Should Edward Snowden Be Granted Discretion?

How much involvement government/politics and businesses has on privacy towards themselves and people outside of their work has been an issue for many years, but it has recently became a big issue in the world today because of Edward Snowden, former U.S. contractor of the National Security Agency, who disclosed information of thousand classified

A dispute widespread amongst the citizens of the United States of America is on government, and more specifically on how much power the government should yield. The philosophical question I will be posing in this article is ‘what should the government have the power to do’. All the way to the left, we have liberals who believe in a big government and a government that is involved with supporting the people and curbing social inequalities and social hierarchy while supporting social equality. On the other side of the spectrum we have right wing conservatives who prefer a government that is small and call for reduced social spending, less regulation. In addition, they accept social hierarchy and social inequality citing that social hierarchy and social inequality are inevitable. With this essay, I want to focus on if the government has the power to invade your privacy. Currently reactions has been wild ever since former NSA analyst Edward Snowden leaked the massive PRISM internet surveillance program used by the NSA to collect data on citizens of the U.S. The philosophical question ‘what should the government have the power to do’ correlates with the NSA because the NSA is an institution of the government, and should the government have the power to spy on its citizens without their knowledge and without a warrant for the sake of national security.

Edward Snowden is considered by many to be a criminal, but there are others who firmly believe that Edward Snowden is a patriot, and rightfully so Edward Snowden is a hero to the American people and many abroad. The United States government has the responsibility to serve, protect and aid the American people, but sometimes the government and some of its classified documents every now and then get published and criticized. Edward Snowden had worked for multiple government agencies such as the CIA, NSA and prior to that an American contractor as a computer professional, and during his tenure at the NSA he had realized the grotesque and unprofessional ethics and violations of privacy against the American people, and so many innocent citizens

Edward Snowden. This is a name that will be in the history books for ages. He will be branded a traitor or a whistleblower depending on where you look. Many Americans feel that Edward Snowden is a traitor who sold the United States’ secrets aiming to harm the nation. Others believe that he was simply a citizen of the United States who exercised his right to expose the government for their unconstitutional actions. It is important to not only know the two sides to the argument of friend or foe, but to also know the facts as well. My goal in this paper is to present the facts without bias and to adequately portray the two sides of the argument.

Since the founding of the United States of America, freedom has been the basis of the governmental and ruling systems in place. Individual freedoms are protected in both the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution, and Schwartz (2009) explains that ‘public liberty ultimately enhances collective rationality—it is a path to heightening our wisdom by increasing access to pertinent information and improving decision making’ (p. 409). However, there have been many times in history when the true freedom of citizens is called into question. There has always been controversy about how much power the government should have, who is keeping the government in check, and if citizens are properly informed about what their elected governed are doing. The passing of the Patriot Act in 2001 was no exception to this controversy. The

The National Security Agency (NSA) has been an information gathering arm of the Executive branch since the Cold War and continues to be an essential part of ensuring the security of the United States. The public issue that involves the NSA is the spying of U.S citizens which can be seen as a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This was revealed to the public by the whistleblower Edward Snowden who released classified documents of activities that the NSA had been conducting in conjuncture with telecommunication companies, which angered many U.S citizens and received media coverage with a call for the U.S Government to restrict the NSA’s activities or at least for there to be Congressional oversight. This debate revolves around how much the NSA’s surveillance activities are actually used for national security as well as the constitutionality of the NSA’s surveillance. This all began after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 when there was a call for the attacks to never happen again and the adoption of the Patriot Act in that same year which increased the power of the NSA.

The authors maintain that in the face of wartime emergencies such as terrorism “we must adhere to the principles of political freedom, due process, and protection of privacy that constitute the core of a free and democratic society.” In opposition to Posner and Vermeule, they believe that judicial deference is damaging to our civil liberties as citizens, maintaining the constitution, and preserving the state. According to Terrorism and the constitution, deference to the executive is not only unnecessary, but it often leads to a reduction of our rights as citizens. The authors argue that judicial review has in fact protected our civil liberties from an expanding national security apparatus, which incorporates an ever-growing number of bureaucracies competing against each other, without using the constitution as a guideline. The authors look at a number of acts and programs such as the McCarthy-era McCarran-Walter act, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, COINTELPRO, the Anti-terrorism act of 1996, and the Patriot act of 2001, to demonstrate how judicial deference has not made us safer but often more oppressed, and how the cost of the restriction of our civil liberties in the name of security has created an unequal balance damaging to liberty. A number of bureaucratic agencies such as the

Born June 21, 1983, Edward Snowden was just a 29-year-old contractor for the NSA when he happened across the information (Harding, 2014). Acting on his morals and beliefs, he moved to educate the American public on their government’s activities. His decision to do so impacted the way the nation viewed government surveillance in the years to come.

