Edward Snowden Says the of highly classified documents and leaked them to the public after he became fed up NSA Is Hurting Our Country with the NSA’s overreaching invasions of privacy.

He believes that the value of basic privacy is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous . "I don't see myself as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self- interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and Back in 2010, many in the world were creativity." introduced to WikiLeaks, after an army "I really want the focus to be on these intelligence analyst named Bradley Manning documents and the debate which I hope this (now known as Chelsey Manning) turned will trigger among citizens around the globe over classified documents to anonymous about what kind of world we want to live organization. Manning leaked in." He added: "My sole motive is to inform over 700,000 documents relating to the U.S. the public as to that which is done in their involvement in the Middle East in order to name and that which is done against them,” expose corruption on behalf of the United says Snowden in an interview. States government. (Manning was convicted for the acts and spent 7 years in Mr. Snowden is now living in Russia, on the prison). run from American charges of and theft, and he faces the prospect of spending It seems now there is a new the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. in town - , who worked Although Russia has granted him asylum, for the Agency (NSA) and therefore the U.S. cannot extradite him, helping to protect their computer systems he is still active in American politics from hackers. His recent revelations showed through social media and speaking us the vast scope of the NSA’s reach into the appearances abroad. lives of hundreds of millions of people in the and around the globe, as it Considering the enormous value of the collects information about their phone calls, information he has revealed, and the abuses their email messages, their friends and he has exposed, some feel Mr. Snowden contacts, how they spend their days and deserves better than a life of permanent where they spend their nights. The public exile, fear and flight. He may have learned in great detail how the agency has committed a crime to do so, but many exceeded its mandate and abused its believe he has done his country a great authority. service.

The leak from Snowden prompted two Mr. Snowden was charged with two federal judges to accuse the N.S.A. of violations of the Espionage Act involving violating the Constitution. A panel unauthorized communication of classified appointed by President Obama issued a information, and a charge of theft of powerful indictment of the agency’s government property. Those three invasions of privacy and called for a major charges carry prison sentences of 10 years overhaul of its operations. each, and when the case is presented to a grand jury for indictment, the government is All of this is entirely because of information virtually certain to add more charges; provided to journalists by Edward probably adding up to a life sentence that Snowden, 29, a worker who stole hundreds Mr. Snowden is understandably trying to avoid.

The president said in August 2013 that Mr. Snowden should come home to face those charges in court and suggested that if Mr. ■ A federal district judge ruled that the Snowden had wanted to avoid criminal phone-records-collection program probably charges he could have simply told his violates the Fourth Amendment of the superiors about the abuses, acting, in other Constitution. He called the program “almost words, as a whistleblower. Orwellian” (referring to Orwell’s novel 1984) and said there was no evidence that this Mr. Snowden told The Washington behavior stopped any imminent act of Post that he did report his misgivings to terror. two superiors at the agency, showing them the volume of data collected by the N.S.A., The shrill brigade of his critics say Mr. and that they took no action. (The N.S.A. Snowden has done profound damage to says there is no evidence of this.) That’s intelligence operations of the United States, almost certainly because the agency and its compromising many intelligence operations leaders don’t consider these collection and even putting troops overseas in programs to be an abuse and would never jeopardy. However, there is little proof to have acted on Mr. Snowden’s concerns. support that his revelation has endangered national security in any way. Many of the In retrospect, Mr. Snowden might have been mass-collection programs Mr. Snowden justified in believing that the only way to exposed would work just as well if they blow the whistle on this kind of were reduced in scope and brought under intelligence-gathering was to expose it to strict outside oversight, as the presidential the public and let the resulting furor do the panel recommended. work his superiors would not. Beyond the mass collection of phone and Internet data, When someone reveals that government consider just a few of the violations he officials have routinely and deliberately revealed or the legal actions he provoked: broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of that same ■ The N.S.A. broke federal privacy laws, or government. That’s why Rick Ledgett, who exceeded its authority, thousands of times leads the N.S.A.’s task force on the Snowden per year, according to the agency’s own leaks, recently told CBS News that he internal auditor. would consider amnesty if Mr. Snowden would stop any additional leaks. And it’s ■ The agency broke into the why President Obama should tell his aides communications links of major data centers to begin finding a way to end Mr. around the world, allowing it to spy on Snowden’s vilification and give him an hundreds of millions of user accounts and incentive to return home. infuriating the Internet companies that own the centers. Many of those companies are Answer the following questions in your now scrambling to install systems that the binder in complete sentences: N.S.A. cannot yet penetrate. 1. Predict the meaning of the 5 underlined ■ The N.S.A. systematically undermined the words. (do not look them up, just guess) basic systems of the Internet, 2. Do you believe that Snowden did the right making it impossible to know if sensitive thing? Explain. banking or medical data is truly private, 3. Do you think Snowden should be punished damaging businesses that depended on this for what he did? Explain. trust. 4. How might Snowden have helped our country? How might he have hurt it? ■ His leaks revealed that Jr., 5. How would Snowden answer our Essential the director of national intelligence, lied to Question? Use a quote from the text as Congress when testifying in March 2013 evidence to support your argument and that the N.S.A. was not collecting data on explain it. millions of Americans.