# data[].attributes.body
In conclusion it is clear to see why the media tends to portray tragedies and how it is due to the appeal that they pose to the public and to readers that they are commonly used. As is commonly referenced death sells more than regular stories and this has been a pattern that can be traced back to the earliest forms of literary expression. The reason behind tragedy and its widespread use in media is that it catches the attention of the reader and opens them up to the message or ulterior motive that the author wants to transmit. This is seen in Shakespeare where a murder and betrayal leads a man on a revenge plot that ultimately costs him his life and his kingdom for his moral belief that justice must be served and evils must be punished. This assimilate the modern example of Edward Snowden's tragic downfall due to his decision to pursue justice for the American people in actions that put his life and liberty and jeopardy. This willingness to risk everything for the greater good or for what they believe is morally right is what makes both of this character’s heroes and the repercussions that they faced gives them their tragic aspects.

# data[].attributes.body
In the case of literary media tragedy, you can trace it back to classic Greek dramas of the same name use memesis in how tragic endings assimilate the relative tragedy of real life and to captivate its audience further. A perfect example can be seen in Shakespeare’s Hamlet where tragedy is used as a theme to portray a realism to an otherwise completely fictional tale based in the kingdom of Denmark.Tragedy has played a large part in Hamlet, the main character of the play of the same name is an almost perfect example of a story of a tragic hero who falls from grace due to a characteristic tragic flaw. In Hamlet’s case he is presented with a situation where his father the prince of Denmark is murdered by his uncle Claudius and his mother marries him shortly after to his disapproval. What finally spurred his desire for revenge was the appearance of the ghost of his father who told him all about his murder and inspired him to seek vengeance against Claudius by murdering him. We can see in one specific instance where Hamlet’s desire for justice for the murder of his father beats all rationality in him and leads to rash actions from his part. This instance appears when he first meets the ghost of his father where emotions seem to take control of him when he states “Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love,May sweep to my revenge.”(Act 1 Scene 5). Here we can see that the author uses specific technique through his word choice where hs uses words like “haste” and“swift” when combined with verbs like “sweep” create an image of speed and hastiness that surrounds Hamlets decision making. It is easy to see the foreshadowing in this statement where it tells us that Hamlet will continue to take more and more rash decisions as he follows the path of revenge. We can make the connection that this lack of rationality and justice stems from his tragic flaw of a strong moral compass that just cannot let him forgive his uncle for his supposed crime and make him risk everything in a far fetched assassination plot that eventually costs him his life and destroys the kingdom of Denmark.

# data[].attributes.body
Edward Snowden experienced a tragic fall from grace due to his strong moral compass influencing his decisions, in response to his actions he was forced into exile in Russia in order to escape US government officials who recognize him as a traitor. His fall from grace came very harshly to him as he was a young man in a very high government position with a very bright future in computer programming. He was very skilled as was demonstrated by his rapid rise through the ranks in the intelligence and computer industry which makes his loss of this prospect very sad indeed. His situation after his decision was very harsh and he was hunted down and persecuted by the same people he was trying to protect. Many Americans especially those who favor the government's involvement in their daily lives condemn his actions and label him traitor and an anti patriot for his actions even though he gave it all to protect them. These attitudes are exemplified by NSA director Keith Alexander words about his actions "[Snowden] betrayed the trust and confidence we had in him. This was an individual with top secret clearance whose duty it was to administer these networks. He betrayed that confidence and stole some of our secrets”(Ventured Interview,2016). Here he argues what many Americans believe as well in how they think that being in a position of power and leaking the documents no matter for what purpose is wrong and that he should face the consequences for his actions and serve time in prison for the traitor he is. This catastrophic end to the career of such a prospective individual with great potential for growth in his field is obviously a tragedy that meets many of the well known greek tragic elements. Among them one can clearly see a Peripeteia and Hamartia where one can see how his tragic flaw in his strong moral compass leads to his downfall in how he leaked confidential information for what he felt was the good of the people of his country. This had a contrast to his intended effect of being glorified as hero for his risky decision and instead led to his exile and loss of his previous life.  All's not lost for Snowden as thankfully many support groups have sprang up in his defense among them  is standwithsnowden.com a very vocal group that in 2016 started petition to pardon Snowden for his crime as many US citizens believe that his decision though criminal was morally correct and should not be punished.

