...Edward Snowden was single handedly responsible for the largest hack in the digital age. He proved the National Security Agency was performing large scale surveillance on United States Citizens and other nations through Verizon telephone records, Google, and Facebook. In a world where a majority of Americans have a life online, this news of surveillance shook the world. And a 29 year old ex-spy for the Central Intelligence Agency and low-level contractor for Dell, Edward Snowden, was behind the leak. He has been named many different names, from hero to traitor. But what is he really? On the scale from traitor to hero, he falls in the middle, closer to the heroic side. The knowing population is divided in its stance in knowing who really is...
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..."They hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely.” (“NSA”) Snowden gave this meaningful quote during an interview about his motives behind his disclosure of millions of classified NSA documents (“NSA”). Edward Snowden, and the classified information he exposed, is viewed as a very controversial topic. Many see him as a hero, but in contrast, some see him as a traitor. In my eyes, Edward Snowden is a hero. Revealing these programs and documents, that are an abuse of government power, helped the public open their eyes and see the invasiveness of our government. Edward Joseph Snowden came from the small town in North Carolina, Elizabeth City. Elizabeth City was located just outside of a...
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...EDWARD SNOWDEN TRAITOR OR HERO Regarding the Edward Snowden case there is a an very interesting ethical problem. Just to give us a bit of background context ; Edward Snowden was an employee of the CIA and NSA, who revealed details of several monitoring programs and American mass britanniques. For some peolpe he was considered like a hero because he has brought to light confidential information that deserves to be in the public domain and for other a villainous traitor because those put in danger his country, it is important to ask whether his revelations comes under the ethical or the legal fact. Ethical : We know that most people would feel betrayed by Edward because he released personal information about them but it was in order to prove that the US Government is recording the communications of its citizens. But it is Ethic to help other isn’t it ? Ethics are moral principles that guide the way a behaves. It issued by a business is a particular kind of policy statement. A code of ethic issued by a company is some kind of policy statement. A properly framed code is, in effect, a form of binding legislation within the company for its employees, specific sanctions for breaches of the code. If these sanctions are absent, the code is just a list of piety. The heaviest sentence usually dismissal unless a crime has been committed. Focusing on ethics, for those who feel that Snowden did was morally acceptable, calculating almost everyone has to weigh the benefits and...
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...Who is Edward Snowden? Edward Snowden, 30, was a three-month employee of a government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. At Booz Allen (he has since been terminated), he worked as a systems administrator at an NSA Threat Operations Center in Hawaii, one of several facilities detect threats against government computer systems. In other words, he was a low-level intelligence government contractor. Background: Edward Joseph Snowden was born June 21, 1983, he grew up in Wilmington, N.C., but later moved to Ellicott City, Md., he told The Guardian. His mother, Wendy, is the chief deputy clerk for administration and information technology at the federal court in Baltimore, a court official told NBC News. His father, Lonnie, is a former Coast Guard officer who lives in Pennsylvania, the Allentown Morning Call reported. A neighbor said he has an older sister who is an attorney. Education: He did not complete high school. He told The Guardian that he studied computers at a community college and obtained a general equivalency degree. A spokesman for Anne Arundel Community College confirmed that a student with the same name and birth date took classes there, from 1999 to 2001 and again in 2004 and 2005. Military service: He spent four months in the Army reserves, from May to September 2004 as a special forces recruit to a 14-week training course, the Army said. "He did not complete any training or receive any awards," an Army statement said. No other details were given...
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...Why Edward Snowden should be given amnesty In June 2013 the former NSA employee Edward Snowden, leaked a number of classified intelligence documents to journalists at The Washington Post and The Guardian and has been living in Russia ever since. Because of his decision to not take part in illegal surveillance practices, he has been labeled a traitor. However, everyone who has sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially employees of the US intelligence community, should report any information that concerns breaking the law. Therefore, Snowden deserves to be given amnesty and the right to a fair trial without fear of being incarcerated for simply reporting crimes against the Constitution. Snowden caused a stir last year when he went public with a number of top secret reports about illegal government activity and was forced to seek asylum in Russia. The first major leak revealed evidence of the US government’s top-secret practice of eavesdropping on millions of domestic phone calls in America on a regular basis. Since then, various leaked documents have been continuously published by the media and the NSA has been losing its credibility among the public. The US authorities have charged Snowden under the Espionage Act and US intelligence officials have already condemned him without a trial, labeling him both guilty and a traitor. James Woolsey, a former head of the C.I.A., told Fox News, “[Snowden] should be prosecuted for treason. If convicted...
