presidential nod to Edward Snowden

Jimmy Carter

America's power brokers may delight in calling surveillance-whistleblower Edward Snowden a traitor who deserves to be drawn and quartered, but at least one former U.S. president appears to take Snowden's concerns to heart.

In a Sunday television broadcast, former President Jimmy Carter, said,

As a matter of fact, you know, I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored ....
And when I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write a letter myself, put it in the post office, and mail it....

Let me see if I've got this straight: Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning is serving a 35-year jail sentence;  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London; and Snowden, who is forced to live in Russia, all deserve to be hung out to dry for revealing surveillance information that would damage national security needs that have never been detailed. They are bad, bad people. Trust us ... they're bad.

So bad that a former president of the United States sees fit to heed their counsel.