# data[].attributes.body
Just like Prince Hamlet Edward Snowden made a choice of following his moral compass when he decided to leak confidential information about the secret NSA programs that were putting American citizens and foreign leaders under surveillance which he deemed unconstitutional.  This decision akin to Prince Hamlet shows that he places a high value in justice that might be seen as a positive trait however under the right circumstances it spelled his downfall as it served as his hamartia or tragic flaw.He made a patriotic sacrifice of his previous life, his economic success and his reputation in order to do what he thought was right and what he thought was best for his country. He defends his actions by saying that “Being a patriot doesn't mean prioritizing service to government above all else.Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your Constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen, from the violations of and encroachments of adversaries. And those adversaries don't have to be foreign countries”(NBC Interview,2016). Here he says that his actions were not in fact wrong and that he is not a traitor but a true lover of his country and what is stands for, he fought and gave up everything for the privacy of citizens and he was rewarded with hate from the same people he tried to protect. He condemns the abuse of power that the NSA and the US government were carrying out arguing that the people and the values of the country are the most important things and that they should not be violated for the “better good” of its people.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Soverigrenity
2.Hallowed
3. Canonize
4. Besmirch
5.Censure
6.Prodigal

# data[].attributes.body
The Media coverage for the event has been different depending on the sources while some claim that he is a hero for standing up for the rights of the people the majority argue that he put lives in danger and violated the law when he decided to leak the documents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Immediate Aftermath

"I'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building," Snowden said in interviews given from his Hong Kong hotel room. One of the people he left behind was his girlfriend Lindsay Mills. The pair had been living together in Hawaii, and she reportedly had no idea that he was about to disclose classified information to the public.

The U.S. government soon responded to Snowden's disclosures legally. On June 14, 2013, federal prosecutors charged Snowden with "theft of government Property," "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person." The last two charges fall under the Espionage Act. (Before President Barack Obama took office, the act had only been used for prosecutorial purposes three times since 1917. Since President Obama took office, the act had been invoked seven times as of June 2013.)

Snowden remained in hiding for slightly more than a month. He initially planned to relocate to Ecuador for asylum, but, upon making a stopover, he became stranded in a Russian airport for a month when his passport was annulled by the American government. The Russian government denied U.S. requests to extradite Snowden. While some decried him as a traitor, others supported his cause, and more than 100,000 people signed an online petition asking President Obama to pardon Snowden by late June.

The following month, Snowden made headlines again when it was announced that he had been offered asylum in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia. Snowden soon made up his mind, expressing an interest in staying in Russia. One of his lawyers, Anatoly Kucherena, stated that Snowden would seek temporary asylum in Russia and possibly apply for citizenship later. Snowden thanked Russia for giving him asylum and said that "in the end the law is winning."

That October, Snowden stated that he no longer possessed any of the NSA files that he leaked to press. He gave the materials to the journalists he met with in Hong Kong, but he didn't keep copies for himself. Snowden explained that "it wouldn't serve the public interest" for him to have brought the files to Russia, according to The New York Times. Around this time, Snowden's father, Lon, visited his son in Moscow and continued to publicly express support.

Living in Exile

In November 2013, Snowden's request to the U.S. government for clemency was rejected. The fallout from his disclosures continued to unfold over the next few months, including a legal battle over the collection of phone data by the NSA. President Obama sought to calm fears over government spying in January 2014, ordering U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review the country's surveillance programs.

Still in exile, Snowden remained a polarizing figure. He made an appearance at the popular South by Southwest festival via teleconference in March 2014. Around this time, the U.S. military revealed that the information Snowden leaked may have caused billions of dollars in damage to its security structures.

In May 2014, Snowden gave a revealing interview with NBC News. He told Brian Williams that he was a trained spy who worked undercover as an operative for the CIA and NSA, an assertion denied by National Security Adviser Susan Rice in a CNN interview. Snowden explained that he viewed himself as a patriot, believing his actions had beneficial results. He stated that his leaking of information led to "a robust public debate" and "new protections in the United States and abroad for our rights to make sure they're no longer violated." He also expressed an interest in returning home to America.

'Citizenfour' & Twitter

That same year, Snowden was featured in Poitras's highly acclaimed documentary Citizenfour. The director had recorded her meetings with Snowden and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald. The film went on to win an Academy Award in 2015. Poitras and the winning team was joined onstage by Snowden's girlfriend Mills, with the documentarian saying during her acceptance speech, "When the decisions that rule us are taken in secret, we lose the power to control and govern ourselves."

Since its release, Snowden has remained outspoken about government surveillance. He appeared with Poitras and Greenwald via video-conference in February 2015. Earlier that month, Snowden spoke with students at Upper Canada College via video-conference. He told them that "the problem with mass surveillance is when you collect everything, you understand nothing." He also stated that government spying "fundamentally changes the balance of power between the citizen and the state."

