Is Edward Snowden a Traitor or a Hero?
In this research paper, we would like to talk about the controversy that chases the society on every corner of the 21st century and how our beloved Social Media can become a reason of the risk. Also, the main topic of our research is a life story of one of the most controversial personalities alive nowadays. He is a true superhero. The authorities hate him, simple people rely on him. The man who was not afraid to disclose the confidential data of the US government in order to protect the people of the whole wide world. One may say that he is a traitor the other can compare him to Prometheus and his information can be observed as a fire that he presented to people. His name is Edward Snowden and here we will try to Support one of the sides and get to know who is he a traitor of a hero?
Key words: Edward Snowden, controversy, betrayal, heroism, NSA, CIA.
Is Edward Snowden a Traitor or a Hero?
Introduction
The topic of this research deals with one of the most if not the most controversial case in the world - the case of Edward Snowden. A man who had such a huge package of information that made all the US government and secret agencies kneel. The one who was so strong or so stupid that disclose the state secrets. The one who shook the humanity and spread dissension. And the one who still does not sustain punishment.
Controversy of the Internet
The twenty-first century is a century of controversy. There is nothing that can be done without raising up a burning discussion. Every single idea, action, decision, film, book, news, everything will be discussed all over the whole wide world and as usual, the world will split into 3 categories: those who support the action, those who are against, and those who do not care. And people will always think that they are in charge of finding the answer to the question even if they have no connection to it. But you can argue that this is not a 21st-century thing. There always existed people opinions and they usually differed. The thing is - 21st century made a great step ahead to a wide world privity. With the help of the Internet, news travels faster than people can actually share them. That is why even the smallest issue in the Third World countries will arise a great discussion. People privacy is a thing that becomes even more important nowadays. The problem is Social Media activity. People were always sure that their privacy is under control and every single profile is protected and cannot be used in the one's own need. And what if it is not true and every person's activity on the Internet is under the watch of authorities? What if your every message is registered and can be used against you? The answers are: yes, no, I don't care.
At first, the Internet was a place people were so obsessed with because there was no central authority which means that people were under no control enjoying such a desirable freedom. The freedom that, of course, caused, even more, controversy. Then came the era of Social Media. At first, Social Media was a safe place where people could communicate, share news, knowledge, ideas. And everything was perfect, people were free, and everybody was satisfied. Until, there came an idea that a person's profile with all the photos, information, and messages can be monitored by the government. It makes people feel uncomfortable and afraid on their own accounts. There was no freedom anymore. Without even having a proof the idea was terrible. Still, with the development of new technologies Social Media became more and more popular. According to Mckinsey Global Institute in 2012, there were more than 1,5 billion users of social media and 80% of them were active everyday participants. While all the people enjoy using social media for communication, different companies decided to get the advantage of it. Now, your activity can be a reason of the job loose, burglary, public embarrassment, or even sentence to imprisonment. Everything that you post can be used against you. Freedom is not what it seemed to be. All the social media sites have their own policies that do not allow some content or notify that the information you posts is not protected in any way. That is why people should keep in mind that they are responsible for the content on their profiles (Michael Cross., 2014). But what will people do if they will get to know that all their emails and private messages are read by the government?
How did it begin?
Edward Snowden Born June 21, 1983, in Elizabeth City situated in North Carolina. His father coastal guard service and mother is a lawyer Elizabeth Snowden, now divorced. In his family, Edward is the youngest child, he has an older sister Jessica works as a lawyer at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington. Snowden's childhood and adolescence took place in his native town, where the future special agent of the CIA and the US NSA received his secondary education. In 1999, the Snowden family moved to Maryland. There Edward enrolled at the Anne Arundel County College, which passed the preparatory courses for university entrance. However, due to health issues, he was unable to complete the course and that is why he had to continue his studies remotely. Still, this did not stop Snowden and he obtained his master's degree at Liverpool University.
