How Does Civil Disobedience Affect Society

We all wonder the same questions about what is truly a free country, where the people get the say in what happens in their lives. Living in the United States, we get the ability to peacefully express our distaste in the law of the government through civil disobedience. However, it is very controversial about whether or not causing civil disobedience leads to a negative or positive influence on society. Civil disobedience has given society many positive influences. Much of history has seen good come from civil disobedience like Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights movements, Martin Luther’s 95 theses in 1517, the American Revolution, and so on. Many civil disobedient events in history shaped how today’s world emerged, and with that helped
Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks saw their freedoms and participated in the civil rights movements across the country, causing civil disobedience in the face of freedom for a people who were discriminated against everyday in the country. Rosa Parks once said, “You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.” Parks here was describing what it means to be disobedient for the correct reasons. Civil disobedience is meant to occur to cause positive outcomes. Like here where Rosa Parks’ disobedience was meant to cause the destruction of the segregations laws in the United States at the time. Civil disobedience is best described by what Parks described saying, “I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity - for all people.” This is the precise reason civil disobedience is beneficial for
Edward Snowden caused possibly one of the most controversial disobedient cases in American history, where he leaked information about N.S.A. about how they would collect phone logs, messages, and internet social media with no need for warrants or search reasons or permits. The controversial issue here is whether or not our government should be allowed to have the information about our personal lives without our consent. Snowden made it clear that the government agencies would do this and collect this data without reasoning. He described the leeway that the government was given over monitoring and intercepting any messages over phone, texts, or online after 9/11. He only told the public the extent of the government’s intrusion on everyone’s lives. He did not expose any spies, any data, passwords, or names that are crucial to the government’s defense. Snowden’s actions are controversial that he left the country, but he knew with the impending leak that he would be sought after for treason as a criminal. However, since he did not leak any honestly, crucially concealed government facts, his civil disobedience was in the interest of the public. He believed that the extent that the government was spying on the world and it’s own citizens that everyone be informed about how little privacy any one person truly