THE HILL COLUMN: …“This is a man who has done great damage to his country,” Secretary of State John Kerry said last year in calling for Snowden to “man up” and come back home to stand trial.
A very different view was advanced last month when a fiberglass and cement bust of Snowden was placed on top of a New York monument to heroes of the Revolutionary War. “The ideal that Snowden seemed to be fighting for with his actions [are]… in line with the ideals of the [American] revolutionaries,” said Andrew Tider, one of two men who surreptitiously gave the sculpture a place of honor. Police soon removed it, but the point had been made.
Last week, Snowden’s revelations prompted the House to finally seek to put in place some civil liberty limits that override the Patriot Act. The new USA Freedom Act, approved in a 338-88 vote, calls for an end to indiscriminate government collection of data in bulk from Americans with no evident ties to terrorism… (more)
