Edward Snowden: Traitor or hero?

By Li Shen: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, June 19, 2013

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In early June, 29-year-old ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden revealed details of the U.S. National Security Agency's secret spying program to The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers. This program, code-named PRISM, taps into the resources of the world's most widely used Internet companies, supposedly to monitor "foreign threats." The truth, however, is that all U.S. citizens, as well as a large number of foreign nationals, including Chinese, are also under surveillance via PRISM, despite being unaware of its existence until now.

Snowden's personal actions have sparked an international debate, with former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney labeling him a traitor, while many web users have hailed him as a hero who has exposed the hypocrisy of the U.S. government. [Have your say!]

China.org.cn presents the following voices and opinions on this hot button issue:

The wayward whistleblower
Rachel Allen is an editorial intern with China.org. She is pursuing a journalism degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.	Snowden's brand of self-seeking whistle blowing is entirely in keeping with the celebrity-obsessed Millennial generation and deviates sharply from America's great tradition of political whistle blowers. >>

America's PR disaster over Snowden
	They seek him here, they seek him there. Snowden the young whistleblower is making a fool of Obama. >>

Whistleblower welcome in China
Xu Peixi is Associate Professor at Communication University of China, Beijing.	China should offer asylum to U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden following his bravery in exposing the hypocrisy of the PRISM surveillance program. >>

Big Brother's big brother
Zhao Jinglun is the chief opinions writer for The Asian-American Times (NYC) and a columnist for the Hong Kong Economic Journal.	American allegations of Chinese cyber crimes have been dwarfed by the scope of the National Security Agency's spying programs. >>

Decoding the new information war
Heiko Khoo is a radio producer specialising in documenting public opinion. He is also a columnist, video producer, historian and a well known public speaker in London.	Corporate involvement in U.S. spying programs is a sign that the time has come for an alternative to capitalist visions of the Internet. >>

Revelations in real time
John Ross is Senior Fellow of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.	Once, the public had to wait decades to learn the truth about world events from declassified documents. Now, thanks to people like Edward Snowden, there's no need to wait. >>

Open secrets
Tim Collard has spent 20 years in the UK Diplomatic Service, half that time in China, serving as a trade and investment adviser and a political analyst. He has now retired from diplomacy and works as a freelance writer.	It's no secret that all countries try to get intelligence on other foreign powers. The problems come, as illustrated by Snowden, when countries level accusations while denying their own actions. >>