Snowden's Argumentative Analysis

At first the government established a court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court or FISA court for short, which is a court that monitors the extent of the government’s data collecting and decides whether they are justified in getting that information. It was hard at first for the NSA to collect data because of the tight restrictions that were put in place by the courts. But over time the restrictions loosened. The NSA was no longer required to get a warrant on someone to look through their information. All they have to have now is somewhat reasonable suspicion and they can take whatever means possible to get someone’s private info upon themselves to interpret the constitution by themselves (CNN).
In 2012 when the FISA amendments …show more content…
Richard Ledgett was brought on to a Ted talk answering to Snowden’s Ted talk on the NSA’s abilities and data collecting throughout social media. TED’s mission is to spread ideas, so naturally, they had to cover both sides as to not have a bias on the subject. Richard Ledgett’s main argument was evident in his TED talk. He said many times that Snowden should have went through the designated channels in the NSA if he had worries or concerns about any of its policies (Ted talk youtbe
Bill Binney, a former NSA employee and whistleblower disagrees. Bill Binney was an employee for the NSA until he found out that they were using one of the programs he had made to scoop up info on Americans without a court order. “I had to get out of there, because they were using the program I built to do domestic spying, and I didn't want any part of it, I didn't want to be associated with it," he says. "I look at it as basically treason. They were subverting the …show more content…
They tried to sound the alarm with the law by going to congressional committees but they did not have the documentation to back themselves up so nobody believed them. "He recognized right away, it was very clear to me, that if he wanted anybody to believe him, he'd have to take a lot of documentation with him — which is what he did." Binney says about Snowden which Binney made the mistake of not doing (npr).
Other whistleblowers have also tried to work within the system. Thomas Drake was another whistleblower who thought the NSA’s policies were unconstitutional. It did not fair very well for Drake in the end. Drake to his case to both the NSA and Congress to no avail. After he realized his complaints were going nowhere, Drake released his info to a new reporter. Drake was charged with violating the law and his home was raided by the FBI. Drake thinks that what happened to him and Binney was a cautionary tale for