The Ethics Behind Edward Snowden Case

Spencer Halsman & Jordan Lucas

COMM 486

Case Study Paper

9/24/15

The Ethics Behind Edward Snowden Case

Security is a vital asset for the advancement and stability of any country. Today exists a world where protection and security are getting progressively more necessary for the strength of a nation. It is believed the advances of technology allow boundless possibilities of protection, which has kept the United States safe for several years. With the media becoming more prevalent in today’s society, we as citizens know much more about threats to our nation than we had in previous years. A prime example of this knowledge is fairly due to a man named Edward Snowden. Snowden is a former National Security Agency (NSA) member who made headlines

in 2013 after becoming a part of one of the largest National Security leaks in United States history by presenting confidential evidence about NSA surveillance activity to the public eye. The NSA had and still has, to this day; ongoing plans involving spying on American citizens through phone conversations, emails and Internet use.
Developments in technology have also had a weighing impact on privacy. Privacy is the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people and it has been under much discussion within the United States government in recent years. The Edward Snowden incident has also created uproar and has caught much national attention in previous years due to the privacy concerns in which the NSA is believed to be violating. Efficient security of a nation goes hand and hand with privacy and confidential secrets; and along with this privacy and secrets come power and responsibility. I feel that The National Security Agency has a right and obligation to confirm the safety of the American citizens by withholding secrets from the public, but there needs to be a set of guidelines and general restrictions when it comes to public surveillance and privacy.
This uproar all started in May 2013 while Snowden was working for the NSA. Snowden noticed ongoing plans about spying on American civilians. This invasion of the public’s privacy was all accomplished through telephone conversations, emails and Internet use. After noticing this, Snowden was met with an ethical dilemma and it did not take long for him to go against what has been occurring secretly within the NSA. While at work, Snowden collected and copied a mind blowing 58 thousand classified documents from the NSA. These documents were enough to expose the NSA’s domestic surveillance techniques.
After copying and gathering an abundant amount of documents, Snowden asked his supervisor for a medical leave. It was at this point that Snowden, in simple terms, said goodbye to his life. Snowden caught a flight to Hong Kong, China where he would meet a journalist from the United Kingdom’s Guardian about a half a month later on June 5th, 2013. The following day, June 6th, was when the term privacy within the United States changed forever. That day, The United Kingdom’s Guardian released Snowden’s leaked information to the public. Snowden, charged with espionage, and known as a traitor of The United States government is now spending the rest of his life in Russia preventing his arrest by the United States for treason. He stands by his statement; “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.”
There is no doubt that Snowden’s leak has launched an ongoing debate about the issues regarding The United States national security and it’s surveillance activity.

The ongoing investigation between Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency raised two important ethical challenges that have been under discussion. One ethical challenge is if Edward Snowden took the correct action for the situation. There are two ways of looking at this ethical challenge. Snowden can be considered correct for what he did to those whom do not want to be watched unknowingly by the government. On the other hand, Snowden can also be considered incorrect for the act he performed against his own country’s government. He leaked classified documents to the public because he, “in good conscience could not 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.” This statement from Snowden suggests that Snowden used “Ethics of Care” when he made his decision to leak NSA’s classified information. “Ethics of Care” by definition means having a care for other person(s). This type of ethical decision goes hand and hand with compassion. As Snowden lives the rest of his life out in Russia, it is extremely evident that he has great compassion for the decision he made because he ultimately left his normal

lifestyle.
In addition, another ethical challenge that is discussed in term with the NSA is if the NSA should have to power to invade our private lives whenever they feel is necessary. This ethical challenge is similar to our first situation because there are also two ways of looking at it. One way to look at this challenge would be to say that the NSA should have power to spy on anyone because this would prevent domestic incriminating acts and/or terrorism. A statement presented by the NSA says, “The NSA would like to confirm, on the record, that the Utah Data Center is a state-of-the-art data facility designed to support the U.S. intelligence community's efforts to further strengthen and protect the nation. Its operations will be lawfully conducted in accordance with U.S. laws and policies” (1). On the other hand, the NSA should not be able to scan through everyone’s personal lives because people are entitled to their own privacy. Although people should be entitled to their own privacy, in today’s technological state, it is seen as merely impossible to developed a state of pure personal privacy. As a result of the NSA’s believed surveillance abuse privacy is compromised through phone conversations, emails and any type of Internet use.
Another reason as to why the NSA should have restrictions when invading people’s private lives is because it would be a waste of time and money to sift through everyone’s data to find an incriminated or a terroristic act because the amount of data within the telecommunications industry today is too large. This reasoning pertains closely to the recent news, according to Yahoo! News, that states that the NSA has made further advancements and has built a new mega-warehouse of data in Utah which will house private information about millions upon millions of American citizens. The warehouse cost over 1 billion dollars, spanning a total of 1.5 million acres of land and sitting just south of Salt Lake City, on a National Guard base. The structure is filled with cutting-edge computers designed to house an extensive amount of information pertaining to phone calls and emails from Americans across the United States. According to Yahoo! News, “The mammoth center, which cost some $1.7 billion, will allow the agency to store more and, perhaps more importantly, keep information for much longer. There are theories that the facility will be able to hold a so-called yottabyte of information, the largest measurement computer scientists have. A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text” (1).
We have chosen the ethical side of Edward Snowden for this case.

According to Immanuel Kant, the ultimate right and wrong is simply what you believe is the best decision based on the reasons for why it is done. For example, the Edward Snowden case is ethical because Snowden believed he took the correct action by betraying the United States government because he was adamant that the NSA surveillance techniques were incorrect and abusive. This simply means that if you do what you think is best and is your duty to do then no matter the results as long as you did it for the right reasons you've done the right, ethical,

thing.
In conclusion, we as an American people should be able to trust our government to keep us safe from harms way; however, we should also feel the comfort of closure knowing that our private lives are being watched in a trustworthy type of way. There should be certain lines that should never be crossed unless in extraordinary circumstances. It does not seem right for the NSA to have access to all of our information within our personal lives unknowingly. Edward Snowden’s actions were of notable importance to help the development of our growing nation.