Edward Snowden Liked That Dick Cheney Called Him ‘Traitor’

Though NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has denied being a traitor, he was apparently flattered that former Vice President Dick Cheney regards him as such.

Just in case you’re slow to the table, Snowden blew the lid off the NSA’s program to cultivate data from the cell phones of U.S. citizens. This violation of privacy notwithstanding, Snowden has been called a traitor by many U.S. officials while he hides from the authorities in Hong Kong.

He has slowly been revealing his story to the media, and suggests that he has more shocking information to reveal.

On Fox News Sunday this weekend, the former VP told host Chris Wallace that Snowden is a “traitor,” and even suggested that he is working with the Chinese government, possibly as a spy.

During a live chat with Guardian this afternoon, Snowden specifically mocked Cheney’s assertion.

“It’s important to bear in mind I’m being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead.

“Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.”

Ouch! You can read a transcript of Snowden’s responses in its entirety here. In the live chat, he talked about the depth of his actual leaks, and the media’s harsh words for him.

What do you think of Edward Snowden? Traitor, or hero?