Every June students across the
country pack their bags and head home while abandoned campuses turn quiet and
subdued, waiting for autumn to arrive. Sometimes I feel sad about this because
it’s just one more marker of how quickly time goes by. But not this year. This
year June could not come fast enough.
“Brad is graduating,” I said to
my friend Sally the other day. “You must feel relieved.”
She didn’t even smile. “If you’re
saying that then you must not have heard.”
“Heard what?”
“He’s been telling people that I
hit on him and that I tried to plagiarize the paper we were working on. I
thought everyone had heard by now.”
We were in her office and she
was packing boxes. I had assumed she was packing for the summer, but suddenly I
had doubts.
“Well… I hadn’t. And if I hadn’t…”
She cut me off with a terse voice.
“If nobody has said anything to you it’s because they know you’re my friend.
But it’s only a matter of time before everyone hears about it and my reputation
will be ruined.”
She started pulling books from
shelves and stacking them haphazardly into a crate.
“Sally, don’t say that. This is
not the time to be impulsive. You can’t throw away a good career over something
so small.”
She shook her head while
avoiding my eyes. “It’s over, Lucy. For so many reasons, it’s just over.”
The air thickened as I struggled
to swallow my rage. “I’ll be back,” I said as I rushed out the door.
I knew just where to find him; he
almost always sat in the poli-sci lounge during lunch. And sure enough, he was
there, eating a sandwich in one of the comfier chairs. I walked toward him with
purpose and an accusatory finger pointed at his chest.
“You,” I said. “I need to talk
to you.”
He stood, towering over me. “If this
is about Sally, save your breath. I was doing the right thing and I was telling
the truth.”
“Why did you have to say
anything at all? All you did was ruin a good person’s reputation!”
“If she’s that good then her
reputation shouldn’t be in jeopardy!”
I’d never wanted to hammer
someone in the head more. “We’re done!” I said. “That paper we submitted?
Forget about it! I’m withdrawing it from consideration.”
“Good. I don’t want to work you
either.”
Then he sat back down and
resumed eating his sandwich, eyeing me with arrogance while he chewed.
“You can’t fix this,” Monty said
to me later, after I told him the story at dinner.
“I feel like I should try.”
“Try all you want, but Sally’s
right. Once things like this get out it’s over, especially if there’s some
truth to it.”
I knew he was only being
realistic, but I hated to hear it nonetheless. “Are you done?” I asked,
grabbing his plate and clearing it before he could answer. In the kitchen, I
rinsed dishes while I fumed.
It’s funny how one guy can come
along and betray the systems we’ve spent years building in one hasty
confession. Nothing that involves people and information can work without trust
and one person should not have the power to abandon that trust.
Why not, you may ask. What if he
had good intentions? What if he was telling us something we needed to know?
What if what he’s saying is true?
Well, who gave him the power to
decide what is right for everyone else? He gave himself this power, and that’s
only the beginning of the problem.
Twenty-nine year old guys with
limited education and extremist views (especially when it comes to civil liberties)
might see themselves as saviors, but if they don’t reflect first and act
second, who knows what sort of damage might be done to the greater good. And
once one bit of truth leaks out, there is no controlling the lies that may be
generated surrounding it.
So for example, Edward Snowden
blows the whistle, and suddenly people believe the government is reading our
emails and forcing Facebook to share private information. How many people are
aware that Congress was briefed about the Prism program over a dozen times? Do
they realize that all the information that was turned over was done so by a
court order? Have they read that only 3% of the information garnered is from
U.S. citizens, and that the rest is mostly from Pakistan and Iran? Most importantly,
have they considered not just the attacks this information has prevented, but
also the damage that this new leak has caused?
Before Edward Snowden told his
secrets he had promised to respect the confidentiality of the information with
which he was entrusted. And the harm of his betrayal extends far and wide. It reached
his coworkers, many of whom were his friends. Now they will always be part of
the story; their motives will always come into question. Other people, not yet
involved, will be less likely to be trusted because of what he did.
And then there's the government. In this day and age the government is often painted as the enemy, but it's possible there are a lot of good people at the National Security Agency whose sole intentions are to protect the safety of U.S. citizens. Snowden's intentions may have been good as well, but who is more dangerous?
And because of him we will all be
looking over our shoulders, afraid to take a chance, scared to get caught for
doing nothing wrong. And the people who don’t follow the rules will have a
better understanding of how to break them.
Edward Snowden was self-indulgent
and self-guided by his own preferences. Yes, he faced a moral dilemma and he
came to a point where he had to decide what to do. In the end, he came to the
conclusion that the secret he was hiding was more precarious than the
disloyalty he would cause by telling it.
But at what cost? When does the
truth become more important than the loved ones we are trying to protect?
*****
Next month, watch for a special installment, with the short story Blue State. The first part will be posted here, and the rest will be available for download on Amazon and Smashwords for only 99 cents.
Story description:
Lucy’s life finally seemed on track. Happily married to
Monty and teaching college in Seattle, she’s been raising her children in one
of the bluest states in the country. But then her father has a stroke while
Monty is on a month-long work trip to Botswana, and Lucy must travel home to
Iowa in order to keep her family together. While there she comes to question
her priorities and she must decide which is more important – the life she has
made for herself, or the life she left behind.
Blue State is a
short(ish) story about the politics of home, marriage, and growing older. It
was written for fans of November Surprises blog (www.NovemberSurprises.blogspot.com),
November Surprise the novel, and the
novella Campaign Promises. As a special bonus the first two chapters of The Hold Out are previewed in the back,
which continues the saga of the Bricker family, this time with Jack and Monty’s
younger cousin, Robin.
Trailer:
