Edward Snowden is a computer programmer who has worked for Dell, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. After being hired by an NSA contractor in 2013, he realized that the U.S. government was using a global mass surveillance system to spy on foreign citizens, foreign governments, as well as on American citizens who had no links to terrorism. While it is perfectly normal for intelligence agencies to carry out surveillance activities in order to protect the public from terror attacks and other serious crimes, Snowden did not appreciate the fact that large amounts of private data – including private images, e-mails, text messages, web histories and phone locations – were being collected without a legal warrant or court order (Simcox). In the Spring of 2013, he copied and leaked thousands of classified documents concerning the NSA domestic and international surveillance programs, thus exposing the government’s ability to exploit modern information technologies and interfere with other nations’ cyber infrastructure in order to gather information that is unlikely to be used to protect the public (Simcox).
While some consider Snowden to be a traitor who has stolen classified material from his employer and has embarrassed the U.S. government on an international level, most members of the public have hailed him like a hero who has sacrificed his personal freedom and career for their right to privacy. The truth is that Snowden’s leaks have played a key role in sparking a global debate about privacy and illegal surveillance, thus forcing governments and tech companies across the world to be more transparent and less intrusive. By showing the American public that the government was violating their civil liberties (especially the ones listed in the Fourth Amendment), knowing that his revelations would have a devastating impact on his life, Snowden acted like a true hero who should be praised for his bravery and selflessness.
When The Guardian – one of the newspapers that published Snowden’s files – asked Snowden why he had decided to become a whistleblower, the computer programmer answered that he did not want to live in a surveillance state where everything he does and says can be easily recorded by the government (MacAskill). He also observed that while he did not vote for former President Barack Obama in 2008, he truly believed that he would protect American citizens’ right to privacy by promoting transparency and accountability within the intelligence industry; when he realized that President Obama had no intention to address these issues, he decided to leak the documents. With regards to the surveillance systems employed by the NSA at the time, he pointed out that employees like himself could intercept people’s credit card details, phone calls, passwords and emails, and that the agency collected more information from American citizens than Russian citizens.
According to Jeffrey Toobin from the New Yorker, Snowden is a narcissistic criminal whose revelations have done more harm than good. The reporter observes that when Snowden began working for the NSA, he knew exactly what kind of work he would be doing, and was certainly aware that disclosing classified information constitutes a criminal offence in the United States (Toobin). Nevertheless, Snowden took the job and decided to whistle the blow on a system that failed to meet his own standards of correctness – even though many of the programs he disclosed were legally authorized. To support his argument against Snowden, Toobin (2013) reminds the reader that Verizon did not commit a crime by handing over millions of customers’ phone records to the NSA. The surveillance project was approved by a top secret court order that Snowden himself leaked – which goes to show that his main goal was to damage his employer’s reputation, rather than exposing something illegal.
John Cassidy (2013) from the New Yorker disagrees with his colleague about Snowden’s true intentions. According to him, it was extremely responsible and altruistic of Snowden to disclose sensitive information that deserved to be shared with the public, without damaging his country’s national security. Being truly concerned about American citizens’ safety, Snowden did not leak any potentially harmful information concerning U.S. military plans or conversations between U.S. and foreign government officials that could be used by foreign agencies to harm his country or fellow citizens (Cassidy). Unlike Julian Assange, Snowden did not simply disclose all the data that he had collected in order to create a global information empire and empower citizens across the world. Snowden spent weeks meticulously inspecting every single document before deciding whether to leak it or not, as his main goal was to perform a public service without causing any harm. Knowing that some of the information that he had gathered could be used by foreign intelligence agencies and governments to gain a competitive over the United States, or even by terrorist groups to develop new systems to avoid being monitored, Snowden decided to only upload a limited number of files, hoping that his move would encourage the American public and government – as well as foreign citizens and governments – to confront the ugly truth. That ugly truth was that governments across the world were using a mass global surveillance system to spy on their citizens and collect worryingly large amounts of meta data about their personal lives and conversations from companies like Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Yahoo, to name but a few (Cassidy).
According to Amnesty International, which even launched a petition to voice its support for Snowden, the former NSA contractor is a hero who may be sentenced to decades in prison despite having acted in the public interest. This is because there are still laws in the United States that equate people who blow the whistle on unethical and illicit surveillance carried out by the government to traitors who cooperate with their country’s enemies. The truth is that had it not been for Snowden’s revelations, the U.S. government would have never felt compelled to pass laws that have actually restricted government surveillance and forced intelligence agencies to be more transparent about their practices (Barkley). In response to those who argue that surveillance is necessary to prevent terror attacks, Snowden has made it clear that governments across the world systematically spy on civilians with no links to terrorism and store large amounts of data which couldn’t possibly be used to protect the public. It is also worth pointing out that terrorist groups tend to operate offline to stop intelligence agencies from intercepting their calls or monitoring their online activities (Cassidy).
In conclusion, Edward Snowden is a hero whose actions have had a significant impact on American citizens’ perception of the government, intelligence agencies and tech companies. By showing people across the world that their governments were eroding their privacy rights in the name of national security, Snowden triggered a global debate about the role of privacy and surveillance in the age of digital technology. His leaked documents enabled the public to criticize the undemocratic surveillance programs that the NSA was using to spy on millions of American civilians who had done nothing to be classified as suspects. One of Snowden’s most shocking revelation was that the NSA was more interested in eavesdropping on American citizens’ conversations than it was in monitoring Russians, who are constantly depicted as a threat to national security.
- Amnesty International. Edward Snowden is a hero not a traitor. 2017,
https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/Edward-Snowden-hero-not-traitor/. Accessed 29 Nov 2017. - Barkley, James A. Intelligence Leaks: What Is the Role of the Leak and The Leaker in U.S.
Democracy? Dissertation. Naval Postgraduate School, 2014. - Cassidy, John. “Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero.” The New Yorker, 10 Jun 2013,
https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-edward-snowden-is-a-hero. Accessed 29 Nov 2017. - MacAskill, Ewen. “Edward Snowden, NSA files source: ‘If they want to get you, in time they will’.”
The Guardian, 10 Jun 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why. Accessed 29 Nov 2017. - Simcox, Robin. Surveillance After Snowden. London, The Henry Jackson Society. 2015.
- Toobin, Jeffrey. “Edward Snowden Is No Hero.” The New Yorker, 10 Jun 2013,
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/edward-snowden-is-no-hero. Accessed 29 Nov 2017.
