The text “The NSA Leaker: Traitor or Hero?” was written by Teresa Welsh in 2013 and published on the website of the US News & World Report.
- The article tries to settle whether Edward Snowden is the American people’s traitor or hero. As it appears in the article, Snowden sees himself guilty for exposing secret Government documents.
- Snowden means that it is the public’s right to know the Government’s secret decisions, including monitoring of private communication within. Beyond that, both American political parties censure Snowden as the leaker. Both Republicans and Democrats see him rather as a traitor than a whistleblower and therefore he should be punished harder.
The text “Edward Snowden Is No Hero” was written by Jeffrey Toobin in 2013 and published on the
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12-14).
- Snowden announces his antipathy for a society where the Government watches over people’s action.
- Toobin claims that Snowden’s only reason for leaking the Governmental documents was because of egoistic reasons and that his decision could cause damage to the nation. However, it also seems like he blames The Post and The Guardian for publishing the leaked documents. According to Toobin, they also had a finger in the pie.
The text “In NSA leaks, Edward Snowden performed a service” was written by Eugene Robinson in 2013 and published on the website of The Washington Post.
- Eugene Robinson thanks, Edward Snowden for what he did because without people like him it would not be possible to show the public how they are being monitored.
- However, he did not like the way he exposed the information to the public.
- Furthermore, Robinson explains that monitoring only should be used when it is about dangers. Robinson, basically, thinks that it does not respect the right to
The case against Edward Snowden is strong. He acted with recklessness and possible self-serving convenience; even so, by shedding light on the invasive government actions taken to deal with terrorism, Snowden did his country a service, demanding accountability from a branch of the government that has been given free reign because of our post-9/11 fears. Still the fear persists that a society that accepts challenges to laws also insights anarchy (Leibman). This argument quickly falls flat: civil disobedience is action taken to fulfill a worthy higher principle, not just a means to benefit oneself. The intricacies of this were exposed when the acting Attorney General refused to allow the Justice Department to defend President Trump’s travel ban until its constitutionality could be affirmed.
The Watergate Scandal of 1972 is considered to be particularly significant in the history of America; it encompassed an array of illegal activities including the bugging of offices, break-ins, cover-ups and a serious abuse of presidential power, all of which led to the first and last resignation of a U.S president. Although Watergate is typically remembered as a political scandal, it was also a defining event for the media, and more importantly in this case, the relationship between president Nixon and the media. It is important to recognise that the hostility between Nixon and 'the press' had existed for almost a decade before the emergence of the Watergate scandal in 1972, therefore this essay will focus on Watergate as the pinnacle of a
The Article kept true to the facts but Mark Felt was a hero, a patriot an original Edward Snowden who did the right thing even against something that was bigger than
His purpose was to let the detractors know Snowden’s exact motive. Because the government constantly looks over ones’ shoulder, they have to constantly be mindful of their online activity and their online footprint. The Constitution was founded upon the principles of freedom from fear of the government, but this is not the case today. Edward Snowden’s views are reciprocated by the general US population. According to the Pew Research Center, 81% of people find it unacceptable for the US to monitor citizens of their countries, 73% finds it unacceptable to monitor leaders of their country, 62% finds it unacceptable to monitor American citizens, and 64% finds it acceptable to monitor terrorist suspects (Document 5).
National correspondent, Linton Weeks, in his essay, “Heroic Acts to Protect the word Hero”, Argues how the word hero has lost its meaning due to its overuse. Weeks’ purpose is to show how overused, and dismissed the word hero is. He creates a rational argument to prove his view to the reader that the widespread use of the term hero has gotten out of hand. While a majority of people have adapted to the current use for the definition of hero, Weeks makes some unignorable statements that support his claim of “hero” being over used.
