June 3, 2014
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“I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas — pretending to work in a job that I’m not — and even being assigned a name that was not mine,” Snowden said during last week’s interview from Russia. “I don’t work with people. I don’t recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And I’ve done that at all levels from — from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top,” Snowden added.
Snowden may have been reveling in his successful escape to Russia while becoming somewhat of a folk hero back home, but a new national poll now says more Americans oppose the former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower than support him.
According to a new survey released Sunday by NBC News, more than a third (34%) of respondents said they disagreed with Snowden’s decision to flee the U.S. and release information about how the NSA collects intelligence data, while 24% said they supported him. But “among those who said they have closely followed the story,” 49% oppose Snowden’s actions and 33% support them. Perhaps not surprisingly, younger Americans seemed to approve of Snowden’s intelligence leaks. Among 18-to-34-year-old respondents, 32% support Snowden, and 20% disapprove of his actions.
Top News Today
When Snowden revealed to the world last year that the National Security Administration was operating a secret surveillance operation in the U.S., many Americans considered him a hero and a patriot for blowing the lid off of the controversial program. However, once Snowden sought refuge in Russia and almost certainly handed Vladimir Putin valuable U.S. secrets in exchange for his safety (possibly putting millions of Americans in harms way), his celebrity diminished.
A day after the NBC interview aired, Secretary of State John Kerry disagreed with the notion that Snowden is some sort of patriot, while nearly calling him a coward for fleeing the country instead of facing the music.
“He should come back (to the country),” Kerry said. “That’s what a patriot would do. A patriot would not run away and look for refuge in Russia or Cuba or some other country. A patriot would stand up in the United States and make his case to the American people.”
“We’ll have him on a flight today. We’d be delighted for him to come back,” Kerry added.
Does John Kerry have a point? Should Snowden return to the U.S. and face espionage charges regardless of the consequences? What is your opinion of Edward Snowden now that he’s admitted he worked undercover for the CIA and the National Security Agency as a hired spy?
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