Snowden

My thoughts on Edward Snowden are similar to how I feel about whistleblowers. Even if it is done is the best of intentions it is still wrong. Snowden believes he was doing things for the right reasons, he honestly believes this. And so to him, he is justified. But if he truly believes in his cause, why is he not trying to communicate with the government directly. I don’t think he needs to return to the United States to receive his punishment as one of the articles suggests. But rather than going through reporter and writing pages online, why isn’t he making a more concerned effort to contact leaders in the NSA or the CIA or congressmen and congresswomen? He shouldn’t be going through these back channels but rather be going direct to the source and tying to work through the problems with the law so that he can return the United States as he says he will when he is satisfied with the reform. Just a note on this, I honestly don’t think he will ever return to the United States without facing life in prison. I don’t see the laws changing enough for that to be avoidable.

He had an extreme moral qualm about us targeting hospitals and schools as targets for our hacking sites. But one thing it doesn’t seem like he addressed was simply whether or not there was strategic value to stacking these sites. To me it seems logical that if we are targeting these places we probably have good reasons to – foreign enemies are probably transmitting through here to throw hackers off their trail. But in an attempt to stay on the same playing field we monitor these places as well. If we were never finding any useful information from these sites, then we would discontinue surveillance from these sites and concentrate our efforts on places where we were getting interesting information.

Next why did he choose to leak the information to news sources only. I think it would’ve been more effective and possibly scarier for congress to know what he had in his pocket but was unknown to the public. This would’ve motivated them to move quicker to change rules and stop him from publishing it. Now that the word is out, they have already covered their asses so they can lolligag around when changes will actually be made. The damage is done, they can wait to make the repairs because there is no huge leak in the roof – metaphorically of course.

Lastly to note on surveying my personal data, there is a saying out there that has the basic meaning of: if you’ve got nothing to hide, why hide? And that’s the way I feel. If I’m not doing anything illegal or menacing, I don’t care if the government sees it. Whether or not I want my mom to see it is another issue. But some stranger sitting at a desk who isn’t going to use my name or anything, I could care less. I have more important things on my plate to worry about.

Overall I think what he did was wrong. He is a traitor. He did harm United States politics, in my opinion. He should return to the States, and he should face his punishment. His honest and true reasons behind it do not justify the actions he took. It’s a sad truth in my opinion, but if you pardon him, I think it’s a slippery slope about who else and what else is pardon able.