On September 29, 2015, Snowden joined the social media platform Twitter, tweeting "Can you hear me now?" He had almost two million followers in a little over 24 hours.

Just a few days later, Snowden spoke to the New Hampshire Liberty Forum via Skype and stated he would be willing to return to the U.S. if the government could guarantee a fair trial.

'Snowden' Biopic & Pardon Campaign

On September 13, 2016, Snowden said in an interview with The Guardianthat he would seek a pardon from President Obama. "Yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing, but that is perhaps why the pardon power exists - for the exceptions, for the things that may seem unlawful in letters on a page but when we look at them morally, when we look at them ethically, when we look at the results, it seems these were necessary things, these were vital things," he said in the interview.

The next day various human rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International launched a campaign requesting that Obama pardon Snowden. Appearing via a telepresence robot, Snowden expressed gratitude for the support. "I love my country. I love my family," he said. "I don't know where we're going from here. I don't know what tomorrow looks like. But I'm glad for the decisions I've made. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined, three years ago, such an outpouring of solidarity."

He also emphasized that his case resonates beyond him. "This really isn't about me," he said. "It's about us. It's about our right to dissent. It's about the kind of country we want to have."

A day later on September 15, the House Intelligence Committee released a three-page unclassified summary of a report about its two-year investigation into Snowden's case. In the summary, Snowden was characterized as a "disgruntled employee who had frequent conflicts with his managers," a "serial exaggerator and fabricator" and "not a whistle-blower."

"Snowden caused tremendous damage to national security, and the vast majority of the documents he stole have nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests - they instead pertain to military, defense and intelligence programs of great interest to America's adversaries," the summary of the report stated.

Members of the committee also unanimously signed a letter to President Obama asking him not to pardon Snowden. "We urge you not to pardon Edward Snowden, who perpetrated the largest and most damaging public disclosure of classified information in our nation's history," the letter stated. "If Mr. Snowden returns from Russia, where he fled in 2013, the U.S. government must hold him accountable for his actions."

Snowden responded on Twitter saying: "Their report is so artlessly distorted that it would be amusing if it weren't such a serious act of bad faith." He followed with a series of tweets refuting the committee's claims and said: "I could go on. Bottom line: after 'two years of investigation,' the American people deserve better. This report diminishes the committee."

Snowden also tweeted that the release of the committee's summary was an effort to discourage people from watching Snowden, a biopic directed by Oliver Stone with Snowden's cooperation and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role. The film was released in the United States on September 16.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"I'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building," Snowden said in interviews given from his Hong Kong hotel room.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With the launch of Oliver Stone's Snowden film this past weekend came a renewed push for a pardon for Edward Snowden from the world's leading human rights organizations.

But predictably, not everyone agreed that he should be pardoned. On Saturday, the Washington Post editorial board deplorably editorialized against it despite its own paper winning the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on his leaked documents.

They joined many of his other detractors in making old and factually incorrect arguments about what Snowden actually did. As the movement demanding his exoneration grows nonetheless, here are five common misconceptions about the whistleblower - and why they are wrong.

Snowden did not take 1.5m documents and dump them en masse on the internet

Snowden critics love to pretend that everything the public learned from his disclosures was solely because he chose to release the information. In reality, the number of documents that Snowden published himself is zero. Instead of dumping a mass of documents on the internet, he gave them to experienced national security reporters who worked at some of the most respected news outlets in the country. He relied on their judgments about what was in the public interest. And those reporters allowed the government to make objections (some of which they listened to) tied to national security concerns.

The Washington Post claimed, as others have in the past, that Snowden copied and kept 1.5m classified documents. Snowden's lawyer, Ben Wizner, has called that number " absurd" and " made up ". Even the former NSA director himself admitted that the 1.5m number only represented the documents that Snowden "touched", and officials didn't know how many he actually took.

The real number is likely at least an order of magnitude lower, according to public comments by the journalists involved, which the Post editorial board could have found out if they had bothered to ask their own colleagues.

There's no evidence Snowden 'harmed national security'

The House intelligence committee published an error-riddled report on Snowden last week, making vague claims about "damage" to national security in a naked attempt to counter the narrative in Oliver Stone's movie. Three-time Pulitzer prize winner Barton Gellman dismantled the whole report point-by-point on his blog.

