Edward Snowden: Traitor or Protector of Privacy?

In June 2013, Edward Snowden, a technology contract worker for the National Security Agency (NSA), provided details of the NSA surveillance program called PRISM to the British newspaper The Guardian. Mr. Snowden had broad access to NSA files because he was working for the agency in Hawaii, helping manage the NSA's computer systems in an outpost that focuses on China and North Korea. He was one of 1.2 million people in the United States who have top security clearance. Snowden used inexpensive and widely available web crawler software to scrape data out of NSA systems and kept at it even after agency officials challenged him briefly. A web crawler automatically moves from website to website, following links embedded in each document, and can be programmed to copy everything in its path. U.S. intelligence officials believe Snowden accessed roughly 1.7 million files this way. Because Snowden worked at an NSA outpost that had not yet been upgraded with modern security measures, his copying of huge volumes of data raised few alarms. Snowden told The Guardian that he had grown concerned about how massive and invasive the NSA system had become. He described how NSA collects information on telephone calls, emails, social network postings, search queries, and other web communications of Internet users in the United States. The data are provided to the government by data-gathering giants Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other large Internet firms as well as telecommunications service providers such as Verizon. The availability and relatively low cost of contemporary data management and analytics technologies described earlier in this chapter make it possible for the NSA to store and conduct very sophisticated analysis of massive quantities of data. The purpose of PRISM is to identify terrorists and their plans before the plans can be executed. PRISM does not collect the contents of Internet communications, only the metadata (essentially who is communicating with whom.) Using this data, PRISM constructs a social graph of some Americans' social connections, identifying their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions, and other personal information. After PRISM identifies suspicious patterns, it then requests more detailed information from these firms that can include the contents of the communication. NSA and government officials claimed the program is legal under existing statutes, had been in operation for many years with congressional oversight, and provided for judicial review of active surveillance of specific people. The phone-records program was built upon a provision in the USA Patriot Act, passed a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Although aimed at communications with and among foreign nationals, it is apparent that the entire U.S. population, citizens and noncitizens, was included in the NSA data gathering effort. The documents Snowden leaked included details about the NSA data analysis and data visualization tool Boundless Informant, a secret court order requiring Verizon to hand the NSA millions of Americans' phone records daily, and the surveillance of French citizens' phone and Internet records, along with those of high-profile individuals from the world of business or politics. The documents also described XKeyscore, which allows for the collection of almost anything done on the Internet, including the content of personal email, web search history, and browsing patterns. The documents revealed that the NSA was harvesting millions of email and instant messaging contact lists, searching email content, tracking and mapping the location of cell phones, and undermining attempts at encryption to pinpoint targets for government surveillance. Tensions flared between the United States and some of its close allies after it was revealed that the United States had spied on Brazil, France, Mexico, Britain, China, Germany, and Spain as well as 35 world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Snowden's revelations reignited the public debate about how to strike a balance between security and liberty in the age of global terrorism and powerful technology. U.S. officials have stated that PRISM, in concert with other techniques, has helped thwart dozens of terrorist plots in the United States and overseas. President Obama argued that modest encroachments on privacy, including keeping records of phone numbers called and the length of calls that can be used to track terrorists, though not listening in to calls, were worthwhile to protect the country. These programs were authorized by Congress and regularly reviewed by federal courts. Critics charge that PRISM represents a massive invasion of privacy. They believe that routinely giving phone records and email contents to the federal government is a violation of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against search and seizure without a warrant and probable cause. More than half of Americans surveyed by a Washington Post-ABC News Poll in November 2013 said that the NSA surveillance has intruded on their personal privacy rights. On May 7, 2015, a three-judge panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of phone records was illegal. The panel did not address whether the NSA program violated constitutional privacy rights but found that the Patriot Act language the Bush and Obama administrations used to justify the program wasn't meant to allow such massive data gathering. On June 2, 2015, President Obama signed bipartisan legislation curtailing the federal government's sweeping surveillance of American phone records. Bulk collection of metadata from domestic and international phone numbers shifts to the telecommunications providers, and the government must petition a special federal court for permission to search the data. Snowden has been charged with espionage and theft. He's living in Russia. Among those worried about NSA encroachment on individual privacy, Snowden has been praised as a hero. Among those more concerned with national security and the need to protect the nation and its citizens from terrorist and other attacks, Snowden is vilified as a traitor. The debate-and it is a very heated one-continues.

Case Study Question

1. Perform an ethical analysis of the PRISM program and NSA surveillance activities. What ethical dilemma does this case present?

2. Describe the role of information technology in creating this ethical dilemma.

3. Do you approve of what Edward Snowden did? Why or why not?

4. Do you think the NSA should be allowed to continue digital surveillance programs? Why or why not?