Treason and Mr. Snowden

It is amazing to me how things in politics can change in such a short period of time. Not long ago the focus was all on the fact of the government spying on us in various ways or using agencies to screen or target various groups depending on their political affiliation. Today we seem to have forgotten that the government is the actual bad guy doing the spying on us and are now focused on the messenger.

Mr. Snowden is no saint, of that I am quite sure, but he is no criminal either. He told the truth to the American people; we are indeed being spied on by our own government. That’s the message plain and simple. What was his crime? What makes him any different then others who have been saying the same things for years, including myself, other then he had actual written proof?

Consider that the very people who are accusing him of treason are the same people who frequently violate the constitution that they are sworn to uphold and protect and refuse to play by the same rules that they lay out for the rest of us. So what is their real problem? They got caught with their trousers down and by getting caught they are afraid of losing some of the power they have been slowly grabbing over the past 15 years or so.

Now that they have charged him with treason lets consider what it actually means to commit treason. Websters dictionary describes it as such: The offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family also the betrayal of trust as in treachery.

The “ Concise Encyclopedia” says this: Offense of attempting to overthrow the government of one's country or of assisting its enemies in war. In the U.S., the framers of the Constitution defined treason narrowly—as the levying of war against the U.S. or the giving of aid and comfort to its enemies—in order to lessen the possibility that those in power might falsely or loosely charge their political opponents with treason.

So this brings up a whole host of questions. What country was he trying to overthrow? What sovereign was he trying to kill? What enemies of the the US was he assisting? If you answer the third question logically you can only assume,based on this definition, that we are the enemies in question because we were the ones that were informed. I suppose it could be argued that he aided the Brits, well OK it was a British news paper, but he told them none the less, yet last I knew we are allies and we haven't been at war with them since the war of 1812, maybe I missed the enemy memo.

What did he say that would actually surprise our enemies? They had to have known this was going on already, the only way the couldn't have would have been to be using nothing more than smoke signals and beating drums. Yet last time I looked if you wanted to know something you didn't have to go any further than CNN. Just before I was deployed to Kuwait and then to Iraq, after being told that we couldn't tell anyone, CNN reported that 7,000 Marines were leaving Camp LeJeune heading for Kuwait. When I called a very dear friend of mine to say good bye they already knew. In the electronic age you cannot anything for very long.

It has been said by some that he should return to the US to face the charges, that he should make his case in court. Do you honestly think that it would happen? Do you really think he wouldn't just disappear? He is an American citizen in an America that now allows it's own citizens to be indefinitely detained, by the military, without any charges ever being filed ,where American citizens can be killed with impunity based on the presidents judgment with out charges or trial. Where the federal government will use the power that it has to investigate you if you openly speak against the president and his policies. If he is smart he will stay away as long as he can.

So what did he say that really surprised anyone? Nothing. As I said before; in this electronic age with global communications there is no way you can hide things for long. Many people having been trying to tell Americans that this has been going on for years and most have either ignored it, thought we were nothing but tin foil hat types, or have embraced it.

The only thing that happened is that they got caught. They are embarrassed and Mr. Snowden has become the latest scape goat. Rather than focus on the message they have distracted everyone with the messenger.