That is how the system of oversight and accountability is supposed to work. Where to draw lines in the inevitable compromises between security and privacy is a question that should be decided by the people's elected representatives—not by some low-level employee with the moxie to break secrecy rules (or by a movie-maker with the skill to shape public beliefs about such things).

Donald Trump once called for Snowden to be executed, but Trump's professed concern about what Snowden did is hard to take seriously when Trump later says that if Snowden “could reveal Obama's records, I might become a major fan”—a comment comparable to Trump's wishing the Russians would hack into Hillary Clinton's emails. Moreover, Trump's own immense assault on truth makes him no more qualified than Oliver Stone as a guide to how we ought to perceive the story of Snowden.

There was a time when, if someone were to steal and divulge enormous amounts of information about U.S. intelligence operations, especially ones having no possible connection to any compromise of the rights of Americans, and then to go live in Russia and throw himself on the mercies of his Russian hosts, there would be no doubt about how the American public would perceive this. The immediate, overwhelming—and correct—public perception would be that this person is a traitor. But that was before the post-truth era.