Informative Speech

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     No one likes being spied on.We like to keep our doors locked, at least closed, stay out of security camera’s periphery, hate being recorded without permission, and we like to angle our phones so others can’t see what we’re doing. None of these mannerisms mean that we have anything to hide- we don’t do them because we want to keep something concealed. We do it for the sake of our personal privacy.

     What is this profound privacy though? Webster’s Dictionary defines privacy as “the quality of being apart from company or observation.”. Privacy has become a basic human desire since the dawn of man, and it’s something we’re accustomed to. Most of us like to keep our doors closed, making it a sort of barrier between ourselves and whatever we’re doing, and the rest of the world. That barrier is a sacred thing, a monument to our independence, but what if some force, without you knowing, was undermining that barrier?

     Edward J. Snowden was born in 1983 and raised solely in North Carolina. There, he attended public school until he dropped out in his sophomore year.  After that, his history gets murky, but according to Gale, he took classes at Anne Arundel Community College in 1999-2001 and later in 2004-2005 (“Edward Snowden”). He applied for jobs in computer science, and, despite his lack of any formal education in the subject, he demonstrated a gift for all things computer related- landing him a job with the government within both the CIA and the NSA. (Parenthesis) Snowden worked for the government for seven years, dutifully carrying out system administration and keeping everything in working order- but that didn’t mean he was morally okay with what they were doing. 

     Snowden himself said, in his book Permanent Record, that he had taken part in the most drastic change in American surveillance, from targeted surveillance on specific individuals to mass surveillance of entire populations (Snowden 1).  

     The fact was that the NSA and the CIA had been watching everyone-- through spying, monitoring and surveillance-- without anyone but insiders knowing. All of these programs were bred from the public chaos in post 9/11 America, and all in the interest of gathering data to better protect the country. However, the extent to which they went could be easily seen as immoral, so Snowden decided to do something about it.Snowden believed he had nowhere else to turn but the public, so he fearingly took a fabled flight to Hawaii, and then caught a plane to Hong Kong. He reported the first few documents of thousands he had saved and kept on his person- and then he flew to Russia and gained Asylum. 

     To this day, he remains in Russia, having been recently granted citizenship. To some, his actions are incredibly, irrationally, irritating. To some, his actions embody leadership and bravery. To some, he’s an icon of treason.. But to all, he remains a mystery. A man doing the wrong thing for the right reasons- how is he to be judged? Where is the line drawn between personal privacy and national security? Does a whistleblower like Snowden deserve respect or reward? No one can definitively say. But at the end of the day, as Roger Cohen, an editor for GALE said, history, the real sort, will judge him kindly. 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Cohen, Roger. "The Service of Snowden." New York Times, 28 June 2013, p. NA(L). Gale In Context: Global Issues,. Accessed 16 Sept. 2022

 

"Edward Snowden." Newsmakers, vol. 3, Gale, 2013. Gale In Context: High School.

 

Snowden, Edward. Permanent Record. Henry Holt and Company, Sep 17, 2019.