Tuned In  Hero or Bad Boyfriend? Edward Snowden and the
Personalization of Public Debate  Why does anyone care how good
a person the NSA leaker is? Because public debate has become
more and more about personality and tribal identification    •
Share   • Read Later  Edward Snowden, leaker of the NSA
surveillance programs, is a hero. No, he’s a narcissistic
criminal. Scratch that, he’s totally a hero. Far from it: he’s
an alienated loner, a traitor, a bad boyfriend. But also? A
smokin’ hottie! Barely a day after Snowden revealed himself as
the source who gave information to the Guardian about phone and
Internet data collection, the debate over privacy and security
was joined by a debate on whether Snowden was an icon or a
villain.  It’s ironic, but shouldn’t be surprising, that a news
story about personal privacy in the digital age should become a
personality-based argument. We’ve seen this with other secrecy
and leaking cases — Julian Assange, Bradley Manning — as critics
of the leak begin attacking the messen