For example, Edward Snowden exposed the National Security Agency for eavesdropping on Americans and people around the world, despite the possibility of being arrested and charged with heavy crimes. " So, what did the leaks tell us? First, they confirmed that the U.S. government, without obtaining any court warrants, routinely collects the phone logs of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Americans, who have no links to terrorism whatsoever,"(Source 3). The question is who is truly at fault? The government for doing that or Snowden for ratting them out to the public about
With Edward Snowden's NSA leaks, this issue was brought into relief. Was he full of moral superiority over a gray issue, or was he "that most awkward and infuriating of creatures-- a man of conscience," as John Cassidy wrote in his article "Why Edward Snowden is a Hero." Because, while Jeffrey Toobin wrote in "Edward Snowden is No Hero" that Snowden's leak was cemented in grandiose narcissism over an issue American citizens should have already digested, wasn't it after his leak that there arose an uproar over the NSA activities, which inevitably placed a modicum of agency back in the hands of the American people? I still wonder whether my perspective would be the same had Snowden released files which did more lasting harm to national security. But in that case, would that activism now be violent, instead of
Imagine for a second that every phone call you make, every text message you send, and every place you go is being constantly monitored by multiple governments. Well this is basically what the United State and United Kingdom's government is doing on a daily basis. The United States National Security Agency has been implementing projects in secret to monitoring people since 2001 but it would still be kept as a secret if Edward Snowden did not reveal this massive secret that was intruding the public’s privacy for years. The U.S. surveillance program started because of the September 9th, 2001 terrorist attack that hijacked airplanes and slammed them into the World Trade Center towers.
Snowden took it upon himself peacefully resist the law
The government debated about Snowden being considered a traitor or patriot of the country. The definition of a traitor is a person who is guilty of treason or treachery in betraying friends, country, family, etc. Definition of Treason is the crime of betraying one's country, by attempting to kill, sovereign, overthrow the government, or giving aid and/or comfort to the enemies government. Snowden was not giving aid or comfort to America’s enemies, unless the citizens of America are considered the enemy to the
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.
During this time, he noticed the depth of the NSA’s constant surveillance. During his time working for Booz Allen, Mr. Snowden started to make copies of classified documents and files, all of which he found disturbing and invasive. These documents were full of the information behind the NSA’s national surveillance, and the amount of files he had extracted was outstanding. He told his supervisor he was taking a leave of absence for medicinal reasons, and took the smuggled information with him. Snowden scheduled to meet with journalists from The Guardian after traveling to China.
He did this so that the government would see that his intentions were to whistle-blow and that the government could prepare for the revelations. Snowden says “I figured they would have a hard time” “I didn’t think they would be completely in capable”. He is talking about the agency missing the clues he left for them so that they could prepare for the future
Bringing “muckraking” into the 21st century limelight, Assange started WikiLeaks in 2006 to provide a place where whistleblowers can anonymously share classified documents under Assange’s editorship. Far from being a traditional journalist, Assange doesn’t personally investigate crimes or abuses, but supplies an instant, worldwide forum for those who do. While Assange himself is difficult to praise with his persecutions and charges, this does not discredit his solidity in creating a place made to drag truth into the light. It has been debated on for years upon whether or not WikiLeaks causes more harm than “good”, but what WikiLeaks actually does— to political parties, the military, and other powerful entities— is pull back the curtain of censorship, twists, and deception to show the public what’s really going on. The website provides raw data in the form of emails, documents, and videos; it does not tell the public what to think, but incites them to see the evidence and decide for themselves.
The main issue in the Snowden controversy is the conflicting rights of private individuals and the US government with regard to the use of telecommunications and the internet. There are ethical issues surrounding this controversy and the most applicable ethical approach for this case is “Ethics by Rights Approach”. As a background, the reason why US government had declared Edward Snowden a traitor is his involvement in the leaking of about 1.7 million confidential US documents, 15,000 Australian intelligence files and 58,000 British intelligence files from the National Security Agency (or NSA) to the public. These confidential information were acquired by the NSA through the PRISM program by collaborating with big internet companies such