14 DAY TRIAL // Is Snowden a hero or a traitor? Well, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales believes Snowden is a good guy.
According to a new report, Wales called Snowden a hero for disclosing the mass surveillance operations conducted by the National Security Agency. Furthermore, Wales asked the American president to rein in the NSA, mentioning that history will judge Snowden “very favorably.”
The Wikipedia founder also believes that had mass surveillance been put to a vote, the public would never have approved such a move, which means the NSA should be re-evaluated.
While Wales admits that the revelations made so far have been incredibly damaging and embarrassing for the United States, Snowden has been cautious about only allowing the media to have data that doesn’t put any agents at risk.
At the same time, there is hope for change, he believes, as the Congress is starting to react at the revelations made public thus far. Furthermore, the fact that the intelligence chiefs have outright lied to the politicians is certainly not going to stand well with them.
“There is a growing sense of concern in Congress about this, a growing sense in Congress that public is angry about this, that they have been misled and I think we are going to see legislation to change this – at least if I have anything to do with this, I think we will,” the Wikipedia founder believes.
In June it was revealed that the NSA had been collecting data on millions of Internet users both from outside and inside the United States, choosing to collect the entire haystack rather than focus on certain individuals.
Edward Snowden is currently in Russia, where he was offered temporary asylum a few months ago. He’s been living at an undisclosed location ever since then. Despite the United States’ efforts to get the Kremlin to extradite Snowden, the Russian government has denied such a move.