Snowden lied to some people, in order to tell the truth to many others (the American public) whom the people he lied to were lying to. So he lied to the liars in order to expose what they were lying about, which is pretty much what you have to do to expose liars in many cases, because they aren’t going to voluntarily give you the evidence of their lies.
“Oathbreaker” should only concern someone if the oath were a noble one in context of why it was broken. A soldier that refused to kill an unarmed child when it was a direct order from a superior is also an Oathbreaker. This is similar to “loyalty” as a merit - it CAN be a merit, but being blindly loyal to a person or group that’s causing massive harm to others is no longer a merit, but a liability to everyone outside the group the person is loyal to. It’s only a merit in a romantic sense, but that’s where it ends.
As for “thief”, again, this is like lying to the liars, he stole from those who were unconstitutionally stealing private information from citizens. The only way to free what was stolen was to steal the information necessary to prove the original theft to the American public, so that we could take action against those who were stealing from us. If someone stole evidence from a gang of thieves to give to the authorities to go after them, this person would never be labeled a “thief” even though plainly they stole something from someone. But of course steal from the authorities to prove they’re breaking their own laws and it’s a different story.
The means, in detail, justify the ends, in detail.
Like you said, black and white are [sic] for children.
