Marco Rubio on Edward Snowden: A 'Traitor' Who Sparked 'Conspiracy Theories'

The Atlantic ^ | November 22, 2013 | Conor Friedersdorf

[kobald]

The fact that others may have accessed NSA secrets with motives less benevolent than Snowden’s (anything from actual foreign spies to crooks looking for insider info they can parley into illicit gain) is all the more reason the agency needs to be taken apart and rebuilt properly.

[kobald]

I hate what the NSA has done. I applaud Snowden revealing that aspect, but just how far did he go in revealing our legitimate covert operations. Do you know for sure that he did not compromise that?

Asking someone to prove a negative is a sign of a weak case.

[rusty schucklefurd]

re: “Asking someone to prove a negative is a sign of a weak case.”

I didn’t ask the poster to “prove it”. I asked if he/she “knew for sure”, i.e. “beyond a reasonable doubt”, that Snowden did not release information damaging to our legitimate covert operations. I gave the poster opportunity to share information that possibly I did not have.

Snowden may be an absolute hero, but what bothers me is that people I personally know and trust, people who are good, conservative patriotic Americans are calling him a traitor - not because of his revelation of the NSA spying on Americans, but because of compromising agents, strategy, operational tactics, etc. of legitimate covert actions by our intelligence gathering ops.

It’s certainly possible that the people who are saying Snowden is a traitor are wrong, but again, the people that are saying this (whom I know personally) are people who are generally “in the know” of things.

What I’m asking for are news items, stories, etc. that indicate that legitimate covert ops were not revealed by Snowden - but, all I see are generalized opinions one way or the other.

I’m not trying to PROVE anything - I’m ASKING for information.