The Detroit Free Press’ Rochelle Riley is clutching hard on some pearls over the news that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was a high school dropout. Her contention is that a high school quitter sifting through this the federal data mine is more troubling than, you know, the government having so much access to so much personal data.
Freep: So as much as I want my first questions to deal with policies of domestic spying and to what extent the government should be allowed to intrude into the lives of its citizens to keep the country safe, my first question actually is: How did a high school dropout (who later earned his GED) become a security guard and then an IT officer who had access to the kind of information whose release leads to congressional investigations and allegations of treason?
Now, here's someone who misses the point entirely.
Snowden is, by all accounts, a tech-savvy young man. There’s no evidence that, despite minimal formal education, he was unqualified as a NSA contractor.
Let’s not forget that millions of Americans trusted a high school dropout named Peter Jennings to deliver the news virtually every night for 27 years. Whatever challenges are created by the lack of a diploma, the absence of academic credentials doesn’t necessarily indicate lack of intelligence or even an education.
It's Not on the Test
Snowden may be a scoundrel on par with Alger Hiss or Aldrich Ames for leaking information about sensitive intelligence programs before fleeing to China’s Hong Kong. Or he may be an American hero of the first order, a patriot who risked his own freedom to protect the very notion of liberty. Most likely, we'll probably find out the Edward Snowden story is more complex, human and venial than either extreme.
In any case, it’s impossible to imagine how Snowden’s actions would have changed with a more robust academic resume. Nor is the potential threat to our privacy lessened if government employees and contractors culling data all have doctorates in computer science or Medieval Russian Literature rather than GEDs.
One does not develop a conscience or moral compass from reading a textbook or taking a standardized test.
That college-educated people would think otherwise suggests that America's institutions of higher learning are graduating students who lack basic critical thinking skills.
Since Riley’s nonsequitur punditry seeks to make the Snowden leak case a platform for discussing education, try this on for size: Why couldn’t the education system hold the attention of this obviously highly-intelligent person? Snowden was capable of high-level mastery of the most amazing technology in human history, but too stupid for public school? Really?
Maybe the problem wasn’t that Snowden was a “screw-up,” as Riley claims. Maybe our education system is so busy catering to the credential-obsessed that it's woefully ill equipped to handle students who don’t fit the traditional academic mold.
Dropouts Aren't Necessarily 'Screw-Ups'
We aren’t just talking about one NSA computer geek gone rogue. Countless tech world success stories involve someone dropping out of academic institutions. That's a greater indictment of our narrow-minded education system — and the self-styled reformers who would make the system more rigid — than of the students Riley blithely dismisses at “screw-ups” because they got off a traditional academic track.
Riley and the other educational scolds always sound like second-rate Teamsters business agents (from the bad, old Jackie Presser days) whenever they caterwaul about degrees and diplomas. If that NSA contractor/ Facebook founder/host the ABC Evening News doesn’t have his union card, then we’re shutting this operation down!
Regardless, the entire discussion is grossly inappropriate considering the implications of the government data mining revelation. That story is sufficiently important to be discussed for its own ends without injecting a faux-controversy about someone’s educational credentials.
For an interesting perspective on the NSA data mining, read David Simon's blog. It's legitimate food for thought. His follow-up post is also pretty good.
And if you want to consider the state of our education system, maybe take the time to ponder why the University of North Carolina, Riley's alma mater, apparently didn’t teach its journalism students how to find the forest through the trees.
