Obama appears not to have had a clear picture of the issues back in August when he delivered a speech solidifying his administrations views on the issue. The president suggested that if Mr. Snowden had wanted to avoid criminal charges he could have simply told his superiors about the abuses.

However, whistle blower protections do not apply to contractors, only to intelligence employees, rendering its protections useless to Mr. Snowden. And the New York Times Editorial board agrees:

>"In retrospect, Mr. Snowden was clearly justified in believing that the only way to blow the whistle on this kind of intelligence-gathering was to expose it to the public and let the resulting furor do the work his superiors would not."