Reading 06 Response

My initial reaction to Snowden as an angsty and rebellious Junior/Senior in high school was that of pride. Heck yeah! Take a stab against the government and open the eyes of people that think that living in the United States guarantees we have a government that isn't like the depicted "Big Brother" mentality in Russia, China, or North Korea and show them how corrupt and vigilant our government really is. I also originally thought that he was some type of hacker that got this information from infiltrating servers and gaining access to top NSA/FBI/CIA security credentials while working for the government. Since reading the articles and Yes, Edward Snowden Is a Traitor in particular, my ideas on the man and his actions have changed. The mentioned article gives a really good breakdown of how Snowden should have acted if he were to be considered a true whistleblower and hero to the American people. The author made the points that if Snowden was truly acting in the fashion of a whistle blower he would have chosen more specific information that touched only on impingement of the rights of the privacy of Americans instead of releasing a ton of random information which could possibly hurt the U.S. and he would not have stood up for his actions and not tried to run and hide. The information which he leaked did help uncover some unconstitutional actions which were being done by the NSA and other government agencies, but it also gave out a lot of information about how the NSA works and how their operations function which is what keeps us safe from foreign attacks. After having leaked some of that sensitive information, Snowden in a way compromised the safety of the USA as well as the integrity of U.S. intelligence agencies. Though his actions could be detrimental to National Security I believe that there is some amount of moral/ethical positivity to be seen in this situation because in the end Snowden really did show how corrupt our government can be, he just did it in a cowardly and someone irresponsible manner. The information which he released definintely benefitted the public because it opened the eyes of the ignorant that believe our government is perfect and it showed me just how corrupt the US government is. The NSA was doing things that would have had Benjamin Franklin turning in his grave. After this news a couple years ago and the FBI hacking an iPhone after Apple refusing to create a backdoor has cemented the idea in my mind that there is no safety in information period.