Like Edward Snowden, Benjamin Franklin Was Called a Traitor For Informing the People About the Actions of its Government

The Washington Times notes:

In 1773, Benjamin Franklin leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by then Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson and his secretary Andrew Oliver to Thomas Whatley, an assistant to the British prime minister.

The letters contained opinions on how the British government should respond to colonial unrest over the Townsend Acts and other unpopular policies. Hutchinson suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” might be necessary.

The content of the letters was damaging to the British government.  Franklin was dismissed as colonial Postmaster General and endured an hour-long censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.

Like Snowden, Franklin was called a traitor for informing the people about the actions of its government. As Franklin’s biographer H.W. Brands writes;

“For an hour he hurled invective at Franklin, branding him a liar, a thief, the instigator of the insurrection in Massachusetts, an outcast from the company of all honest men, an ingrate whose attack on  Hutchinson betrayed nothing less than a desire to seize the governor’s office for himself. So slanderous was Wedderburn’s diatribe that no London paper would print it.”

Tyrants slandering patriots is nothing new. History decided that Franklin was a patriot. It was not so kind to the Hutchinsons and Wedderburns.

History will decide who the patriots were in the 21st century as well.

Ray McGovern – a 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other senior government officials –agrees:

Like Edward Snowden, Franklin was called a traitor for whistleblowing the truth about what the government was doing.

Indeed, while Snowden is treated as a traitor by the fatcats and elites, he is considered a hero by the American public and members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government have all praised the debate on spying which Snowden’s leaks started.

And experts say that the type of spying the NSA is doing is exactly the kind of thing which King George imposed on the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War.

And what does the fact that some officials within the American government consider the Founding Fathers to be terrorists say about the current state of affairs?