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Edward Snowden's A Letter From A Birmingham Jail

505 Words3 Pages

A peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society showing that information will always and forever be free to everyone and that civil disobedience can set people free in a just nation. In this current age, information always seems to be locked away from the populace. In other words, the populace only gets to know what is deemed safe and secure by the federal government. For civilians who want to know more they get shooed away. Through this phenomenon, muckrakers and whistle-blowers have come to the forefront to provide the people with the information that is so often gated away. No other person in the world is more famous for this in recent memory than Edward Snowden. Snowden, former NSA associate, leaked thousands of documents pertaining to the surveillance of American citizens. This broke numerous laws and turned Snowden in a criminal. This transgression was deemed so horrible by the government that he had to flee the United States if he valued his freedom. Snowden's fearless action showed that …show more content…

This is represented by Martin Luther King Jr better than no any other. In "A Letter from a Birmingham Jail", MLK reflects on his life so far as to defend it against people who condemn him for his actions. Martin deflects these criticisms by saying "an unjust law is no law at all." This fully characterizes MLK as a man who believes in laws, but doesn't believe in laws that intentionally target specific groups of people for no reason. So it becomes one's duty to protest against these laws in a productive and meaningful way culminating in civil disobedience. Civil disobedience shows how protestors can be peaceful and governments can be violent. Civil disobedience exposes the dastardly under-workings of people that intend to keep others bounded and submissive. Civil disobedience gives a passive resilient face to the body of protest that can be mobilized to create a real and lasting change in

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"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. "-Socrates. Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society because the society is not free unless it's able to check the government. As long as the protest of the law remains peaceful it is a good thing. It is the public telling the government that they will not let them gain to much power and crush their human rights.

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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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Essay On Letter From Birmingham Jail

1501 Words | 7 Pages

believed that not only was it the responsibility of individuals to remedy the situation of racial injustice to achieve inequality but also it was the job of society as a whole (the state). However, Martin Luther King Jr. noted in piece titled, “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” (1963) that, “We know through painful experience that freedom is not voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” (MLK, 580) I find this quote to be important as during the creation of our founding documents, the founding fathers were very intentional as to what they wanted. It was not in the interests of the founding fathers to provide equal rights to everyone, as doing so would ultimately put them all on the same pedestal which would not give them the level of superiority in which they believed they were entitled to.

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Letter From Birmingham Jail Thesis

1683 Words | 7 Pages

to a radicalized movement with the significance on cultural identity, separatism, and black nationalism with Malcolm X. Martin Luther King Jr.’s standpoint on integration, nonviolence, and his social impact are the reason why the civil rights movement was successful. To begin, Martin Luther King Jr. believed that segregation was biased. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, King writes, “There are two types of laws; just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws… [But] I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all’...

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1567 Words | 7 Pages

In response to that Martin Luther King Jr. said that “one has a moral responsibility to disobey just laws; because if we did not disobey them, then unjust acts would continue to occur, causing our country to be harmed.” According to king he believes that we should challenge unjust laws if and only if you are ready and willing to accept the punishment that follows (MLK). King states that “an unjust law is no law at all” because he believed that laws were put in place in order to benefit and aid the citizens of the state. If a law was unjust, however, it then was contradictory and should not be considered a law” (MLK). Martin Luther King Jr. stated, in his letter, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God.

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In his letter, King addresses that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (272). Although there is more adding on, these remarks alone show why Martin Luther King Jr. was widely considered to be a great and important leader during the civil rights movement. In short, King refers to the likes of injustice, and how even a small portion of it can branch out into a large-scaled issue.

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Letter From Birmingham Jail

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One of the wise words said by Martin Luther King Jr., specifically in a letter while in Birmingham jail, is "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". King was the leader of a civil obedience group and was therefore arrested for it due to it being a group that resisted laws, despite it being peacefully, to show the public and the government that a change was needed and succeeded in making that change to let the U.S. be what it is today. Thus, peaceful resistance to laws ultimately impact a free society positively so that a free society may remain or truly become free. Peacefully resisting laws help inform the government and/or citizens that something is not right. Rosa Parks is known for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man for the laws back then were white accommodating and she was

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In the document “Hero or Traitor? Edward Snowden and the NSA Spying Program”, Edward Snowden, exposed various types of spying programs. He exposed these programs because they were invading the people’s privacy and he felt that it was important for the people to know. On June 5, 2013, the very first report, a newspaper from London called The Guardian, reported that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting telephone records from millions of U.S. customers of telecommunications company Verizon.

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“One who breaks an unjust law must do so…with a willingness to accept the penalty…to arouse the conscience of the community… [and] is in reality expressing the highest respect for law” (Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963). Civil disobedience is a technique commonly used by many to show their opposition towards a law or a stance. In the legal aspect, the resister disobeys the law they oppose but does not retaliate when faced with consequences. Instead, they understand that it was a result of their actions.

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Snowden, who was a computer systems contractor, worked for the National Security Agency and revealed to the public how the American Government was spying on its own citizens and foreigners. Snowden was committed to the truth which allowed him to reason and understand the difference between what is right and what is legal. Snowden was convinced that the truth requires an individual to do the right thing and not necessarily what is legal. However, doing the right thing could sometimes require an individual to break the law.

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The Bill of Rights, especially Amendment I, exist to protect minority rights and allow freedom of expression. Since many citizens feel that the government does not listen to them, they feel as though they need to protest to make their voices heard. Occasionally, vandalism and destruction have occurred because of unhappy citizens wanting their voices to be heard. Because its goal is to keep violence at a minimum, I believe peaceful resistance to laws

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A few weeks later, these documents were released by The Guardian, and Edward Snowden was the reliable source. Now, people all over knew that the United States Government was spying on its own people through messages, internet searches, browser history, smart T.V’s and many many more. This case is ongoing, as he seeks asylum in other countries. This newfound information raises the question, is Mr. Snowden a traitor, or did he save us all by “blowing the whistle” to warn us about the unconstitutional collection of our private possessions protected by

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I think that Snowden reveal the information to make us know that our privacy was being he wanted to realize what does the government is capable to do. To conclude this essay I will summarize 're in world that evolves every second a world that more than half of the population is linked to information about who you are where postal addresses called bank account passwords and much more . In this documentary based on real facts revealed by Edward Snowden who worked for the CIA and NSA that he decided to tell the world that these agencies did. Basic mind these agencies collected information gathering Internet backbone million documents personal document called messages of citizens without them

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