Snowden: The Lesser of Two Evils

An ethical examination into America’s favorite whistleblower.

Jared Beardsley

9 December 2023

Introduction

"People look at me now and they think I'm this crazy guy, I'm this extremist or whatever. Some people have a misconception that I set out to burn down the NSA. But that's not what this was about. In many ways, 2013 wasn't about surveillance at all. What it was about was a violation of the Constitution." (Snowden, 2019) 

In June of 2013, one of the largest intelligence leaks in US history was released to the public. The Washington Post and The Guardian published reports of PRISM, Boundless Informant, XKeyscore, and a secret court order regarding Verizon. The media had obtained these files from an informant currently living in Hong Kong, but it wasn’t a foreign operative or spy.The informant was Edward Snowden, the now internationally famous former NSA contractor and computer intelligence consultant, who just a few weeks prior had flown from Hawaii to Hong Kong to seek asylum before reaching out to the press. The US government promptly canceled Snowden’s passport, leaving him stranded in Russia during a connecting flight. Snowden may have not been able to reenter the US, but the damage had already been done. The American people knew they were being watched, and the state of surveillance would never be the same.

Relevant Facts

So what would prompt Snowden, a well compensated government contractor with top security clearance, stationed in Hawaii, to abandon this all for a life abroad spent looking over his shoulder? What did he see at the NSA that could warrant this action? Furthermore, is this action justified? Before weighing the ethics of the case itself, it is important to give a brief overview of the relevant facts of this case. 

Edward Snowden was hired as a contractor for Dell in 2009, managing computer systems for the NSA and instructing military officials on counterintelligence and cybersecurity. In 2013, Edward Snowden, an NSA Contractor, took a position at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked as a systems administrator for 15 months, and created a widely implemented backup system for the NSA. During this time, Snowden was considered an invaluable analyst, and was given full administrator privileges with unlimited access to NSA data. (Greenberg, 2013) 

Snowden reportedly reached out to multiple journalists as early as January in 2013, under a pseudonym, with the pretense of disclosing documents to the public. He began working with Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in April 2013, communicating through encrypted email under the names “Cincinnatus” and  “Verax.” Snowden disclosed somewhere between 9,000 to 10,000 documents to Greenwald and Poitras, which were to be published later along with an encrypted code to prove he was the source of the leak. In May 2013, Snowden obtained temporary leave from his station in Hawaii and flew to Hong Kong, giving an interview to Greenwald which was later published in Der Spiegel (Carmon, 2013).  Alongside the interview, disclosed documents detailing government surveillance programs were published internationally, beginning with The Guardian on June 5th. In a connecting flight stop in Russia, Snowden discovered that his passport had been canceled by the US government, and he has remained abroad in Russia as a naturalized citizen for the last decade. Snowden was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which identified the leak of secrets as an act of treason (Davies, 2019).

The NSA Surveillance Programs Snowden Exposed

For proper analysis, it is important to understand the programs that Snowden disclosed to the press:

PRISM is a program that allows the NSA and FBI to retrieve data directly from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. Spokespeople representing the companies deny involvement or knowledge of the program (Sottek & Kopstein, 2013). This also reveals that director of national intelligence James Clapper Jr. lied to Congress in a March 2013 testimony that the NSA was not collecting data on millions of Americans (Shane & Weisman, 2013). 

Boundless Informant counts and categorizes records of communications internationally, collecting real time metadata and providing data visualization. 

XKeyscore sweeps internet searches, emails, documents, usernames and passwords of approximately 150 field sites, including United States, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, Japan, and Australia. Finally, the NSA has a secret court order with Verizon, allowing them access into Americans’ phone records without obtaining warrants (Greenwald, 2013). 

An Ethical Analysis of Snowden’s Actions

This case contrasts the demands of legality and ethics. Snowden’s actions broke federal law, constituting an act of treason under the Espionage Act. Additionally, a federal court judge ruled in 2014 that the NSA’s access to phone records violated the 4th Amendment, as well as ruling further surveillance programs as “almost Orwellian,” with no evidence to justify that it prevented any imminent act of terror (Savage, 2013). Both parties in this case violated the law, but the board is not balanced ethically. We need to examine the harm done both by the programs themselves, and the harm caused by Snowden when he exposed the surveillance to the public. 

What Does This Mean Ethically??

The main issue in this case is that Snowden’s disclosure involved the theft of government documents, but given the nature of the situation and Snowden’s moral obligation, this route is entirely justified. However, If there was a legal way to disclose the same information to the public, it would have been ideal, but given the intense nature of secrecy surrounding all the programs, this is simply not realistic.

Are There Any Ethical Alternatives To Snowden’s Actions??

With the given situation, two potential alternatives would have been to either discontinue the surveillance programs, or to report the privacy violations through legal means. The first simply isn’t possible, as Snowden lacked the authority to do this. As for legal reporting, Snowden attempted this in 2007 during his time at the CIA, and again in 2013 while at the NSA. In testimony to the European Parliament, he said he attempted reporting “problematic programs” to at least 10 officials, who did nothing in response. Snowden also raised concerns with several coworkers, who were unwilling to risk their jobs (Snowden, 2014). However, it is worth mentioning that NSA officials claim zero recollection of Snowden’s attempts to either dismantle or reveal the program prior to his flight to Hong Kong. While this appears to indicate Snowden, it is important to consider that NSA officials would have a very strong incentive to prevent Snowden releasing the documents, considering the indictments faced by the department after the leak. Additionally, we cannot rule out Snowden’s memory based purely on the recollection of officials who have a strong incentive to lie. In short, if Snowden was going to expose the surveillance, which he ought to, he had no alternatives. 

So What Harm Did Snowden Really Cause? 

