US Intelligence Workers Want Snowden To Die

BuzzFeed’s Benny Johnson has written
an article outlining the degree of violent hatred some people
working in the U.S. intelligence community have for NSA
whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

Some highlights:

“In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an
American, I personally would go and kill him myself,” a current NSA
analyst told BuzzFeed. “A lot of people share this sentiment.”

and,

“I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon
official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. “I do not
take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it
in uniform, but he is single handedly the greatest traitor in
American history.”

One Army intelligence officer told BuzzFeed about a fantasy of
Snowden’s death:

“I think if we had the chance, we would end it very quickly,” he
said. “Just casually walking on the streets of Moscow, coming back
from buying his groceries. Going back to his flat and he is
casually poked by a passerby. He thinks nothing of it at the time
starts to feel a little woozy and thinks it’s a parasite from the
local water. He goes home very innocently and next thing you know
he dies in the shower.”

Some, such as Rep.
Peter King (R-N.Y.), who claim that Snowden is a traitor and
should have used the systems in place to complain about the
programs that concerned him rather than leak the information to
journalists should check out Reason TV’s
recent interview with William Binney, another NSA
whistle-blower. Binney went to Congress and the Department of
Defense with some former colleagues in 2002 and argued that the NSA
was violating constitutional rights and wasting money on
ineffective programs. He was subsequently the subject of a federal
investigation. Binney told Reason TV, “We are a clear example
that [going through] the proper channels doesn’t work.”

Watch the interview below:

It’s sad, but not surprising, that there are some in the U.S.
intelligence community that would like to see Snowden killed. He
deserves thanks,
not the pathetic hostility highlighted by Johnson.

More from Reason.com on Snowden and the NSA here and here.

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