More American Progress Only A Despised Dissident Can Accomplish

The question isn't patriot or traitor.  The question is progress or regress.  And as President Obama has made crystal clear, on both Bradley Manning's and Edward Snowden's whistle-blowing revelations, the answer is, resoundingly: progress.

Digby:

The president held a press conference (Friday) and spoke of many things.  But he opened his remarks with an announcement of coming investigations and a release of information about the NSA's secret spying apparatus. And while the President insisted that he had already been reforming the NSA so Snowden's revelations are irrelevant in the long run, the mainstream press, at least, doesn't seem convinced of that anymore.

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It's nonsense and everyone knows it. This great debate, which today resulted in a very public set of executive branch reforms and investigations would not have happened were it not for Edward Snowden. You do not have to call him a patriot --- perhaps you think these programs are great and you hope the government keeps up the good work. But he is most definitely a whistleblower in the most classic sense of the word.

And that whistleblower was undoubtedly very well aware of the fact that the Obama administration has been uniquely hostile the very idea of a free press informing the American public of what the government is doing in its name:



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There is no evidence that President Obama was seriously engaged in systematic reforms of the NSA surveillance programs prior to now. He could have put a stop to much of it long before Edward Snowden came on the scene. And he sure as hell could have called a truce in the war on whistleblowers and the press. Instead, the DOJ has been pressing forward with everything it has against reporters like the NY Times' James Risen who has been harassed by the federal government since 2005.

The administration's actions speak louder than words, especially these words:

[T]here's no doubt that Mr. Snowden's leaks triggered a much more rapid and passionate response than would have been the case if I had simply appointed this review board to go through -- and I'd sat down with Congress and we had worked this thing through -- it would have been less exciting and it would not have generated as much press -- I actually think we would have gotten to the same place, and we would have done so without putting at risk our national security and some very vital ways that we are able to get intelligence that we need to secure the country.

Basically:

It's time for that trope to be retired. It's frankly reminiscent of the paternalistic bullhorn nonsense we had to put up with in the Bush administration. This is a democracy. We don't outsource our constitutional responsibilities.

This administration, like all the administrations before it since WWII, has fiercely guarded the prerogatives of the secret surveillance state and the Military Industrial Complex.  It is the source of real presidential power and they are loathe to give up any of it until they are forced to do so by the people. This has been obvious for many decades and President Obama is no exception.