It is of utmost importance for the reader to understand that Snowden did not cause harm to national security. While it has been asserted by Attorney General Eric Holder that Snowden’s actions caused harm to national security by exposing government programs, there has yet to be proof shown that the disclosure of NSA surveillance has harmed anything other than civilian trust and the privacy of citizens (Gerstein, 2013). The only tangible harm Snowden caused was violating the Espionage Act, a 100 year law designed to target spies during a period of wartime (Radack, 2013). Snowden’s disclosure was done out of moral obligation for the American people, not a foreign party. Furthermore, despite being held for secrets in Russia during his initial landing there, Snowden had already destroyed his own access to the archive, and has remained firm on not conspiring with Russia (Davies, 2019).

Well, What Benefits Did His Actions Bring?

Snowden’s disclosure was done out of a duty “to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them” (Snowden, 2013). This was done out of moral obligation to the citizenry, and not, I reiterate, a counter-intelligence plot. He showed the country that its own government routinely and deliberately broke the law, violated multiple privacy laws and constitutional amendments, and committed perjury regarding those actions. Snowden’s actions, while illegal in nature, exposed a far more sinister system of illegal actions which should be held under much higher scrutiny. Snowden benefitted the American public by exposing a violation of their Constitutional and human rights.

An Analysis on the Ethics of Whistleblowing

This case provides a perfect example of when whistleblowing would be ethically ideal. Whistleblowing is ethically obligated when failure to do so negatively affects the lives of multiple people. To be put more plainly, if failure to blow the whistle would be a net negative for the greatest number of people, then blowing the whistle is ethical. In the case of millions of American lives, it’s not only ideal, it is the only ethical option. Whistle blowing is ethically ideal when done with the intention to aid the public and expose wrongdoing. By exposing these programs, Snowden showed the American people the duplicitous nature of the government, which has since led to stricter regulations of the NSA and harsh scrutiny of its practices. 

How About When Whistleblowing Is Ethically Prohibited?

In my opinion, whistleblowing is ethically prohibited when it results in a net negative to the primary stakeholders. An example of this would be one blowing the whistle to gain financial reward or retaliate for personal reasons, in which case their intentions are for themselves and not for the benefit of the public.

What This All Means, and Why You Should Care.

Now that we’ve examined the ethical virtues and faults of Snowden’s case, I’d like to conclude this essay by dissecting what attacks against Snowden should mean to you, and more importantly, why you should care. 

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve likely guessed my opinion on the case, which I believe comes from a careful analysis of the events that unfolded, as well as weighing the pros and cons of each approach. But Snowden’s case is controversial for a reason, and I haven’t given the one attack against Snowden the proper consideration it deserves. Despite the fact that I wholly disagree, I can’t just let it go ignored, because labeling Snowden as a threat to national security and safety means far more harm for you than you may initially think. 

The primary (and really, the only) attack leveled against Snowden was that he released government documents illegally (something I’ve already covered sufficiently), with the major implication being that this leak constituted a major threat to national security. Now this leak lacks sufficient (or really any) proof of causing damage, despite claims by Director of National Surveillance James Clapper (the same guy who lied under oath about the existence of surveillance programs), who labeled him as one of the greatest threats to national security (News, 2014). Clapper, and other parties in the surveillance committee constantly tout that Snowden’s damage was irreparable, despite a decade passing with no evidence to suggest this. 

Clapper also claims that Snowden gave foreign operatives access to surveillance programs, but this is also misleading. Not only did Snowden destroy his access to the programs before he flew out of Hong Kong, and only released his information in encrypted formats to accredited news sources, Snowden also only released information about domestic surveillance for the benefit of the people, and did not disclose, nor was he proven to have taken, information on foreign surveillance programs. 

This brings us to an interesting question. If the leak being a “threat to national security” has been provably false, with no evidence to suggest otherwise (other than unsubstantiated claims from people within the NSA, who, I shouldn’t need to remind you, have an incentive to lie, and have done so in the past), why is this narrative still believed, especially a decade later? Let’s see who would benefit from such a narrative. 

A threat to national security would concern you, the reader. After all, you live here! A threat to national security points the public towards a common threat, unites people against a common entity, and best of all, keeps your eyes off the government: the very same government who told you about the national threat in the first place. This same government has failed to prove a tangible threat to security that Snowden caused. This same government lied to you multiple times about surveillance programs, and this is the same government who would love for you to forget that. 

Who Do You Think The Real Enemy Is?

Controversy regarding this case is often directed at Snowden performing an ethical action while violating the law, and weighing the positives and negatives of his actions. That’s all well and good, and I certainly had fun writing that section of the essay, but it’s been done to death. While the NSA has taken criticism for the nature of surveillance itself, something that has also been effectively covered, what hasn’t been touched on was their response. Stranding Snowden in Russia, labeling him as a threat to national security, and proceeding to push that narrative for years wasn’t unintentional or spontaneous. It’s certainly not the first time we’ve had a singular individual labeled as a threat to national security, safety, or freedom. Because any threat to national security affects you, being told about such a threat causes you to feel fear and/or malice towards that threat. It would cause you to trust that threat less. It would give you confidence that your government was working to defend you from something you know as a threat. Did you even bother checking if the threat was ever a threat to you? If Snowden was a threat to your safety and security, then who was? Could it have been the very same people that spied on you, violated your privacy repeatedly, and lied to you about it?

Closing Remarks

Fear is a very powerful tool. It’s been with us since the dawn of the human race, and has aided our survival and development in more ways than we could ever realize. Fear can also blind us. Fear distorts our perception of the truth, or hides it from us entirely. Fear has been used by governments and institutions to guide people for centuries. Fear will not always guide you to safety. Be careful what you fear, and when you’re told of a threat, ask yourself who the real enemy is.