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...right thing, you have to break the law.” (Snowden 2013) The American public has some homework to do regarding the fate of Edward Snowden. He has been termed a whistleblower, a traitor, and even a narcissistic personality. The Mayo Clinic (n.d.) explains this as a person who “has an inflated image of their own importance.” Additionally, author Gordon Chang (2014) has called Snowden a “dropbox,” a holder of information to serve as a “courier” (Chang, 2014). Diane Francis (2013), a writer with the Financial Post, as well as the post written by the editorial board of The New York Times (2014), both refer to Snowden as a “whistleblower” (These two varied written pieces are an enlightenment to the U.S. public, yet The New York Times makes Snowden appear as a “Hero of sorts.” (“Edward Snowden,” 2014) Snowden was not politically correct in his methods, however, as The New York Times reveals, he opened a major “can of worms” to showcase the...
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...1. Do you think that Kant would approve of Snowden’s decision to leak the NSA confidential material? Explain your answer including specific details from Kant’s deontology, why/why not? No, I do not believe Mr. Kant would agree with Mr. Snowden’s decision. If Mr. Snowden wanted to warn the American people as he claims, he could have done so without putting the entire country at risk. Mr. Snowden cannot articulate a duty towards his fellow American and put them at risk at the same time. He can argue that he wanted to change the law however he could have release the information to the media here in the states instead of flee to a another country then release the information. Snowden argument fails to prove to the American people that all of his actions were merely “matter of principle” as he claims. 2. Explain whether or not you believe Edward Snowden should be hailed as a hero. Support your statements by explaining the rationale for your decision. That is a double-edged sword question because if he was from another country and divulge national secrets that could potentially help the U.S. to protect it from terrorist attacks then we would probably hail him a hero. However, his leaks have led to a more open debate and more democratic process than would not have existed otherwise. So what makes us different from other countries? One is the way we openly discuss and democratically process the laws. Two: The ways the U.S. protect and secure the nation. Mr. Snowden’s leaks...
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...It is argued that the government’s unlawful actions are justified by the Patriot Act, but they are not. Title II of the act is Enhanced Surveillance Procedures. It grants increased surveillance powers to select government agencies. Section 201 of Title II is titled Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to terrorism. This is the section allows government to tap into personal information. However the phrase “relating to terrorism” declares only suspected terrorists can be monitored. Section 213 states that warrants must be issued in order to intercept non-terrorist forms of communication. When Snowden was asked about search warrants he said “the reality is that Americans' communications are collected and viewed...
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...In this society that propagates democracy and equlity for everyone, we are allowed to deter the traditional opinion. However, people always lose themselves, for that there's still pieces of them inside that craves for acceptance. Despite the variety forms of emphasis on individuality, human beings are gregarious. We can not thrive upon aloofness and conceit. Therefore, it's evitable that there are times when we yield to the majority instead of insisting on originality.Nonetheless, the loss of courage that beg to differ can often exacerbate matters that can be solved earlier. Edward Snowden has been a controversial character ever since his leaking scandal in 2013. During an interview on May 20th, 2013, he told the journalists from Guardian...
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...out to be the case. It is debated whether some whistleblowers should be classified as heros or villans and if whistleblowing acts should be considered helpful or harmful. The whistleblower I will be talking about in this essay is Edward Snowden and how he released information about the NSA's spying program. In my opinion I believe Edward Snowden did way more harm than good to America by releasing secure information held by the NSA. A whistleblower is a person who exposes wrongful information that goes on in a organization. Mainly, whistleblowers reach out to parties that can publicize this new found information. These parties include the media, hotlines, members of politics, managers of organizations, other rival businesses and other sources. In most cases the information revealed by the whistleblower goes against a law and harms the public in one way or another. Edward Snowden is a former CIA technical assistant who has claimed responsibility for leaking headline-making information about the National Security Agency's (NSA) surveillance program. He revealed that the NSA has records of majority of calls made in America, including those who are making and receiving the calls phone number, conversations between people in emails, on Twitter, Facebook etc. They also have huge amounts of data on the internet including history in web searches and websites. There are many reasons why Edward Snowden’s actions were...
