I watched The Post last night. After it was over, I started thinking about how Daniel Ellsberg was pretty much universally considered a hero by the public for releasing the Pentagon papers to the press, but Edward Snowden is widely considered a traitor for releasing the Iraq war's equivalent of the Pentagon papers.
As much as I try to not let such things get to me, this seems very, very wrong. I'd argue that Snowden did the American public a much greater service than Ellsberg since by the time of the Pentagon papers release, the American public had already figured out that the Vietnam war was a political shit show - a complete and utter failure on the part of the US Government.
When Snowden released his classified material, the US public had no idea of the atrocities our government had committed in the Middle East. Snowden showed us that our government had routinely used torture, even after knowing it was ineffective, then lied to us about it, attempted to cover it up, then lied about the cover up.
Why isn't Snowden a hero? Is it because Ellsberg helped topple an already unpopular President Nixon, while Snowden embarrassed a popular Obama? Is it because the war in the Middle East wasn't nearly as unpopular as the Vietnam war? Did the subsequent Watergate scandal give Ellsberg more legitimacy as someone doing democracy a favor?
