speak truth to power.

Power obviously isn’t happy having truth spoken to it, so …

Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear, indeed.

Chris Graham is the editor of www.AugustaFreePress.com.