In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, former NSA chief Michael Hayden was asked:

Is Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor?

Gen. Hayden: He’s certainly not a hero. The word traitor has a very narrowly defined legal meaning that he may not in the end quite meet. I personally think Snowden is a very troubled, narcissistic young man who has done a very, very bad thing.

I don’t think Snowden spied for the money, and he probably did not spy for the power. He seems to have revealed this information because of his ideological embrace of transparency as a virtue.

It is a little like the Boston bombers. The issue is at what point does Islamic fundamentalism flip-over and become a genuine national security threat? Likewise, at what point does a cultural tendency towards transparency flip-over to become a deep threat inside your system? They are similar issues. [Continue reading…]

These spooks — and retired spooks — are shameless propagandists!

If there’s one legitimate reason to associate Snowden with the Boston bombers it is that the bombings themselves perfectly illustrated that the NSA’s mass surveillance program as the means find that proverbial needle in a haystack, doesn’t work.

But instead of acknowledge that fact, Hayden just wants to get Snowden and bombers into the same breath and thereby promote the idea that President Obama seems to favor: that whistleblowers should be viewed as terrorists.