With a friend, fellow worker or family member, discuss the case of Edward Snowden, a computer specialist who had worked for the CIA but who came to believe the U.S. government overstepped its bounds in spying on the American people (and others) the way it does and so he leaked top secret U.S. documents to the news media so the public could know. The May 2014 edition of Vanity Fair calls Snowden "the most important whistle-blower of modern times ... whose disclosures will reverberate for decades to come" (Vanity Fair, 2014, Barrough, Andrew, & Sullivan, p.153).

Was this action of Snowden an act of virtue as a courageous whistle blower or the act of a traitor? What virtue or vice do you see in the actions of Edward Snowden? How should he be treated by the American people and their government for what he did and why?