will eventually come across something questionable. I know I did. It may be evil, or perhaps just evidence of incompetence or stupidity. But who makes that call? We sign an oath and accept a responsibility when we seek access to classified information (because, after all, it is profitable for us as an employee). We agree to not give ourselves the right to decide whether the information is valid or or not, and whether its confidentiality is justified or not. It is not our call. We do not see the big picture. We are not qualified, morally or technically, to make that decision.

The distinction is comparable to the position taken by a soldier when he takes the oath to serve in the military. Soldiers do not decide whether wars are justified or not. If as a civilian, you choose not to serve, and resist conscription, or if you declare yourself a conscientious objector or pacifist, that is a morally justifiable position. But once you accept the responsibility, take the oath, accept the salt (as the Roman legionnaires did), the situation changes.

Of course, there may come a time when in all good conscience, the soldier must disobey the order, or the well-paid and comfortably employed security analyst must refuse to continue. There is a place for the refusnik, the whistleblower, for civil disobedience. Sometimes the law must be disobeyed. But when one accepts that particular mantle of self-righteousness, one also has to accept the responsibility that goes with that action.

I would be much more inclined to be charitable to Mr Snowden if he had turned himself in after he revealed his secrets. His taking shelter with other countries (and certainly the countries he chose to shelter him) suggests his motives were more self-serving than perhaps even he admits to himself.