Traitor or not, Snowden's revelations "exposed" the prowess of American hackers, and the vulnerability of U.S. computer systems to foreign espionage

After the latest “revelations” from the German magazine Der Speigel that NSA hackers have broken through Microsoft Windows encryption methods—as if that is “news” to anyone who has been plagued by Windows malware—Edward Snowden, still hiding in his Russian redoubt, claims that his “work” is now “done.” He even claims that he still regards himself as an NSA employee; does he really believe that the government is going to give him his old job back? Talk about delusional. Maybe as a bathroom janitor, but certainly not handling classified material. Despite the media’s sympathy with, and exploitation of, Snowden’s actions, he is an artifact of the Cold War. If this was the 1950s, there would be no question that he would be regarded as a traitor by most Americans. 

Polls of what Americans think about Snowden and what he has done are all over the map, and tend to reflect the influence of the pollster’s own attitudes on the matter. A Langer Research Associates poll in November found that 60 percent of Americans think that Snowden’s revelations harmed U.S. security. In October, a Reason-Rupe poll found that while 44 percent of respondent between the ages of 18-34 think that Snowden is a “patriot”—this must reflect the depth of history teaching in schools—52 percent of those 64 and over are certain that he is a “traitor.” 

While a majority of Americans take the NSA’s snooping “personally,” meaning that they don’t approve of the agency spying on them personally, a majority does not think what they did is necessarily “wrong” as long as the target is a potential menace. My concern is not what the NSA hackers have done, but how they used the information, and there is no evidence that any information gleaned has been used to embarrass or blackmail Americans. The U.S. supposedly has the finest minds working on computer software encryption, and the fact that NSA hackers have been so successful should be seen as an indictment of encryption failure.

The NSA’s success should also be seen as an example of the ability of American hackers to break into computer systems in China and Russia, who obviously have their own hackers working on U.S. computer systems. In fact, protecting computer software from NSA hackers has effect of doing so against foreign espionage, which in an odd way is the only positive result from Snowden’s activities.