Alum Comments on National Security Panel

Cynthia Stewart, OC '73, and Oberlin resident
April 24, 2015

To the Editors:

I attended the Navigating National Security symposium at the Apollo and read the interviews with five of the panelists in last week’s Review (“Off the Cuff: Navigating National Security: Intelligence Gathering in the Information Age,” The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015), and it seems to me that there are a few questions that didn’t get asked, especially re: Edward Snowden.

I was surprised that none of the panelists seems to have seen the movie Citizen Four, which features, if memory serves me, James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, stating under oath in at least two congressional inquiries that there was no bulk collection of American data going on.

Question one: Given the above, wasn’t Edward Snowden justified in thinking that whistleblower laws and oversight panels were not protection enough?

Most of the panelists held up Daniel Ellsberg as having leaked information in the proper way, i.e. he was ready to go to jail for what he had done.

Question two: Willingness to force exile for the rest of your life is not courageous, is not accepting consequences?

Question three: Jennifer Sims, did you know that bulk collection of American data was going on?

– Cynthia Stewart,

OC ’73, and Oberlin resident