Liberty Minute June 10 2013

While waiting for a flight at Washington?s Dulles Airport, Foreign Policy Analyst Steve Clemons of The Atlantic magazine overheard four men he identified as intelligence officers talking about killing the NSA whistleblower who revealed that agency?s pervasive surveillance of American phone calls and electronic communications.

 The men, who had attended a conference for intelligence professionals, made references to having the whistleblower ?disappeared,? which refers to an extra-judicial assassination. Clemons characterized their remarks as ?bravado,? but during an era in which U.S. citizens have been targeted for drone strikes such remarks can?t be dismissed as mere whimsy.

The apparent source of the leaks is 29-year-old NSA contract employee Edward Snowden. He told the Guardian of London that he leaked the information in the hope that public exposure would lead to political and legal action to rein in the surveillance state. Currently living in Hong Kong, Snowden said that he seeks asylum from any country that supports privacy and freedom of speech ? and that he doesn?t expect he will ever see home again. Comments of the kind made by the intelligence officers at Dulles Airport underscore his concerns ? and suggest one dreadful way his prediction could come true.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.