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...1 Edward Joseph Snowden is a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who disclosed a global surveillance by the NSA, such as PRISM, XKeyscore, Tempora, and the interception of US and European telephone metadata. Page 2 1. In May 2013 Snowden took a leave of absence, telling his supervisors he was returning to the mainland for treatment, but instead left Hawaii for Hong Kong on May 20. 2. On June 22, US officials revoked Snowden's passport. Although Snowden had applied for political asylum to 20 countries, the US administration, specifically Vice President Joe Biden, had pressured the governments of these countries to refuse his petition for asylum. 3. On June 23, Snowden landed in Moscow's international airport. He remained in the transit zone for 39 days until being granted temporary asylum by the Russian government on August 1.Then he went to an undisclosed location kept secret for security reasons. HongKong In Hongkong, Snowden spoke very frankly about the US Government’s attempts to extradite him, so his intention is to ask the courts and people of Hongkong to decide his fate. As we can see in the pictures, On June 15, people in Hong Kong got together to support Edward Snowden. After Snowden had taken off, The HongKong government released a statement, saying that said the extradition request received from the U.S. “did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law.” so they had no legal reason to prevent Snowden from...
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...who denounce illegal practices in a company or organization. They are usually hated by their companions or the company which was denounced. Edward Snowden, a whistle-blower who leaked National Security Agency’s classified information about national and international espionage, is considered as a hero and as a traitor among some people in United States and in many countries with which U.S. has political relationships since his disclosures could undermine these international relations and the citizens’ trust. This essay exhibits the causes that led Snowden to reveal U.S. classified documents, and then the consequences of Snowden’s actions. The first cause is that he was hired by CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) in 2006 as a Technical/IT expert and received a top secret clearance (Cole & Brunker, 2014, Edward Snowden: A Timeline, NBC News). The next year he is sent to Geneva, Switzerland, where he took the role of IT and cyber security expert for...
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...No longer do we strive against one another for food or for land, and no longer do we fight our wars as we used to, those have all transmogrified into small skirmishes between different units and carries less casualties in the physical - but not mental - sense. In this new world that we live in, resisting peacefully is more of a challenge and one must use brash actions to do so. In the case of Edward Snowden, releasing top secret government documents out to the public, was that action that he had to take in order to stand up for the people. In his article, "Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero", John Cassidy explains his - and the people's - views on why what Snowden did was a good thing. Cassidy states that, "In revealing the colossal scale of the U.S. government’s eavesdropping on Americans and other people around the world, he has performed a great public service..." (Cassidy); this illustrates that while mankind has moved onto a more advanced society, it too brings with it more advanced infringements onto our privacy and rights as human...
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...It has been known that the federal government has documents that it tries to hide from the people. But one man was able to get around that and leaked hundreds of classified documents to the press. That man’s name was Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden was born in 1983 in Elizabeth City, NC. He later moved to Maryland with his mother who worked at the Federal Court in Baltimore, Maryland as a chief deputy clerk. Snowden failed to complete high school and dropped out of a local community college twice. However, “between his stints at community college, Snowden spent four months (May to September 2004) in the Army Reserves in special-forces training. According to Army sources, he did not complete any training, and Snowden has said that he was...
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...throats can not sit idly by until the time is convenient for action."We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Martin Luher King Jr. If the brave black students in Alabama never participated in sit ins, sitting at diner tables patiently waiting to be served; if they had not broke one mere purely unjust law, maybe society could have been drastically different today. Although civil disobedience involving race has been a hallmark in American history, there have been more recent, just as controversial instances of this. Edward Snowden. Depending on your opinion of the situation, that name may evoke feelings of sickness and disgust, or a true hero. Call me unpatriotic, and a extreme left leaner, but I full heatedly agree and with the leaking of classified information on the part of Edward Snowden. He provided the transparency and truth that the government wasn't giving to its own...
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