In 2004, Edward Snowden went to serve in the US Armed Forces as a reservist. From there, he was the reserve a few months after receiving serious injuries in both legs. Since then, the biography Snowden was directly related to information technology, programming, and IT-technologies, in which the guy showed professionalism and a special talent, despite the absence of formal verification of the qualification of a specialist (Harding, 2014).
Edward Snowden's career
While climbing the career ladder Edward Snowden was sure and swift. The first skills a young specialist received at the NSA, working in the security structure of one of the secret facilities at the University of Maryland. Just a few years Snowden was hired by the CIA, and therefore under diplomatic cover was sent to Geneva as US ambassador to the UN. There his responsibilities included ensuring the security of computer networks. According to Edward's words, it was the work in Switzerland, that opened his eyes to the fact that he was a special link to the US intelligence services, bringing people more harm than good. In 2009, a programmer resigned from the CIA and started to work in cooperating with the NSA consultant companies which performed the duties of outside contractors. The work here mostly disappointed Snowden. The actions of the US National Security Agency made everything clear and made him get rid of the illusions about the legitimate actions of the government in relation to the whole world. In this regard, special agents of The NSA adopted a decision to act according to the behest of his heart and expose people to important secret information denouncing the US intelligence agencies in the mass surveillance of people. It was 2013 but Snowden thought about this since 2008. Still, he hoped that with the advent of Barack Obama, the situation in the US Secret Service will change. Soon it became evident to the programmer that the new president of the USA continues the policy of his predecessors and does not intend to interfere with the activities of "spies" (Harding, 2014).
The exposing of US intelligence
Snowden's work on the exposing of US intelligence crimes started in 2013. Then the former agent of the CIA and the NSA got in touch with the movie producer Laura Poitras, an American journalist Glenn Greenwald and publicist Gellmanom Barton who announced that he was ready to provide important secret information. Communication with Snowden was led through the encrypted e-mail messages with the help of which the IT specialist gave up about 200 thousand classified documents, the status of secrecy which was much higher than even previously published materials on WikiLeaks concerning the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iran. Edward Snowden disclosed the facts which contained the information about the comprehensive surveillance of US intelligence agencies in more than 60 countries and 35 government agencies across Europe. Also, Edward declassified information about the program PRISM, by means of which special agents conducted mass surveillance of negotiations of Americans and foreigners through the Internet and telephone (Patricia Smith, 2014). According to Edward, the PRISM program allowed The NSA to listen to the voice and video chat, read emails and browse photos, track files and possess all the information of social network users. This program was attended by a number of popular services, namely Microsoft (Hotmail), Facebook, Google (Gmail), Skype, Yahoo !, AOL, YouTube, Apple, and Paltalk (Cassidy, 2013). Also, one more sensational exposure of the Snowden was a secret decree of the FISC court, according to which the largest mobile operator Verizon was required daily to transmit The NSA metadata of all calls made within the US. On the background of this resolution, journalists have suggested that other US mobile operators could be brought to such liabilities, too.
Besides, thanks to Snowden people became aware of the existence of the tracking program Tempora (MacAskill, Borger, Hopkins, Davies, & Ball, 2013), which leads to intercept Internet traffic and phone calls to the maximum extent, and an integrated iPhone software that allows you to monitor all user activity. One of the most resonant disclosures of Snowden was the disclosure of the fact of interception of telephone conversations of the USA intelligence agents of foreign politicians and officials who took part in the summit of Big Twenty, held in 2009 in London. The number of victims of illegal actions of the USA and NSA included many well-known politicians from all around the world. According to the Pentagon, Snowden has more than 1.7 million secret documents, the majority of which relate to the vital information about the operations of the US Army and Navy, Marines and Air Force, which in the opinion of journalists will be gradually disclosed to attempt to inflict maximum damage to the national interests the United States and NSA.