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (N.S.A) subcontractor turned whistle-blower is nothing short of a hero. His controversial decision to release information detailing the highly illegal ‘data mining’ practices of the N.S.A have caused shockwaves throughout the world and have raised important questions concerning how much the government actually monitors its people without their consent or knowledge. Comparable to Mark Felt in the Watergate scandals, Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers, Edward Snowden joins the rank of infamous whistleblowers who gave up their jobs, livelihood, and forever will live under scrutiny of the public all in the service to the American people. Edward Snowden released information detailing the

“The consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival” (Orwell). The world today is full of many dangers domestic and abroad. It has become a routine in the news to report on the daily mass shooting or update with the war on terror. We live in a world where being worried is justified; however, we should not give up our constitutional rights in the face of fear. The NSA’s dragnet surveillance programs, such as PRISM, are both ineffective and are surpassed by less questionable national security programs. The FISA court's’ approval of NSA actions are not only illegal, but exist as an embarrassing formality. Surveillance is a necessary

Privacy has endured throughout human history as the pillar upon which our authentic nature rests. Yet, in an age darkened by the looming shadow of terrorism, another force threatens to dominate the skyline and obscure the light of liberty behind promises of safety and security: government surveillance. As an employee of the NSA, Edward Snowden broke his vow of secrecy to inform the public of our government’s furtive surveillance acts, but does this render him traitorous? To answer this, we must first ask ourselves, traitorous to whom? When the very institution established to protect our fundamental liberties intrudes on our privacy from behind a veil of secrecy, should such informed individuals resign from judicious autonomy and

According to an analysis released in August, 2005, by OpenTheGovernment.org, more and more government information is becoming less and less publicly available. OpenTheGovernment.org is an unprecedented coalition of journalists, consumer and government groups, environmentalists, labor and others united out of a concern for what U.S. News and World Report called a "shroud of secrecy" descending over our local, state and federal governments (Gordon 35). This organization focuses on making the federal government a more open place to make us safer and strengthen the public trust in the government. In its Secrecy Report Card, OpenTheGovernment found that the government spent $7.2 billion last year creating 15.6 million new classified documents and securing accumulated secrets – more than it has for the past decade (1).

The Freedom of Information Act was enforced when our government realized the importance of the relationship between access to information and government accountability. This act enables citizens to view a plethora of different files and records from government agencies. This act proved to be “a principal instrument for breaking down bureaucratic secrecy in American public administration” (p. 62).

In early 2013 a man by the name of Edward Joseph Snowden began leaking classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents to media outlets, which in turn ended up in public ears. These documents, mainly involving intelligence Snowden acquired while working as an NSA contractor, are mostly related to global surveillance programs run by the NSA. This has raised multiple ethical issues ranging from national security, information privacy and the ethics behind whistleblowing in general. The reach and impact of these leaks have gone global and have put in question the very government that protects us as well as the extent of the public’s rights on privacy. Various foreign

Edward Snowden is a United States citizen and former employee of the National Security Agency (NSA). Snowden leaked information about the NSA to the media in 2013 and is now in Russia where he was recently granted three years of asylum. The NSA uses cryptology and others forms of information gathering to enable various networks to make advantageous decisions for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances. The NSA operates undetected by civilians, and uses global monitoring so broadly defined that it has allowed for unscrupulous behavior that was witnessed by contracted employee, Edward Snowden. Snowden believed that as the public gained knowledge of the illegal intelligence gathering by the government of domestic citizens, and abroad, he would gain protection from the public. Snowden did receive protection from people including powerful lawyers, journalists, and privacy advocates. Analysis of the Edward Snowden case