Edward Snowden is a government contractor who leaked information on the NSA surveillance network. Alerting the public to the fact that the NSA was conducting untargeted gathering of information on average American citizens. Public opinion on Snowden is divided; John Cassidy, writer for The New Yorker hails Snowden as a hero, (Cassidy) while his fellow New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin calls him “a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison” (Toobin) By releasing this information, Snowden broke the law and the agreement of trust he had, but also did the country a service by alerting the public to the NSA’s questionable intelligence gathering activity.
In June of 2013 headlines were made when Edward Snowden leaked many documents showing …show more content…
This information understandably made many people uncomfortable, and there were calls for investigations into the NSA’s actions.
Shortly after Snowden’s leaks began, John Cassidy wrote an article for The New Yorker titled “Why Edward Snowden is a Hero”. In this article, he says that “Snowden has brought to light important information that deserved to be in the public domain, while doing no lasting harm to the national security of his country.” (Cassidy)
Cassidy argues that Snowden didn’t haphazardly release all the information he could get his hands on, but instead only released the documents he felt were necessary to alerting the public to the NSA’s activates without compromising the nation’s …show more content…
This isn’t at all a new question, but one that Snowden has brought fire to by revealing the illegal actions of the NSA. Maybe many Americans will decide that they’re not willing to sacrifice the freedom of privacy to allow for the supposed increase in security that it may provide; perhaps they’ll go to the opposite side and decide they feel increased security is worth having less privacy. Whichever way the country goes, however, new laws and new boundaries need to be put in place for the NSA and other security agencies.
While there may have been more conventional methods for Snowden to take action, he did the country a service by alerting the public to illegal and otherwise questionable behavior by the NSA. By bringing new attention to this debate of privacy versus security, his actions will continue to influence the country’s surveillance and intelligence gathering for years to come. No matter which way the debate goes, the NSA and other agencies still need to have oversight and be held accountable for their
In June of 2013 headlines were made when Edward Snowden leaked many documents showing …show more content…
This information understandably made many people uncomfortable, and there were calls for investigations into the NSA’s actions.
Shortly after Snowden’s leaks began, John Cassidy wrote an article for The New Yorker titled “Why Edward Snowden is a Hero”. In this article, he says that “Snowden has brought to light important information that deserved to be in the public domain, while doing no lasting harm to the national security of his country.” (Cassidy)
Cassidy argues that Snowden didn’t haphazardly release all the information he could get his hands on, but instead only released the documents he felt were necessary to alerting the public to the NSA’s activates without compromising the nation’s …show more content…
This isn’t at all a new question, but one that Snowden has brought fire to by revealing the illegal actions of the NSA. Maybe many Americans will decide that they’re not willing to sacrifice the freedom of privacy to allow for the supposed increase in security that it may provide; perhaps they’ll go to the opposite side and decide they feel increased security is worth having less privacy. Whichever way the country goes, however, new laws and new boundaries need to be put in place for the NSA and other security agencies.
While there may have been more conventional methods for Snowden to take action, he did the country a service by alerting the public to illegal and otherwise questionable behavior by the NSA. By bringing new attention to this debate of privacy versus security, his actions will continue to influence the country’s surveillance and intelligence gathering for years to come. No matter which way the debate goes, the NSA and other agencies still need to have oversight and be held accountable for their