Edward Snowden: An American Hero

In recent discussions of Edward Snowden, a controversial issue has been whether or not he was wrong for leaking government information. On the one hand, some argue that he is an American hero. From this perspective, it is a good thing that he exposed the inappropriate surveillance tactics of the American government. On the other hand, however, others argue that he is a traitor. From this perspective, he betrayed his country by leaking information to other countries. In the words of President Barack Obama, “If any individual who objects to government policy can take it into their own hands to publicly disclose classified information, then we will not be able to keep our people safe, or conduct foreign policy” (Mason). In sum, then, the
When all government employees sign this oath they are informed of the consequences they will receive if it is broken. Snowden stated that he did not sign an oath. When interviewed by the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman, Snowden told him that he did sign a document – but it was a condition of his employment. After looking into the government files, it has been proven that Snowden did take an oath. So not only did he leak classified information to other countries, but then he lies about whether or not he took an oath when he started working for the company where he got the classified information from. Even if he had only taken the agreement the punishment for his crimes would still be civil. The Oath of Office is the oath Snowden and all other American government officials take: “I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God” (Davidson). Snowden did not do his duty as a federal government employee. He did not keep his allegiance to his country, and any person that supports him is not keeping their allegiance
And I will agree with them up until it gets to the legal work he did not take the time to do to finalize his concerns. While Snowden did have every right to question the NSA's legal training process, he had to officially and most importantly, internally sign a complaint to his superiors about the actions. Also, NSA says that any email that Snowden sent stating this concern did not raise allegations about any wrongdoings (Reuters). NSA says that the one email they found was simply asking questions about the training that Snowden had received (Zetter). If you only ask a question, you cannot say that that is raising concerns. Snowden continuously lied to different reporters saying that he had officially reported his concerns. If the NSA does not have those complaints on file, then how could someone truly believe he sent in an official complaint? I believe that if Snowden had properly reported his complaints to his supervisor and tried every possible thing to make sure his voice was being heard, then he should go public. But since Snowden decided to go public right away, all of his supporters are okay with laziness. They are okay with taking the easy way out. Not only is he taking the easy way out by not taking the time to complain, but he is taking the easy way out by hiding in Russia, knowing we cannot go there to arrest him.