" This topic is well chosen as it is one of hot debate in America. This question first arose in my life a couple of years ago when Edward Snowden released his first bit of information. This was the shell shock that woke America from its somewhat dormant distrust of the government. It was a jaw dropping news headline, “With a top-secret court order, the NSA collected the telephone records from millions of Verizon customers.†This revelation brought back the age old debate of just how far government infringements on our privacy should be allowed to go. Acting as the voice of the Government, Richard Ledgett came on TED talks to discuss what Edward Snowden had said in his own TED talk. After some more generalized questions, Ledgett
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Snowden was forced to leave the country as a result of his document leaking and although he has pushed for a pardon, that still has yet to be seen. Snowden was seemably very respectful in his interview with a focus on the issues themselves versus his own predicament. Snowden first talks of his motivation for his actions, “Beyond that, [your rights are] a part of our cultural identity...People should be able to pick up the phone and to call their family... without wondering about how these events are going to look to an agent of the government... We have a right to privacy.†The aforementioned Bullrun program was probably his strongest example of the misconduct of the government as he points out how the actions of the NSA could vary possibly be a detriment not only to the privacy of people but also to the economic well being of the country itself. There is also another interesting topic he addresses; the debate of weather what Snowden did was fundamentally good bad does not simply fall along traditional party lines as many other political issues do. Snowden makes the case that what he did was to bring to light the furtive actions of the NSA to inform the people of the various infringements on their freedoms and that we as a people should not have to give up our liberties to have
Snowden was forced to leave the country as a result of his document leaking and although he has pushed for a pardon, that still has yet to be seen. Snowden was seemably very respectful in his interview with a focus on the issues themselves versus his own predicament. Snowden first talks of his motivation for his actions, “Beyond that, [your rights are] a part of our cultural identity...People should be able to pick up the phone and to call their family... without wondering about how these events are going to look to an agent of the government... We have a right to privacy.†The aforementioned Bullrun program was probably his strongest example of the misconduct of the government as he points out how the actions of the NSA could vary possibly be a detriment not only to the privacy of people but also to the economic well being of the country itself. There is also another interesting topic he addresses; the debate of weather what Snowden did was fundamentally good bad does not simply fall along traditional party lines as many other political issues do. Snowden makes the case that what he did was to bring to light the furtive actions of the NSA to inform the people of the various infringements on their freedoms and that we as a people should not have to give up our liberties to have