Former National Security Agency: Is Edward Snowden A Hero?

Edward Snowden was the former National Security Agency or "spy". Despite his job flaws, Snowden was able to expose the government. By exposing the government, he told the citizens of United States that the government is stalking anyone through text messages, emails, and the location of the phones. Although he broke the law by stealing confidential information, his actions of exposing the government was because he believed that people had a right to know all the things the government were hiding away from them. Edward Snowden has the right to be called a hero because he exposed the government in a good way, defended the amendment to privacy, and because he defended the people while risking his own life and his own job.

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The US government broke the law and for years, they hid their spying practices not just from the public, but from parliament. Without Snowden and other campaigners that followed, we wouldn’t have a clue what they were up to. According to eff.org, it is stated that, "information of the NSA's domestic spying programs are found in the media, official government statements and reports, and court actions." This includes leaked documents, first published by The Guardian in June 2013, that confirmed the domestic spying by the NSA, as well as accounts based on unnamed government officials (eff.org). According to James Stephen in Edward Snowden: Not a hero, he states, ¨Snowden caused operational and economic harm in his actions. The threats that the U.S. had been tracking have since learned about the surveillance and adapted.¨(stanforddaily.com). In the article, Stephen describes Snowden´s actions and he says that because of Snowden´s actions, there has been cyber threats globally. Therefore, Stephen does not think Snowden is not a hero because he is a trouble

According to Edward Snowden Is No Hero by Jeffrey Toobin, Toobin calls Snowden a "grandiose narcissist". The reason why he thinks that Edward Snowden is not a hero is because he went betrayed his country by exposing the secrets of the American government to China. Toobin does agree with Snowden's speech in a way because what Snowden did was freedom of speech. Toobin states, "All of Snowden’s secrets may wind up in the hands of the Chinese government, which has no commitment at all to free speech or the right to political dissent."(Toobin). Based on this statement, Toobin believes that Snowden is not a hero and is more of a "grandiose