Sorry Snowden, NSA spying is 'overhyped and overrated'

Fugitive whistleblower risked everything to expose surveillance even Obama doesn't take too seriously

Crispin Black

IT is becoming clear that Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, didn't really think it through before leaving his attractive "ballerina" companion, Lindsay Mills, in Hawaii and setting out for Hong Kong to betray some of his country's most embarrassing intelligence secrets. Acting on (inaccurate) information that Snowden may have been doing a bunk from Moscow on a plane carrying the President of Bolivia back home to La Paz the Americans insisted on Tuesday that the plane, despite enjoying full diplomatic immunity, be denied flight clearances across Europe. He can run, but he can't hide.

Snowden's supporters rail against an over-mighty state. His opponents and much of American public opinion regard him as a traitor and look forward to his extradition/rendition back to the US and the 30 years he can expect in the Federal Supermax federal prison outside Florence, Colorado.

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is a former Welsh Guards lieutenant colonel and intelligence analyst for the British government's Joint Intelligence Committee. His book, 7-7: What Went Wrong, was one of the first to be published after the London bombings in July 2005.