The Hero

Let us assume that a hero is a person of great courage who is admired for his noble deeds and bravery. Some of my progressive friends consider Private Manning and Edward Snowden heroes.  Other progressives disagree.

Manning is known mainly for two things. He released footage taken from an American helicopter as its gunners shot down innocent people, a genuine atrocity but not news--we'd been talking about this assault for several years. Manning is also known for surviving a remarkably ugly incarceration by the military after they discovered his information dump. Manning apparently released about 700,000 secret documents without reading them first. This act was a crime.  My hope was that Manning would be sentenced to time served and then released, but today he was sentenced to 35 years and made eligible for parole in ten years. During his trial Manning stated that he had done the wrong thing and regretted it. He has my sympathy, but I don't think I'm ready to call him a hero yet. He may become one. He's 25 and facing an ordeal of the sort that makes heroes of some people. 

Edward Snowden dumped a ton of unread information from the NSA's program to spy on Americans. The dump was treated as news, although similar information about the NSA had already been published in books and magazine articles written by investigative reporters. They had been largely ignored by the mainstream media, I guess, but Snowden got media attention because he had broken the law and, even more compelling, because he had run away to China and then to Russia, where he now lives. Running off is not the act of a hero, but Snowden has computer skills, obviously, and he should be able to find civilian work and live well in his new country. I hope that works out.

My view of government leakers is that they become heroic when they commit a crime (for a good reason) and then do the time; doing the time is what proves their seriousness and keeps the lightweights on the sidelines.