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Snowden's Argumentative Essay

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Is the government trustworthy and is whistleblowing an ethical practice are the two major questions that have been surfaced throughout the recent years. Just the past several years, Edward Snowden released unauthorized intelligence documents detailing the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance on its on population that led to numerous reactions and questions towards the agency’s activities. Meanwhile, the attitude towards Snowden’s action remain mixed. Many perceive him as a hero while others believe that he is a traitor for releasing the private disclosure. The question remain if the unauthorized disclosure of classified information was justified. In order to determine whether Snowden’s action was justified, this paper will analyze if his actions meet the criteria suggest by Rahul Sagar. …show more content…

His two major criteria that justified the leaks are if the person reveal a clear and convincing wrongdoing that pose a serious threat to the public interest, and if the person effort is to release the unauthorized disclosure that minimize the harm of the national security (Sagar, 13 ). He first argued that the whistleblower must be able to provide and convince the general public about the wrongdoings exercise by the public authority. This is important because there is always two sides of the argument and the whistleblower must specifically define the wrongdoings of the authority in order for the public to agree upon the violation. Sagar also argued that the leaker must limit the scope of the disclosure that pose minimal threat to the national security. In other words, the public security is more important than exposing the authority and the unauthorized documents must only pertain to the alleged wrongdoing (Lusher,

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