Joseph Campbell was talking about heroic figures in myth and legend (narrative fiction) and how every culture has them, not real life.
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Really you don't need cameras? lol no photos ever? I can't take mine out because i need to record incase a fight goes down or a cop tries to wrongfully arrest lol.
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I think the problem with Snowden goes back to the very data he collected. Because he, as he said in Citizenfour, "cast such a wide net" the material he downloaded contained information that posed a very serious threat to American men and women should it have been released to the general public. That's the whole reason why he went through journalists like Glen Greenwald and Ewan MacAskill, so they could determine what was legal and what was ethically right to release. The number, at least by estimates because not even NSA knows how much he took (Source), is absolutely astonishing. 1.7 millions documents by all estimates, and yet, only 200,000 have been leaked to the press and journalists.
I think that's what a lot of people forget when it comes to Snowden, what did he actually take. He admitted himself that some of the documents did contain genuinely classified material, (Such as who CIA spies were and their aliases for example.) that could result in the endangerment of American citizens. Something he didn't want to do.
I think that Snowden is a hero, he's the canary in the coal mine for preserving, as Thomas Jefferson stated so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed".
However, I don't think Snowden should be our main concern in regards to whistle-blowers. After all, he wasn't caught. The one we really should focus on is Chelsea Manning, she's the one spending thirty-five years in a military brigade. And it's already been proven by the United Nations that she, is in fact, enduring cruel and unusual punishment. But that's just my opinion.
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I find it funny he goes to Russia were now they are doing what the USA did, but worse.
He intended to go to Equador via Moscow and Havanna, but got stuck in transit in Moscow.
There are so many conflicting stories about the whole situation that US interference/pressure is the only logical explanation.
He had reserved a seat on a plane to Havana, but Moscow says that Cuba had informed them that they would not allow the plane to land on Cuban soil. Castro denies that story. Then there's the story of his passport that was revoked, perhaps even before he left Hong Kong. When you have officials of countries contradicting each other, you know something shady is going on.
He applied for asylum in several countries, most of which said he'd have to be on their soil for them to consider his request. (source)
Ironically, most of those have an extradition treaty with the US (list of countries with extradition treaties). While asylum seekers generally aren't extradited as long as asylum requests are being processed, due to the request they are detained inside the country where they applied.
The US would be putting pressure (political as well as economical) on that country to deny the request. When that happens, they'd have him.
The US even went as far as to put pressure on most of Europe to not give him safe passage. When the US implied that the Bolivian president Evo Morales had Snowden on board of his presidential plane after attending a summit in Moscow, the plane was denied access to many countries' airspace and was eventually forced to land in Austria where it was searched. (wiki page on that incident)
Basically he is stuck in Russia.
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?
He picked Moscow because, he talked to the wiki founder and he told him to go to Russia since, it is the only county that USA would not send a drone to kill him.
Manning wasn't even an NCO, and had ultra high level access?
Preposterous!
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No need to close imo. We can keep it open if there's still valuable discussion to be had.
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There were two men who unsuccessfully tried to raise awareness of the NSA's activities concerning domestic surveillance a decade prior to Edward Snowden, who unlike these men received widespread media exposure:
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