We know the US government makes all sorts of dire predictions when information is leaked to the press (the Pentagon Papers, the Chelsea Manning disclosures and the release of the torture report, to name a few cases), and it is always caught exaggerating. The Snowden disclosures are no exception. As the Washington Post reported two years ago:

[Director of national intelligence James] Clapper has said repeatedly in public that the leaks did great damage, but in private he has taken a more nuanced stance. A review of early damage assessments in previous espionage cases, he said in one closed-door briefing this fall, found that dire forecasts of harm were seldom borne out.

The House intelligence committee did not point to a single concrete example of how national security was harmed solely by the Snowden disclosures.

Snowden could not go through 'proper channels' to blow the whistle

The idea that Snowden is not a "whistleblower" because he didn't go through internal government channels to make his claims is absurd on two fronts. First, at the time Snowden gave his material to the Guardian and Washington Post, he was a government contractor, and contractors were exempt from most whistleblower protections given to national security employees. (Politifact called Hillary Clinton's statement that he had access to whistleblower protections "mostly false".)

But this argument is a red herring anyway. Snowden was not blowing the whistle on some rogue NSA agent or a program that only a handful of people knew about. These mass surveillance programs (later ruled illegal) were approved at the highest levels of the executive branch and by the Fisa court. Snowden would have essentially been telling his superiors, who already knew about them and were tasked with carrying them out, that they themselves were breaking the law.

Snowden did not 'flee' to Russia and has regularly criticized Russia's human rights record

There is a persistent yet false accusation that since Snowden is in exile in Russia, he "fled" there and has cooperated with the Russian government (in the words of the Post's editorial, "Mr Snowden hurt his own credibility as an avatar of freedom by accepting asylum from Russia's Vladimir Putin").

This is false. The only reason he is in Russia is because the US government canceled his passport as he was transiting through the Russian airport to Latin America. He was marooned there against his will. Everyone, including Snowden himself, wishes he wasn't in Russia, but the alternative is being thrown in a maximum security prison in the United States. At least right now he is free to participate in the international debate virtually.

Snowden has harshly criticized Russia's human rights and civil liberties record so many times at this point that it is hard to count (including, in 2014, in an op-ed for the Guardian). Snowden's condemnation has been so strong that the former US ambassador to Russia (and Snowden critic) Michael McFaul recently tweeted: "@ Snowden makes a stronger statement about human rights regression in Russia than anything I ever said as [Ambassador]. Wow."

He cannot make his case to a jury in what the Post called the 'best tradition of civil disobedience'

In a perfect world, Snowden could come home and tell his story to a jury, as many of his critics say he should. However, this belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the law Snowden is charged under. The Espionage Act - a first world war-era statute meant for spies, not whistleblowers who give information to the press - does not allow for a "public interest" defense. Snowden would literally not be allowed to tell the jury his motive for leaking the information, describe the benefits of the disclosures, or discuss their lack of harm to national security.

The most famous whistleblower in American history, Daniel Ellsberg, has made this point repeatedly and is on the record as saying that Snowden was right to leave the country so he could continue to participate in the public debate around his disclosures.
Edward Snowden sits on the board of directors at Freedom of the Press Foundation, where the author is executive director

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Washington Post is wrong: Edward Snowden should be pardoned | Trevor Timm

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With the launch of Oliver Stone's Snowden film this past weekend came a renewed push for a pardon for Edward Snowden from the world's leading human rights organizations. But predictably, not everyone agreed that he should be pardoned.

# data[].attributes.body
Throught history an inumerable amount of men with heroic qualities have fallen from grace due to their flaws in judgement and character. A modern example of this type of men is Edward Snowden whose life most accurately follows the definition of a Hegelian Tragedy.  Edward Snowden is a tragic hero because of the way that he had all the potential in his position as he was reknowned for his programing skills and how he risked it all for his sense of civil justice. Snowden is a hero due to how he risked it all by challenging the sovereignity of the United States government in their practice of surveillance of the population. By doing this he was following his moral compass characteristic of a hegelian tragedy. He expected to be canonized and to be treated as a hallow however, all he got was  censure from the media as well as the besmirching of his reputation. It is easy to see following all this arguments that Snowden is in fact a tragic hero because of how he performed actions that by his judgement were heroic while to others were concidered prodigal and rash.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Snowden had a great potential in his position due to his advanced skills
2. Snowden was presented with a hard choice between two rights where either course of action would have had repercusions
3. Snowden sacrificed his carreer and his old life for the justice of the American people however some people fail to recognize this.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edward Snowden is a young American who, at great personal risk, blew the whistle on mass surveillance programs. Ed stood up for us, and it's time for us to stand up for him.

