Hero or Traitor?

Snowden is being praised, and vilified. What is he? A hero or a traitor?

Although I can't depend on the media to be truthful with this event, I can read between the lines and finding my irritation increasing daily. I don't like being spied upon and I dislike our government collecting information without a warrant. Even worse, the only excuse they can come up with is that they've prevented terrorists attacks. At what cost? And if this illegal data mining is so wonderful, why in hell did the Boston terrorist attack happen? How about the fact Snowden had access and revealed information that was supposed to be protected from casual observers?

The newest reports say that this information is being used by any government agency that feels it has the need. So, not only is your privacy invaded, the strong-armed tactics of government agencies (I.R.S.)  to promote their ideological beliefs are fortified with personal information they can use against you. Otherwise, all citizens of the U.S. are at risk of being singled out for their beliefs and enduring vindictive efforts by bureaucrats, who have complete access to anything they say, do, or record electronically.

So, is Snowden a hero, or a traitor? Personally, I believe neither applies. From my perspective, he took his oath to uphold the Constitution to heart and followed his conscience. The Fourth Amendment isn't in some foreign language and is specific on what government cannot do. They did, Snowden spilled the beans and now they're scrambling in reaction to the damage to foreign relations, the trust of U.S. citizens and the obvious criminal actions of entire government agencies.

Now we wait and see how this plays out. Hopefully, honesty and integrity are the results of this abuse of power, instead of the shameful actions by bureaucrats as with the Benghazi murders, the I.R.S. abuses and illegal gun running in Mexico.