Edward Snowden

Edward Joseph "Ed" Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an exiled American computer specialist and former CIA employee and NSA contractor who disclosed classified details of several top-secret United States and British government mass surveillance programs to the press. He is living in Russia under temporary political asylum and is considered a fugitive from justice by American authorities, who have charged him with espionage and theft of government property. wiki

He also said he had a basic understanding of Mandarin Chinese and was deeply interested in martial arts and, at age 19 or 20, listed Buddhism as his religion on a military recruitment form, noting that the choice of agnostic was "strangely absent." ny times

I know he's a humanist.

On October 18th Anderson Cooper interviewed Edward Snowden's father. In the interview his father that Edward Snowden is a humanist. The context leaves us wondering what is his definition of humanism?

Anderson: Are you proud of your son?

Mr. Snowden: "I am absolutely proud of my son. It could bring me to tears I'm so proud of my son. I know who he is, I held him as a child, he's the same person. He's a man of character and no matter what happens I know he loves his country. I know he's a humanist. I know that he's not so ethnocentric or blinded by nationalism that he looks at people in other countries as something less. That he looks at us as we are exceptional to the degree that others are lesser than us."

I'm reminded of Thomas Paine who said "Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."