Edward Snowden: The Big Brother Threat

We need global hacker groups such as Anonymous or whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, who would let us know the actual motives behind the moves made by the people in authority. Edward Snowden succeeded in leaking out several thousands of top secret documents which the government has kept from the public for years. It is this revelation that exposed the vast scope of the government’s Big Brother programs which comes in the guise of domestic surveillance programs (Edward Snowden: The Untold Story, 2014). Individuals or groups like these are helpful to the normal citizens. They make the citizens know the actual situation of things as opposed to the cooked up stories that the government and their agents present to us in the media. However, these global hacker groups and individuals do not present a total solution to the Big Brother threat as there is a high tendency that the Big Brother will catch up with them with time. Once caught, the leakages will stop, and the Big Brother would continue with their antics. I think a lasting solution to the Big Brother threat would be a change in the mindset of the people in authority and a resolution to be more open to the citizens. The people in power also need to find a way to do away with the Big Brother mentality, they should know better that this poses a threat to the freedom of the common citizens.

Transparency within and outside the government is the motive behind the establishment of such organizations (Karhula, 2012). If achieved, this transparency would be to the benefit of all and