Like so many other things in this world, there are two sides when it comes to Edward Snowden. At the time of the leak many considered him a hero for sticking it to the “man” around the world while here in the US he has always been considered a traitor. In my opinion he is neither. I don’t consider him a hero because to me it was immoral to leak that information even if it was for the public good. He is not a traitor either since the information about overseas can also be seen as immoral again even if its for national security. He should not be pardon but a prosecution for treason might cause more harm than any good at trying to make an example of him since it could turn many others that felt that he is a hero against the government.
Edward Snowden was a former contractor for the CIA that brought to light many espionage programs that the US government had. He was able to steal many reports and records about the various programs which he used to prove what he claim when he contacted reports about the issue. After the initial leak Snowden fled the country jumping from place to place looking for asylum finally finding it in Russia. During that time he also contacted various reporters on countries like China and Germany to report about other espionage programs that the US was running on those respective countries.
In the end what Snowden did was barely beneficial to the public since many probably have forgotten about it. It potentially did more harm to the security of the United States at the time but without any real information we can assume that other programs were created to combat the “harm” done by Snowden. Personally the first time I heard about I was a bit amaze about the whole thing but mostly because I had never thought about it before but seemed totally possible. The programs are considered an invasion of privacy but I don’t really have anything the government would want and anyway Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and any other big company has been doing the same for years. People like to trust all these big companies when in fact they have been collecting all your information for as long for their personal use without people really knowing either which is why the revelations did not really affect me in how I use social media or my phone.
I do believe that privacy is very important but at the same time any sort of security always has its price. Right now everything is becoming encrypted which is a step in the right direction for privacy but I know the government will find new ways to provide the national security at the level they want even if that means invading the people’s privacy.
Norman Morales 