Edward Snowden

A.k.a. the love of my life (sorry Ryan).

From the time I first heard about Edward Snowden and what he revealed about the NSA, I was blown away. Mostly because growing up I had always been exposed to the idea that this sort of thing possibly existed, so to see it confirmed as actually existing was insane. But also because of the fact that someone did what he did in a culture where people rarely step up and put themselves at risk for what is morally right, just amazes me.

So I really respect Edward Snowden to say the least.

He acted in a way and continues to act in a way that I truly believe people should. Revealing the truth should never be regarded as such a terrible and treasonous thing and a government that so strongly opposes that should be questioned, not the person to reveal the truth. Especially in America where truth, liberty and freedom are (or maybe… were?) at the supposed core of what the country stands for. So to see the government treat him the way they have been treating him is really… interesting.

This Ted’s Talk with Edward Snowden (via robot) is what made me respect Edward Snowden on a whole new level because before I didn’t really know a lot about why he was doing what he was doing before watching it.

One of the things he mentions in the video that really hit home to me was something I had believed before watching this. I always thought that if you aren’t doing anything incredibly suspicious on the internet you have no reason to fear the surveillance. But at the end of the video he mentions that “individuals are born behind closed doors” and that applies to the internet as well. People need that space to be allowed to freely be themselves to authentically grow as people. I never thought before of how damaging that would be to people and how much privacy does matter to individual growth, and how people and their governments should be fighting to protect that right. Not doing anything they desire to invade it.