Review: Short story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 10, 2014
A short book and a fast read and I'd recommend this to anyone who has ever heard of Edward Snowden.  I have never considered him a hero or anything close to it.  To me he has always been too naive to begin to understand the great harm he has done to the security of our country.  This book reinforces my beliefs and gives me grounds to further that opinion.  I further suspect he may have had help or been groomed by someone wanting to use him and while this book doesn't make that claim, it certainly lays out the groundwork to reinforce what I think.  Even if he acted alone and independently, he has been foolish and laid the most powerful country on earth  vulnerable to our enemies and the subject of scorn by those we have spied on.  If you read the evidence put forward by this author, who  has some pretty impressive credentials in the intelligence field, it's pretty clear he put himself in a position to plunder our most deeply help secrets and he purposely mapped out his plan.  This was not an "oh my" moment that caused him to grab what he could and run.  I may read this a second time just to be sure I didn't miss anything.  I don't know if the word traitor fits him, but I do know that the word hero does not  By the way, this book also makes clear that while the NSA has the authority and the power to look at our phone and email accounts, there is not enough manpower to do that, and why would they?  What they are monitoring is phone calls that connect to known terrorists.  If you do not have Sunday afternoon chats with a terrorist you probably have nothing to worry about.