Harry Truman & Edward Snowden has more in common than you think.

From Truman to Snowden: How America’s Spy Machine Became a Monster

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman created the CIA.

In 2013, Edward Snowden exposed what it had become.

Two men. Two eras. One warning:

America’s intelligence agencies were never supposed to go this far.

The Man Who Built It: Truman

After World War II, Truman wanted a centralized agency to gather intelligence and protect America from future surprises—especially from the Soviet Union.

So, with the National Security Act of 1947, he created:

• The CIA,

• The Department of Defense,

• The National Security Council.

But just 16 years later, Truman regretted it.

In a 1963 op-ed (just weeks after JFK’s assassination), he said:

“I never intended the CIA to be a cloak-and-dagger outfit to run all over the world… The most important thing… is that it be kept out of policymaking and be limited to intelligence.”

He saw what the CIA had turned into:

Regime changes, secret wars, and black ops

Mass surveillance and political manipulation

A shadowy force far beyond what democracy allows

The Man Who Exposed It: Snowden

Fast forward to 2013.

Edward Snowden, a young contractor working for the NSA, blew the whistle.

He revealed:

• The U.S. was collecting data on millions of Americans—texts, emails, calls, locations.

• Agencies like the NSA and CIA had built a mass surveillance empire—often without warrants.

• The government had gone way beyond Truman’s vision—spying not just on enemies, but on its own people.

Sound familiar?

The Full Circle

What Snowden exposed… is exactly what Truman feared.

Truman built the system to protect Americans.

Snowden revealed that system now controls Americans.

Both saw the same thing: Power without accountability always grows too far.

Final Thought:

Snowden is living in exile for telling the truth.

Truman tried to warn us 60 years ago.

And today, you carry a surveillance device in your pocket and call it a phone.

Maybe the enemy was never foreign.

Maybe the real danger… was what we allowed our government to become.