While the flow of leaks about the National Security Agency continues, we can stand back and draw some important conclusions.

The sheer volume of revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden (or from the UK government pretending to be Edward Snowden?) about the vast surveillance state established by the US government has made it hard to keep track of what we now know the US National Security Agency has been doing. However, there are a number of conclusions we’re able to draw from both the revelations themselves and the response to them by governments.

In the end, at considerable personal cost, Snowden has achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve — to initiate a debate by exposing the US government’s vast, secret surveillance of Americans and the rest of the world. Most importantly, Snowden has revealed a vast catalogue of crimes by the NSA and the US government that would never have come to light except for his bravery. In this context, special mention should be made of the disgraceful attack by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus on both Snowden and Chelsea Manning recently, when, channelling the “wanton publication” mentality, he claimed neither should be deemed a whistleblower. This is Dreyfus at a conference a fortnight ago:

“Where an activity has been authorised under law and overseen by appropriate government bodies, and where no wrongdoing has been identified, the disclosure of information is not ‘whistleblowing’. This is a critical point that is often overlooked in much of the media coverage of the release of classified information by Mr Snowden in particular.”

Perhaps “wrongdoing” doesn’t mean what Dreyfus thinks it means. Several thousand breaches of US law, a finding by even a rubber-stamp court of unconstitutionality, a cover-up of breaches, perjury — if that’s not wrongdoing for Dreyfus, then he is manifestly unfit for the office of Attorney-General.