WEEK 4 EOC: Edward Snowden

The case of Edward Snowden has been a very interesting case to follow. I am torn in both directions on this issue. On one hand, what he did is quite illegal. But on the other hand, he has uncovered some very questionable practices conducted by the NSA, with their constitutionality to still be determined. We still don’t know the true scope of what Snowden has unearthed, and there might be a chance we will never find out exactly how much information he has. I am also quite surprised that Snowden managed to make it out of the country alive, unlike Michael Hastings, a journalist who was supposed to being an exposing story about the NSA. Hastings died in a car crash, but many suspect foul play by the American government. http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ethan-cox/2013/07/was-journalist-michael-hastings-murdered. Another interesting twist to the entire saga is President Obama canceling a meeting with Russia’s Prime Minister Putin, basing his refusal to meet on the fact that Russia granted Snowden asylum for at least one year’s time. Again, this really makes me wonder what type of information that Snowden has that would make Russia give him asylum and risk severely angering the United States. I look forward to watching the NSA and other secret parts of our government, to see how they react, to see if they retract statements as they have about the scope of PRISM and other NSA workings. How much freedom and privacy do we really have from our government? It almost feels like we’re living in a finely crafted illusion to keep us happy, but in reality our privacy is about the same as the Soviet Union’s was during its communist times.