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Edward Snowden Hero Or Traitor Essay

1097 Words5 Pages

Hero or Traitor Edward Snowden is a thirty three year old American Computer Professional who had been working for the N.S.A. (National Security Agency) as well as the C.I.A. (Central Intelligence Agency) until 2013. In June of 2013, Edward made a life changing decision by choosing to leak National Security Agency (N.S.A.) documents in Hong Kong to The Guardian and The Washington Post regarding top secret government surveillance. Not only did this leak raise debate over National Security and online privacy, but also raised the debate on whether or not Edward Snowden is a hero or traitor to American citizens. There is no doubt that Snowden should resemble a hero to American citizens. In order to understand why he should be seen as a hero, one …show more content…

operations called PRISM. PRISM is a computer program which is used to monitor private web data from companies like, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, Youtube, and others. Although this program is used to monitor foreign communication, analyst only need to be 51% sure that the material they are monitoring is foreign communication in order to access the information. The first thing PRISM violates is the collection of phone call records in order to search for possible terrorist abroad, and the second is the surveillance of online communications to and from foreign targets in order to detect suspicious behavior. Even though PRISM is doing a good thing by detecting terrorism, it is also violating American’s right to privacy by analyzing private phone records and online data without approval of the citizens. Snowden has revealed questionable activities of the government who those in power refuse to reveal to the public. Edward has jeopardized his life in order to share with the Nation what he thinks all citizens should know about the secrets our National Security Agency is hiding from us. For these reasons, Edward Snowden is a

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As Mr. Cusick stated, what Edward Snowden failed to disclose or fail to see was the whole picture. He was not privileged to see how some aspects of information fit with others. With or without this understanding, Snowden painted a grim picture of NSA’s practices regarding the privacy millions of citizens. By doing so, he severely damaged the nations intelligence gathering capability and put the lives of many at

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