Steve Pokin

SPOKIN@NEWS-LEADER.COM

Although the title of his talk was framed as a question, "Edward Snowden: Patriot or Villain?" — there really is no doubt that Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst turned political activist, considers Snowden a patriot.

In fact, McGovern said Snowden fits into a long tradition of patriots who have leaked documents, starting with Benjamin Franklin. McGovern said Franklin leaked the private letters of Thomas Hutchinson who, at the time, was the acting governor of the Massachusetts Colony.

For that, McGovern said, Franklin (like Snowden) was called a "liar, thief, outcast and ingrate."

McGovern, 74, spoke Monday at Drury University to about 100 students, staff and community members. His message was that Snowden had no other choice but to leak thousands of classified documents that show how the U.S. National Security Agency has been spying on governments worldwide, friend and foe alike, and has been gathering information on U.S. citizens.

"We are coming very close to incipient fascism," McGovern said.

Two Norwegian politicians have nominated Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize. Robert Gates, former U.S. defense secretary, has called him a "traitor."

McGovern and three others met with Snowden in October in Moscow to present him with the Sam Adams Award, which is given annually to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. The other presenters were WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison, who took Snowden from Hong Kong to Moscow and obtained his asylum; Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent and whistle-blower; Thomas Drake, a former NSA employee and whistle-blower; and Jesselyn Raddack, a former ethics adviser to the Department of Justice and whistle-blower.

The award is named after a former CIA employee who was a whistle-blower during the Vietnam War.

McGovern told his audience Monday that Snowden sought to expose a deliberate, national effort to violate the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Fourth Amendment, which says in full:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

He hammered home the point that any type of search must be approved by a court on that basis of "probable cause."

"That is what, in my view, Edward Snowden is doing in revealing the damage that has been done to our Constitution," he said.

McGovern quoted Franklin: "Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."

Did Benjamin Franklin leak private letters?

In a Monday talk at Drury University, Ray McGovern referred to Benjamin Franklin as being the person who leaked the letters of Thomas Hutchinson who, at the time, was the acting governor of the Massachusetts Colony.

In the 2006 book by Eric Burns, "Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism," the author states Franklin "might" have leaked the letters to firebrand publisher Samuel Adams. The book also states that Adams "printed the letters out of context" and even attributed words to Hutchinson that he never said and never wrote.

The most damaging thing that Hutchinson actually did write in those letters was "that there must be an abridgement of what is called English liberty" in the Massachusetts colony.