USA Today names Edward Snowden tech person of the year

An anonymous reader writes: "In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the American people, through their elected representatives in Washington, chose to exchange a significant amount of freedom for safety. But until a lone information-technology contractor named Edward Snowden leaked a trove of National Security Agency documents to the media this summer, we didn't know just how much we'd surrendered. Now that we do, our nation can have a healthy debate — out in the open, as a democracy should debate — about how good a bargain we got in that exchange.

For facilitating that debate, at great risk to his own personal liberty, Snowden is this column's technology person of the year for 2013."