Doesn't Patrick Sensburg Read the Newspaper?

According to Edward Snowden, over 300 reports on Chancellor Angela Merkel alone have been accumulated. The reaction in Germany: A member of the Christian Democratic Union party wants even more information from Snowden. He has an “obligation.”

Germany and the rest of the world owe a lot to Snowden. Without him, to this day no one would know that the U.S. intelligence agency NSA can track anyone. Without him, no one would know that every phone call or movement a citizen of a country makes on the Internet can be spied on and controlled.

Without him, Chancellor Merkel would not have known that she is a preferred victim of the intelligence agency’s spying. And without him, neither Germany nor the rest of the world would ever have found out that the leaders of 122 of the world’s 193 states are being monitored by the U.S. intelligence agency, or that over 300 reports on the chancellor alone have been accumulated. That was the former intelligence worker’s most recent information — oh, how quickly Germany and the rest of the world seem to have gotten used a reality that only a few months ago seemed unimaginable — it has evoked a perplexing response from a CDU politician.

Patrick Sensburg will represent his party as part of a Bundestag review board that, starting Thursday, will shed some light on the NSA’s monitoring. After he had found out about Snowden’s newest information, Sensburg said, “He must know more about this situation than he’s given us. Snowden is obligated to tell us more.” It begs the question: Is Sensburg trying to be funny, or does he just not read the newspaper?

Doesn’t he realize that Snowden, like no one else before him, has provided the world with information about his supervisors? Has it escaped him that the world owes almost everything it knows about “big data” to Snowden, who is being hunted like a criminal by U.S. authorities for what he has done and has had to seek protection from, of all people, Putin the Russian autocrat?

Snowden has never had an obligation to give any information, but in terms of his civil service he has gone above and beyond the call of duty. However, Germany and the rest of the world are obligated to thank and recognize Snowden. But to this day the man is still waiting in vain for thankful offers of asylum, and recognition for his service can be found in editorials at best. Whoever wants to hear nothing of this obligation has to say nothing about it.