Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?

Former contractor Edward Snowden has left the U.S. after revealing secretive information gathering techniques were used by the U.S. government through electronic means without judicial permission.

The question now remains, as with previous "leakers", is whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor. To answer the question, care must be exercised and context must be understood as to the circumstances of the information and its implications in a democratic society. The question then becomes: To what extent should democratic societies surrender privacy in order to serve the demands of public safety?

Without doubt, the post 9/11 world is fraught with suspicion, doubt and fear. Democratic societies are faced with the challenge of striking a balance between public security and personal privacy. In the quest to root out the offspring of racial hatred, religious bigotry and cultural misunderstandings, democratic governments has to have access to a great deal of information, information that is in our milieu stored in electronic format mostly through the internet in such popular media as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft among others. The monitoring of such systems inevitably exposes personal information of a great many law abiding and functional members of society to abuse, exploitation and persecution.

"Leakers" such as Snowden reveal the covert extent of any democratic societies' government's activities against its own citizens, something anathema to civil libertarians who fear that such unrestricted programs could lead to the extinguishment of a free society.

On the other hand, democratic government's would insist that such moves are crucial and critical in order to save lives and maintain peace and order. Without which governments would be at the mercy and hostage of violent extremists who are wont to impose their own rigid ideologies or exact revenge on perceived sleights and sufferings.

In the Snowden case, the revelation of such program poses no direct threat against democratic institutions or endangers any lives. Neither does the content of the revelations, at this moment at least, adds advantage to terrorists nor does it imperil govenment initiatives in combating the same. Furthermore, in a democratic society, control of such information if left secret can embolden the government to engage in even more unpalatable acts that can ultimately undermine the very foundations of liberal democracy.

Snowden's acts is a reminder to all that covert acts are indeed needed to defeat and arrest violent elements that threaten the existence of liberal democratic societies, but in so doing, the government must be able to access information, a lot of it, from its citizenry, however, it cannot be kept secret as otherwise, it could undermine the very goal it is trying to achieve.