Edward Snowden, the American Hero

Almost all of America’s true champions at one time stood up to a government of some sort, from Martin Luther King right down to George Washington. Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old systems administrator by trade, will likely be added to that list when history reflects on current events. By leaking information on widespread private data theft and spying at the National Security Agency, he may have stopped a dystopian nightmare from coming to pass in America, just in the nick of time.

As it happens, the NSA has been conducting spying operations on American citizens and people across the world. In fact, it has been confirmed that all calls made by Verizon customers have been logged, and a new system called PRISM has been deployed to track and record emails, video chat sessions, file transfers, geolocation data, social media communications, and more. Worse still, these broad, sweeping spy operations likely affected everyone and were not limited to individuals suspected of terrorism. Now, the government has begun its campaign to demonize Edward Snowden as a traitor, despite the fact that he was defending Americans’ privacy, and no official has announced a single indictment of any decision maker associated with the criminal private data theft and spying that took place at the NSA. Check out a video interview featuring Snowden’s side of the story below, and let’s talk about his selfless heroism after the jump.

What Would You Have Done?

Edward Snowden had a dream life. He had a six-figure salary, worked and lived in Hawaii’s tropical conditions, and enjoyed a budding relationship with a beautiful dancer. However, a contract job with the NSA forced him to make a choice between having an ideal quality of life and retaining the ability to look at himself in the mirror without feeling ashamed. As a systems administrator for the NSA, he was given access to extraordinary levels of private information on American citizens, most of which had been stolen from unwitting users of cell phones, email services, and social media websites.

After noticing the fact that data theft had taken place, he made arrangements to move to Hong Kong and reported the wrongdoing to the media. He was careful to hold back information that might affect national security or the privacy of individuals. Some government officials claim that it was treasonous for him to report NSA activities to the media — that he should have reported it internally to the government. The problem with this theory is that whistleblowers are often punished for coming forward, and their testimonies are typically ignored. The NSA has no incentive to police itself, and it was already being run by criminals who conducted private data theft, possibly on virtually every internet and cell phone user in the entire world.

Did Edward Snowden Just Prevent America from Becoming a Dystopian Nightmare?

Prior to Snowden’s revelations, most Americans were blissfully unaware of the degree to which post-9/11 intelligence techniques had slipped out of control. Now, unlikely bedfellows like Michael Moore, Glenn Beck, and Mark Levin are all calling for an end to these warrantless, widespread intelligence dragnets. Without Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing, this debate never would have taken place.

Is America on a path to a dystopian nightmare scenario along the lines of Brave New World or Nineteen Eighty-Four? If it is, then Edward Snowden just threw his body on the metaphorical railroad tracks in an attempt to put it to a stop. The public at large is now loudly demanding that these practices be put to an end, and this will be Snowden’s legacy.

In America, rebels are our icons. Edward Snowden is in grave danger. He could be arrested or killed for what he did for all of us. We hope for his safety and appreciate his courage. Without question, American hero Edward Snowden is our Rebel of the Week.

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