Edward Snowden: Criminal or Whistleblower?

Edward Snowden is a whistleblower from the 21st century. Snowden was a man who had outstanding IT skills and eventually landed a job at the NSA. He gained access to numerous files that showed the crimes the NSA was committing against its own people and against other countries as well. They were spying on people’s privacy and claimed that it was for the national security that would benefit all people. Snowden said that he could not let this

He revealed through this program, telecommunication companies like Verizon and AT&T would hand over information to the government to analyze phone calls. They would analyze things like the duration and location of the calls, telephone numbers, and serial numbers on the phone. Through the PRISM program, Internet programs would hand over information to the government who would then have access to emails, videos, photos, and chat services (Clobes). Since his release of the information, Edward Snowden fled to Russia and is currently living there. He faces two counts of violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property (Finn and Horwitz). Many people think these surveillance programs are unconstitutional and are breaking the Fourth Amendment, which says people have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and

On June 6, 2013, The Guardian published a story about the National Security Agency's (NSA) secret Internet surveillance program, PRISM (Greenwald and MacAskill 2013). The story was based on documents leaked by one of the most successful whistle-blowers in American history, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents that Snowden has released up to this time have shown the NSA to be heavily engaged in the collection of personal Internet activity, bulk collection of telephone "metadata," and other forms of surveillance that have brought U.S. intelligence practices into question.

“Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded,” said former NSA information technology contractor, Edward Snowden, as quoted in an article by CNN political reporter, Jeremy Diamond. Despite his low position in the National Security Agency, Snowden caught the world’s eye in 2013 when he leaked documents revealing the NSA and FISC’s plans for mass domestic surveillance in the United States. His decision to reveal classified documents sent the nation into widespread outrage. The NSA had access to not only metadata (records of activity), but also content containing personal information that Americans rightfully assumed was protected by laws such as the Stored Communications Act (SCA) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act

Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the National Intelligence Agency surveillance extension is some of the most comprehensive news in recent history. It has incited a ferocious debate over national security and information privacy. As the U.S government deliberates various reform proposals, arguments continue on whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor (Simcox, 2015).

Edward Snowden was a man who worked for the NSA and exposed all of the information that the NSA was accessing from U.S. citizens and those people around the world. Through his actions Snowden did break the law, “He has been charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence” (BBC News). Even though Snowden knew he would be charged for his actions, he still wanted to do the right thing and expose to the people what the NSA was doing. Snowden was looking at the information that was being collected and realized it was not necessary to keep Americans safe. Instead, collecting this information was abruptly digging into their lives and going against their rights as human beings. When this information was exposed, the citizens wanted the government and the NSA to ultimately change what exactly they were accessing and how they were accessing it. This event that Snowden

On June 6th, 2013, the Guardian and the Washington Post have published reports on the CIA's program called Prism. The information was provided by a former employee of the US National Security Agency, Edward Snowden. According to the confirmed data, the largest world companies, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and YouTube actively cooperated with the secret services. Many of them reported the information and data about their users not only in the US, but also in other countries of the world. Thus, the special services were able to access our e-mail messages, social media publications, contact lists, documents stored in the computers, audio and video files.

In 2013, word spread rapidly through the United States and the rest of the world that the National Security Agency had access to files that the general public was unaware of due to these reforms. Edward Snowden, a former Central Intelligence Agent, leaked the truth about the NSA’s conduct to reporters and newspapers nationwide. The files that Snowden was referring to include call records and contents, emails, Facebook posts, instant messages, and Google searches. The NSA also hacked into various servers around the world, breaking some foreign countries’ laws. Those servers even included those of allied countries like Germany and other Western democracies. While they believed that their actions were technically legal within U.S. law, they were blatantly breaking the laws of foreign

Former NSA agent, Edward Snowden, empowered U.S. citizens by releasing top secret governemnt files documenting the government’s unwarranted, illegal surveillance on ally countries and unknowing american citizens. His act of courage brought an era of awareness to the masses of the unconstitutional acts of the sovereign. Today, U.S. citizens can thank Snowden for confirming previously far-fetched conspiracy theories and for giving the people a chance to fight back against oppressive government tactics.

Snowden is believed to have gone through the documents before giving them to MacAskill and Greenwald, Snowden here states, "I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest. There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over". The NSA files held information on confidential programs such as PRISM, Bullrun, Carnivore and ECHELON. PRISM is a surveillance program in which the government has partnered up with nine different private companies in order to have access to online data. These companies include, Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, Dropbox, Youtube, Skype and AOL.

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (N.S.A) subcontractor turned whistle-blower is nothing short of a hero. His controversial decision to release information detailing the highly illegal ‘data mining’ practices of the N.S.A have caused shockwaves throughout the world and have raised important questions concerning how much the government actually monitors its people without their consent or knowledge. Comparable to Mark Felt in the Watergate scandals, Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers, Edward Snowden joins the rank of infamous whistleblowers who gave up their jobs, livelihood, and forever will live under scrutiny of the public all in the service to the American people. Edward Snowden released information detailing the

Whistleblowing is when an employee or member of an organization discloses illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices of the organization to someone who is capable of taking action and impacting the situation (Near & Miceli 1985). In June 2013, Edward Snowden blew the whistle on NSA’s extensive internet and phone surveillance activities that he felt were illegitimate. Snowden worked for the NSA through subcontractor Booz Allen Hamilton as a senior analyst, and during his time with the organization, he collected top-secret documents regarding NSA’s surveillance practices with the intention of disclosing them to the public. He then went to Hong Kong and disclosed those documents to the Guardian journalists. Soon after, newspapers began printing those documents detailing the widespread surveillance activities of the NSA through programs such as PRISM. It can be said that the people affected by this case include Snowden himself, the US/British government, NSA/ GCHQ, and all people in the world especially American citizens.

Glenn Greenwald, an investigative journalist, writes an account of his interactions with Edward Snowden and how together they exposed the American government’s surveillance system in one of the biggest news stories in recent history, all in the book No Place to Hide. Greenwald tells how he came into contact with the former National Security Agency employee and the series of events that followed once he found out Snowden had obtained thousands of top secret government documents.

In early 2013 a man by the name of Edward Joseph Snowden began leaking classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents to media outlets, which in turn ended up in public ears. These documents, mainly involving intelligence Snowden acquired while working as an NSA contractor, are mostly related to global surveillance programs run by the NSA. This has raised multiple ethical issues ranging from national security, information privacy and the ethics behind whistleblowing in general. The reach and impact of these leaks have gone global and have put in question the very government that protects us as well as the extent of the public’s rights on privacy. Various foreign

Edward Snowden is a United States citizen and former employee of the National Security Agency (NSA). Snowden leaked information about the NSA to the media in 2013 and is now in Russia where he was recently granted three years of asylum. The NSA uses cryptology and others forms of information gathering to enable various networks to make advantageous decisions for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances. The NSA operates undetected by civilians, and uses global monitoring so broadly defined that it has allowed for unscrupulous behavior that was witnessed by contracted employee, Edward Snowden. Snowden believed that as the public gained knowledge of the illegal intelligence gathering by the government of domestic citizens, and abroad, he would gain protection from the public. Snowden did receive protection from people including powerful lawyers, journalists, and privacy advocates. Analysis of the Edward Snowden case