# data[].attributes.body
The tragedy came after Snowden, a NSA intelligence service worker decided to dessert the united states secret agency and leak documents detailing the way that the agency surveyed and watched many actions in the lives of private citizens. He thought this was a violation of human rights and thus his morals forced him to leak the documents and expose the abuse of the agency. After doing this he was forced into exile and many of the people whom he risked his life for now call him a traitor and demand that he is trialed as a criminal.

# data[].attributes.body
Edward Snowden is a person who sadly risked everything and has, to an extent, now been forgotten by the worldwide audience. Many people nowadays have forgotten how at the time, CIA employee Edward Snowden threw his career down the drain by leaking NSA and CIA documents that detailed the illegal government monitoring of the lives of American citizens for their “own good”. He gave up a prosperous career as a contractor and programmer to follow his sense of morality and justice. This sense of justice can be comparable to the feeling of justice and revenge felt by Hamlet after the death of his father. He was willing to give up his position as prince and a member of royalty to avenge the death of his father and was willing to act insane to accomplish his goals harming his reputation. This willingness to put everything aside for his moral motivations and sense of justice is what makes them similar and the conditions they faced as repercusion makes them both tragic heroes. This similarity in tragedies carries along the theme of tragedy in the media and the purpose behind why the popular media seems to be so interconnected with tragic events and characters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
EDWARD SNOWDEN, the former National Security Agency contractor who blew the cover off the federal government's electronic surveillance programs three years ago, has his admirers. After the inevitably celebratory Oliver Stone film about him appears this weekend, he may have more. Whether Mr. Snowden deserves a presidential pardon, as human rights organizations are demanding in a new national campaign timed to coincide with the film, is a complicated question, however, to which President Obama's answer should continue to be "no."

Mr. Snowden's defenders don't deny that he broke the law - not to mention oaths and contractual obligations - when he copied and kept 1.5 million classified documents. They argue, rather, that Mr. Snowden's noble purposes, and the policy changes his "whistle-blowing" prompted, justified his actions. Specifically, he made the documents public through journalists, including reporters working for The Post, enabling the American public to learn for the first time that the NSA was collecting domestic telephone "metadata" - information about the time of a call and the parties to it, but not its content - en masse with no case-by-case court approval. The program was a stretch, if not an outright violation, of federal surveillance law, and posed risks to privacy. Congress and the president eventually responded with corrective legislation. It's fair to say we owe these necessary reforms to Mr. Snowden.

The complication is that Mr. Snowden did more than that. He also pilfered, and leaked, information about a separate overseas NSA Internet-monitoring program, PRISM, that was both clearly legal and not clearly threatening to privacy. (It was also not permanent; the law authorizing it expires next year.) Worse - far worse - he also leaked details of basically defensible international intelligence operations: cooperation with Scandinavian services against Russia; spying on the wife of an Osama bin Laden associate; and certain offensive cyber operations in China. No specific harm, actual or attempted, to any individual American was ever shown to have resulted from the NSA telephone metadata program Mr. Snowden brought to light. In contrast, his revelations about the agency's international operations disrupted lawful intelligence-gathering, causing possibly "tremendous damage" to national security, according to a unanimous, bipartisan report by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. What higher cause did that serve?

Ideally, Mr. Snowden would come home and hash out all of this before a jury of his peers. That would certainly be in the best tradition of civil disobedience, whose practitioners have always been willing to go to jail for their beliefs. He says this is unacceptable because U.S. secrecy-protection statutes specifically prohibit him from claiming his higher purpose and positive impact as a defense - which is true, though it's not clear how the law could allow that without creating a huge loophole for leakers. (Mr. Snowden hurt his own credibility as an avatar of freedom by accepting asylum from Russia's Vladimir Putin, who's not known for pardoning those who blow the whistle on him.)

The second-best solution might be a bargain in which Mr. Snowden accepts a measure of criminal responsibility for his excesses and the U.S. government offers a measure of leniency in recognition of his contributions. Neither party seems interested in that for now. An outright pardon, meanwhile, would strike the wrong balance.

Read more on this topic:

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Justice for Edward Snowden

Richard Cohen: Edward Snowden is no traitor

Alyssa Rosenberg: In 'Snowden,' Oliver Stone makes international intrigue amazingly boring

David Ignatius: Edward Snowden took less than previously thought, says James Clapper

Ruth Marcus: Snowden, the insufferable whistleblower

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
EDWARD SNOWDEN, the former National Security Agency contractor who blew the cover off the federal government's electronic surveillance programs three years ago, has his admirers. After the inevitably celebratory Oliver Stone film about him appears this weekend, he may have more.