Edward Snowden's Violation Of Privacy

Don’t be afraid to stand for what you believe in, even if that means standing alone. When Edward Snowden found out that there was an unacceptable violation of privacy being committed by the NSA, he did what he found to be the right thing which was to give awareness to the public about this issue. Snowden discovered that the NSA was conducting surveillance of hundreds of millions of Americans’ electronic communications, including phone calls, text messages and emails. He was able to get access to this information and transmitted it to the press. While Snowden is viewed by most as a good man who revealed that our government is wiretapping everything and everyone, some people view him as a traitor who released classified information that should …show more content…
Although Snowden did expose the absurd acts being committed by the NSA, he did also break an oath where he swore to not disclose secret information. Although the government need some extra room to keep the public safe, they cannot simply spy on everyone as it is a clear violation of the fourth amendment. Just as the government does not have the right to spy on our physical mail, they should not have the right to spy on our internet mail. What the government is doing goes against our constitution and thankfully for the public Snowden brought light to this subject. On a moral level it is hard to argue against Snowden, what he did morally was 100% correct; he saw that the government was doing something wrong and he transmitted this information to the public. People are beginning to realize that just as you should expect privacy on the real world, you should expect the same amount of privacy on the internet. The reason some people are disagreeing with Snowden is because they see …show more content…
Even if his actions were 100% morally correct, the country cannot afford a trend-setting precedent that it is okay to divulge secrets whenever someone gets to feeling self-righteous; the costs associated with such an act help prevent its misuse. These laws about classified information exist for a reason and the people who break them should be treated just the same as someone who breaks any other laws. Although what Snowden did does not deserve punishment, this kind of action should not be something taken lightly. Also something that many people tend to not understand is that the behavior of the NSA was not unconstitutional. They were operating as directed by law; just because many Americans might later be uncomfortable about it does not mean they were wrong to do what they did, it means we should take more care in passing laws. Another common error people have been making is that he was a whistleblower, because legally speaking Snowden is not. There is a law, the Intelligence Community Whistle-blower Protection Act, that applies to people such as Snowden who worked for the NSA, but that law provides no protection to him. First because Snowden did not expose the kinds of actions covered by whistle-blower protections which are illegal conduct, fraud, waste or abuse. Also Snowden could have claimed whistle-blower protection only if he had