I NEED TO REPLY TO THIS

After reading the provided articles, I am kind of torn. On one hand Snowden was a hero to reveal what the NSA was doing. On the other hand, Snowden did violate his duty.

I think he was a hero for the most part. Snowden let the American people know that their right to privacy was being violated. It was being violated because the NSA was recording phone calls, looking at phone records and call longs, and they even had access to credit card numbers. If you think about it, the First Amendment was being violated by the NSA as well. When someone is listening in on your phone calls, the concept of free speech kind of goes out the window. How can it be free if there is a possibility of consequences? Thanks to Snowden the American people are now aware of these violations on the rights of the people and can now attempt to take precautions against it.

While Snowden was trying to help the American people by telling us what the NSA was doing, he still violated his duty of keeping sensitive information a secret and confidential. The NSA deals with very sensitive information regarding the security the nation. Revealing the fact that the NSA records things such as phone calls could have jeopardized any operations that the NSA were conducting. Also, even though Snowden read everything before leaking any information, that information was still confidential information. If you think about it, what Snowden did could be seen as sabotage because he potentially crippled the security of the country. For this, he is not a hero.