consternation of the NSA and no doubt of the president. It can go again; it can pass. But it can only

happen if Americans tell Congress the way they told Congress last September in recess, “We do not want

war with Syria.” The president, who was all ready to go to war with Syria—and I’ll say this to his

credit—deferred to that vision of a legislative defeat he was about to get, and he took up Putin’s offer to

get rid of the gas in Syria in exchange for not attacking Syria. I’ve been very critical of Obama, but I will

say—and this is not just rhetoric—that I am thankful every day that we are not at war with Syria and Iran

now. I believe that if Obama had been defeated in the last election, we would be at war with Iran and

Syria right now, and that would be a disaster.

So I feel that Edward Snowden has done more to uphold his oath to “defend and support the

constitution”—which he took as a government employee when he was in the CIA, the same oath that

every member of Congress took, every officer of the U.S. Army took, that every employee of the U.S.

government took—he has done more to support and defend the Constitution of the United States than any

member of Congress and any employee of the executive branch, up to and including the president. So I

am very grateful to him for that. And what comes of it will depend on what we do. As he said, some

things are worth dying for. These rights and these liberties are worth dying for; they are worth going to

prison for. He will not have wasted his time having done what he could. Whatever happens to him, it’s up

to us to follow that example.

NOTES

Public Policy Polling, “America Likes Witches, the IRS, and Even Hemorrhoids Better than

Congress,” October 8, 2013, http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/10/americans-like-

witches-the-irs-and-even-hemorrhoids-better-than-congress.html.

Betty Medsger, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI (New York:

Knopf, 2014).

03 | Juniata Voices

Surveillance Secrecy and Democracy - ellisberg