In 2013, a contractor working for the National Security Agency (NSA) travelled from Hawaii to Hong Kong to meet with British journalists from the Guardian. He presented to the journalists hard evidence that exposed a highly intrusive and far-reaching electronic surveillance program that was being utilized by the United States Intelligence Community, ostensibly for counter-terrorism reasons. The story quickly caused a lot of controversy as it was quickly picked up by mainstream news outlets throughout the world. The Obama administration attempted to have Edward Snowden extradited to the United States to face criminal charges, but Snowden ultimately escaped to Russia where he and his girlfriend were granted asylum.
From this point on, Snowden became a highly polarizing figure. Some people hated him and viewed him as a traitor because he exposed a surveillance program that was being used for national security purposes, while others loved him because the program he exposed was technically illegal and was being used to spy on hundreds of millions of people throughout the world, the overwhelming majority of whom had nothing to do with terrorism at all. While Snowden did expose a large, illegal electronic surveillance program that was being used to spy on an extremely large number of innocent people without their knowledge or consent, there is some question on what Snowden's motives were.
Snowden claims that he "blew the whistle" on the illegal surveillance program out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty, and that he really had no choice because his internal complaints about it to the higher ups went ignored. Others, however, are more skeptical due to rumors that he had cooperated with Chinese and Russian intelligence agents while in Hong Kong, and he ultimately took refuge in Russia. Snowden has claimed that he originally intended to seek asylum in Latin America, but was stopped in Moscow because the United States revoked his passport so he couldn't board his connecting flight to Cuba, trapping him in Russia and forcing him to seek asylum there. Other sources, however, claim that Snowden had planned to seek asylum in Russia all along.
While Snowden has extensively condemned the invasions of privacy committed by the American, British, and Australian governments, he has been relatively silent on abuses committed by the Russian government and has said nothing about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Furthermore, he was recently gifted Russian citizenship by Vladimir Putin and swore his allegiance to the Russian Federation up receiving his Russian passport.
What are your thoughts on Edward Snowden? Is he a hero who exposed an illegal surveillance program out of a sense of patriotism? Or is he a traitor who was just helping the Russians and Chinese?
I honestly am not sure what to think of him. He did a good thing by exposing the illegal surveillance program, but the allegations that he was actively cooperating with Chinese and Russian intelligence are certainly unsettling. On the other hand, his apparent loyalty to Russia now and his refusal to condemn Russia's poor human rights and privacy record could be explained by him simply trying to keep himself and his family (his wife and two kids) out of trouble. Needless to say, I am conflicted.
What do you say?
Have you considered a career in comedy?