Criminal prosecution
After deciding to disclose his identity, Edward Snowden realizing that for his action he would have to pay a heavy price, he set off on the run. First, the programmer was hiding in Hong Kong, where he planned to seek political asylum. After the announcement of the official accusations by US authorities in the theft and disclosure of confidential state secrets, Edward the whistleblower for some unknown reason appeared in the Moscow in the airport "Sheremetyevo". he had to stay in the transit area of the airport because he had no Russian visa. According to media reports, a programmer met a car with diplomatic plates of Venezuela, which took Snowden in an unknown direction. Presumably, Edward had the intention to move to South America through Moscow. However, on June 30, 2013, he asked for political asylum in Russia, and the very next day, President Vladimir Putin has allowed Edward to remain in the country, under the condition that he would stop subversion of US intelligence. At the same time, Edward Snowden gave US authorities a petition for clemency on the grounds that he did not see anything wrong and unlawful in his actions. US authorities have rather a contradictory attitude to the Snowden revelations, they believed that the programmer must be brought to justice. US intelligence officers believe that the act of a former agent of CIA and NSA was rigid and illegal, which humiliated the US intelligence service and cause an irreparable damage.
Thus, is he a hero or a traitor?
Considering information mentioned above we can see that the situation could not possibly have a simple yes or no question. And different nations have various thoughts according to this case. One can support the idea of traitor the others will say that he was the one who showed the US real face. And it is true we came back to the notion of controversy. We can clearly see two sides of a coin. On the one side, we have the authority of the USA, a plan that was developing during lots of years and was working undercover even longer. The only thing that US authority can do is to blame Edward in spying and high treason. As well as we can understand those Americans who thinks that his actions should be considered as a betrayal of the Motherland. One more disadvantage of Edward's actions can be the disclosure of covert operations of the US Army which obviously did a great damage to the years of work.
On the other hand, we have a bunch of people who support Edward Snowden and even admire him. They considered him to be some kind of Messiah who was brave and conscientious enough to accomplish such a great disclosure. It is also true. A lot of people won't be hurt because they know now that all their personal information, private messages, and even calls are under the control of the government. They know that their employers are monitoring their Social Media profiles. They say 'Forewarned is forearmed'. Considering all the arguing between both sides in 2014 Two Norwegian politicians supported him as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, those two voices could not make any difference against the other five voices in the panel. Still, those voices were counted and the world got to know about this. A lot of people supported this idea saying that he did more for peace in the world that anyone. Still, it did not happen. But, what happened to the freedom loving Americans? State - is not a country, and its interests do not always match the interests of citizens. The resulting paranoia after 9/11 has led to the fact that "freedom-loving Americans" believe that the safety can be more important than freedom. They gave up their freedom in exchange for a dubious guarantee of safety. Anyone can stumble on this tempting selection - and the Americans were not an exception, despite the famous words of Benjamin Franklin, one of the presidents. He told his people that if between freedom and safety they would choose safety they eventually lose both. And we believe it is exactly what is happening right now.
In a nutshell, our world is full of right and wrong decisions and it is people who have to decide what is wrong and what is right. The democracy was chosen in order to stay as close to the affairs of the country as possible and not to be under the sharp and mistrustful eye of your protector.
References
Cassidy, J. (2013). Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero - The New Yorker. The New Yorker. Retrieved 22 July 2016, from http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-edward-snowden-is-a-hero
Harding, L. (2014). How Edward Snowden went from loyal NSA contractor to whistleblower. the Guardian. Retrieved 22 July 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/edward-snowden-intelligence-leak-nsa-contractor-extract
MacAskill, E., Borger, J., Hopkins, N., Davies, N., & Ball, J. (2013). GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications. the Guardian. Retrieved 22 July 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa
Michael Cross.,. (2014). Social Media Security: Leveraging Social Networking While Mitigating Risk. Syngress.
Smith, Patricia (2014) EDWARD SNOWDEN: Traitor or Hero? Scholastic Update. SLUP 8.
Volume 146; Issue 9; ISSN: 15251292 Retrieved 22 July 2016, from https://global-factiva-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/ga/default.aspx
