Edward Snowden: a Vehicle for Change or a Traitor?

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Edward Snowden: A Vehicle for Change or a Traitor? Antigone is a tragic as well as a pungent play written by Scphocles, which tells a story about the Athenian Greek era and their stringent state laws which infringes on individual rights and freedoms. And this theme is of course played out between Creon, who refuses to adhere to Antigone’s (the State) decree, by disobeying the state to dictate to her as to what she is allowed to do with her brother’s body (Antigone). In a similar situation in our modern time, is the Snowden controversy. Edward Snowden was an ex National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who leaked classified government information to journalists about the agency’s domestic spying activities which he believed to be an abuse of NSA’s authority and illegal(McCutcheon). He maintains that his revelations were for the good of the public because the government was over reaching and trampling on our Bill of Rights. And as a result, some people see him as a hero while others have branded him as a traitor. Although Snowden sees himself as a good citizen and a force for good, I on the contrary, take the position that his actions has put the nation at a disadvantage against our fight with the terrorist and therefore, that makes him a traitor in my eyes. To begin with, Snowden’s revelations made know to the public that the NSA has been collecting phone records on millions of US citizens as well as running an electronic surveillance program code name PRISM. This secret program allows the agency to access the servers of major US internet companies and collect data on individuals’ web activities. Hence it violates our privacy laws, fourth amendment’s rights just to name a few. In an extensive article from Issues and Controversies, after the 9/11 terrorist attack, NSA embarked on broad surveillance programs which has kept the homeland safe from such

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