Hero Or Villain
Is Edward Snowden a villain or a hero? To me he is a hero. According to dictionary.com, a hero is “a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities,” or “a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal.”
Edward Snowden is a man of distinguished courage in many ways. He, without any real notice of the true nature of his departure, left his friends, family, and life behind to give the American people a look into what really goes on within the National Security Agency (NSA). Snowden risked life in prison by handing over classified information that proved that the NSA was illegally taking surveillance and gathering information on people all over the world. He was courageous in a way that removed him from everything he had come to know in his life.
The second part of the definition of a hero is someone who is “admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.” Some people consider Edward Snowden a whistleblower or a trader, but to people like me, he is admired for his courage and bravery. He knew what the NSA was doing and instead of going along with it and keeping his job, he took action. He was aware that the NSA’s actions were wrong and unethical so he wanted the American people to know what the Prism Project was. The Prism Project is a “highly classified National Security Agency program that seizes records from Internet companies” (Braun et. al., 2013). He took this classified information and reached out to journalists and told them what was really going on because he knew the executive officials of the NSA were purposely lying to the government. If that is not considered a brave deed and noble qualities, I don’t know what is.
I think the Prism Project is unlawful and unethical because we as a people have nearly no control over what of our information is collected and stored for later use and/or profit. In the movie Citizenfour (2014), Snowden talks about encrypting emails and documents and so on because that will make information secure, but the fact of the matter is that the majority of Americans and people in the world do not know how to do things like this. Snowden refers to it as being easy for people like him but difficult for those that have little experience with encryptions. It is rather unfair for the rest of the world to be so vulnerable.
Similarly, we are pretty much forced to enter terms and agreements on nearly every internet transaction, application used, and website entered. Although some people actually take the time to read the fine print, most fail to even read the first sentence. These agreements generally state that certain information will be stored and possibly sold to a third party for research, but the people signing onto them usually do not know what will be taken. We are not protected from things like this and for the most part, we do not really have a choice whether or not we agree. We just have to. Our society has become so driven by technology that surviving without it is almost unfathomable. An option should be given to decide what information can be gathered if any at all. We should have control over what we do and who can see.
I am thankful for Edward Snowden because he opened a lot of people’s eyes with his heroic actions. He allowed people to understand that the NSA and other companies are always watching and gathering information about us. Unfortunately, some believe that he committed treason and jeopardized our national security with the information that was leaked. They would say that he put us all at risk of terrorist attacks. To refute what some may think, I would point them to the movie’s website. According to citizenfourfilm.com (2014), Edward Snowden provided “evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy.” He showed us that our own government spies on us regularly without us knowing and without our consent. How can he put are national security in jeopardy when we do not even have control over what others know about us? Either way we are not safe. The government has no problem using what they know to control the American people. More and more we live in a police state and realistically, our government is terrorizing us. We are afraid of what we lookup and where we go because the NSA always knows. They can find where we are and figure out what we do on a daily basis. So, how does that not show that our national security is in jeopardy? We have no control.
Another argument that can be made is that people have nothing to hide. I totally get that and respect that point of view. I believe that I too have nothing to hide from anyone. I am not looking into illegal activities nor do I involve myself with any type of suspicious activity. However, I believe in the right of privacy. I, like so many others, gave no consent knowingly to agencies like the NSA to collect information about me. The only people that should know about my life are myself and those I share it with. I may not have anything to hide, but I do like to keep my life to myself.
I am glad to have watched this film about Edward Snowden and the journey he took exposing the NSA surveillance invasion. I feel as though he helped reaffirm how I feel about living in a country that is called free but is not nearly as free as we think. We are pawns in this country controlled by the government. Our information is gathered, stored, and sold to the highest bidder. Some companies or agencies will use our information to sell us goods and services, while others are only looking to store what they can to use it against us. There is no control to what people can find about us. It scares me to think that at any moment someone out there knows exactly where I am at and what I am doing. Hopefully, Snowden relaying the information that he knew to the people scared them a little bit too. If we are more aware of what we are doing then maybe we can combat the corruption and secrecy within the government. Maybe our information not be collected and used for unknown purposes. This is a big maybe.
Bibliography
“Secret to Prism Program: Even Bigger Data Seizure.” The Big Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.
“CITIZENFOUR | About.” CITIZENFOUR. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.
Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 15 June 2015.
