NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. NSA, Public Domain.

Jan. 30, Tulsi Gabbard, the current Director of National Intelligence, faced a confirmation hearing before the Senate. Among Gabbard’s many controversies, one seemed to infuriate senators from both parties more than any other: her refusal to condemn Edward Snowden, a whistleblower from the National Security Administration, as a “traitor.”

The NSA, one of the U.S.’s 18 different spy agencies, specializes in internet surveillance. In 2013, Snowden, then a contractor for the agency, leaked up to 10,000 classified documents to the Guardian and the Washington Post exposing unconstitutional spying programs that for years had amassed the web histories, emails and phone calls of millions of (if not all) American citizens into vast government databases.

The things Snowden revealed are likely only the tip of the iceberg, but even so, he was forced to flee the country. Twelve years later, the country he risked his life to defend still hunts him as a “traitor,” while many of the illegal spying programs he exposed continue to operate with impunity. For all the senators’ rage that Snowden betrayed the government, they forget that he did so to expose an even greater betrayal.

As Snowden himself put it, “when exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.”