Reactions To Readings

Reading Discussion by Alana Rust 

While completing, the readings, it was difficult to know exactly what was heroic and what was villainous. But as I thought about what I would do, it became clear that doing things for the greater good outweighs everything else. 

Edward Snowden:

Overall, Snowden's act of whistleblowing seems unpatriotic and somewhat nefarious. But I don't think that it is that simple. In my opinion, Snowden was trying to let the general public know important information. This makes him somewhat of a hero. He wanted to pull down the giant curtains that the government was hiding behind. Snowden had good intentions but wrong execution. If I was Snowden, I would have not attached my name to the whistleblowing. I would have tried (as best I could) to release documents without a name. That way I could hopefully not have to move to Russia and be exiled. 

Julian Assange & Chelsea Manning:

Both Julian and Chelsea  are villains in my opinion. There is no intention of releasing documents for the public. It seemed like their use and creation of Wikileaks was to rebel against the U.S. government. There was intentions of damaging reputations and putting lives at risks (especially because of Mannings former position in the military). You cannot justify angst over impacting thousands of lives. If I was in their position, I would not have created Wikileaks nor released any information. I wouldn't want to be responsible for hurting others and causing disruption in the 2016 election (the releasing of Hilary Clinton's emails). We must expect good intentions and emphasis on the greater good when creating platforms like Wikileaks. 

Anonymous: 

This group is a hard one to judge. Anonymous does good and bad things. But overall, the intention is to create chaos and exploit information. The group has hacked groups that possess child pornography (Operation Darknet). But at the same time, they have stolen "private" emails and exploited them (like Sarah Palin's). So, it's hard to root for them as heroes. 

Overall, these whistleblowers do create harm and good. Thus, creating a grey area (just like most things in our society). But with good intentions and thoughts of service can make that grey area a lot more clear,  

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