Whistleblower Edward Snowden’s Fourth of July social media post reminds Americans of the revolutionary origins of the holiday, sparking a deeper conversation about government power.
What Happened: On Thursday, Snowden, former NSA contractor, took to X to share a thought-provoking message. He urged his followers to remember the historical context of Independence Day, stating, “As you celebrate the Fourth with your family, remember what it is that the holiday commemorates: shooting at the government. 🇺🇸🎆”.
This post follows a series of comments made by Snowden earlier this year, where he expressed concerns over the erosion of civil liberties and the increasing power of the government.
Why It Matters: Snowden’s tweet draws attention to the ongoing debate about the balance of power between citizens and their government.
In January, Snowden expressed his views on the perceived decline of the ‘American Century,’ attributing it to factors such as the abandonment of the gold standard, union busting, and the erosion of liberties post-9/11. His tweet on Independence Day seems to be a continuation of his commentary on the state of American democracy.
In February, Snowden voiced his concerns over the misuse of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, arguing that software engineers were being “henpecked” by an aggressively ignorant crowd’s “agenda.”
“People should spend more time agitating against drone swarms and military robots—which are already killing people—than they do trying to cripple LLM chatbots and diffusion models,” said Snowden at the time.
Photo via Wikimedia
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This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Shivdeep Dhaliwal
