Edward Snowden hero or traitor

Abstract

Edward Snowden is well known for making one of the biggest leaks in the world’s history. Snowden was an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA), where he discovered that there was a surveillance program that the government conducted on its citizens without their consent. Working together with journalists from The Guardian and the Washington Post, they leaked the information about the surveillance program to the world, exposing the secret government operation. This paper will try and find out the benefits that came with the leak by Snowden.

1.     Introduction

In June 2013, the journalists who worked together with Snowden from the Washington Post and The Guardian started realizing articles on the mass surveillance program by the government known as PRISM, which unveiled the government’s secret. These articles revealed information about PRISM and how the NSA conducted it. To legitimize the articles done by the journalists, Snowden, on June 9^th, 2013, appeared in a video interview with The Guardian and revealed his identity to the world (Alhinnawi et al. 2015). Through this, Snowden was able to explain everything to the public, which gave a clear view of the surveillance program. It also gave credibility to the articles written by journalists.

Following this revelation, the public around the world and mostly in the USA were angry with the NSA. It was against the constitution of the country to access a person’s private information without his consent or the court’s order. The surveillance program had access to people’s text messages, phone call records, IMEI, emails, and other personal information that one sent via SMS or online platforms (Snowden, 2019). The revelation of PRISM also brought to light other programs like the BULLRUN and the Boundless Informant, which also carried out public surveillance. This action resulted in the public wondering how much information the government has about them and what are the other programs that the government is running without the public knowing.

2.      Research methodology

This qualitative research aims at providing a clear outline of the effects that Snowden’s whistleblowing had on the European community and the USA citizens and government. After the revelation by Snowden was out in public, the USA citizens were agitated with the government, and this resulted in them losing trust in the government, which affected peace and order. On the other hand, the PRISM saga affected the relationship between the USA and the European Union as it was discovered that the PRISM program ran surveillance on European citizens.

2.1 Research question

Is Edward Snowden a traitor or a hero?

To help answer the question the following questions should be answered

• Was the NSA spying on the citizens the right thing to do?
• Was it necessary for Snowden to leak the information or whistleblow against the government?
• How did the reveal affect the citizens and the government?

3.     Findings

After carrying out a few interviews concerning the research question, it was discovered that the public had mixed feelings about what Snowden did, but 80% of the respondents thought that he did a good thing. While the rest 20% thought that it was not necessary to leak such sensitive information as it threatened the security of the country.

4.     Summary/conclusion

Although it is hard to measure the definite impact the Snowden revelation has had in the country, it is clear that there is a change in the way the government does its activities. This is evident as the government and the private sector had to formulate and adopt new legislation on privacy and access to personal data. The revelation also opened up the citizen’s eyes on the value of their privacy, which has encouraged them to be more careful about what they share through the internet or any other unsecured networks. Due to the high number of respondents thinking that Snowden did a good thing for the public, it is only fair to conclude that Snowden was considered a hero for many people.