Snowden exposes Obama's hatred towards whistleblowers

For all its sermons on democracy and freedom the United States has been exposed so much so that the totalitarian and communist regimes that it has been in the forefront of blaming, pale in comparison to the magnitude of US’ highly classified eavesdropping. Edward Joseph Snowden, alarmed by the duplicity of the establishment, decided to share the data he had acquired while working as a technical contractor for the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on its mass surveillance programmes like PRISM and Tempora. After releasing the data Snowden went to Hong Kong and from there to Russia.
Snowden’s is not the first and will not be the last case in which a whistleblower has been on the run after exposing the grey areas in which a particular government works without the knowledge of the people of that country. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradely Manning, who provided the vital information to Assange, are the most prominent recent examples that come to mind. No government is comfortable with a whistleblower. Washington’s rage is evident in that it has slapped charges on Snowden using the Espionage Act — an Act of World War I legacy — though prima facie his actions are not related to espionage or anti-American. What Snowden has done is to effectively pull the mask off the US administration, especially the Obama administrations claims of respecting civil liberties and the privacy of its citizens. His revelations about NSA’s snooping have confirmed what many people suspected. That Obama has been increasingly intolerant towards leaks and whistleblowing is evident in that Snowden is the seventh person to be indicted by his administration under the Espionage Act.

As of now Snowden’s next port of call is not clear. Speculation is rife that he will travel to Cuba or Ecuador or even the United States. The earlier two countries are top on the list because of their open disdain for the ‘Big Brother’, and by nature a ready willingness to embrace anything anti-US. The bets are also that the US will use its diplomatic muscle to get the whistleblower back home. So while William Hill, the British online gambling website, has opened betting on Snowden’s location on New Year’s Day 2014, a lingering question remains: Has the United States grown too intolerant that it is no longer safe for whistleblowers who expose government irregularities?