Snowden for the Nobel?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He claims he's not a hero, but... why not?

In his letter addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, [Swedish professor] Stefan Svallfors praised Snowden for his "heroic effort at great personal cost." He stated that by revealing the existence and the scale of the US surveillance programs, Snowden showed "individuals can stand up for fundamental rights and freedoms."

I mean, he's more deserving of the Peace Prize than, oh, say, Barack Obama, no? And certainly more deserving than a war criminal like Henry Kissinger.

He's a whistleblower for peace. And deserves to be recognized as such.

(Even though, as I and others keep stressing, this isn't about Edward Snowden, or Glenn Greenwald, it's about what the NSA is doing and more broadly about the expansion of the American surveillance state at the expense of liberty, privacy, and democratic self-governance.)