Snowden

I initially thought Edward Snowden was a traitor. It started because I didn't think that recording the metadata of phone calls was that bad. I had a belief that the government just wouldn't do anything bad with it; "big brother" arguments were all fiction. What harm would the government try, anyways? Target protesters? This is America, not a totalitarian state, I haven't really ever heard the government denounce protesters before. They seem to respond "Well Ok I guess people care about that, time to make that a priority."

Over the last few years, though, I've revised those ideas. Better to make it impossible for the government to collect such data; if the data can be abused to better the government at the expense of the people, it probably will be, eventually. Rather than trust the people of the government to do the right thing, we should create a system where it is impossible for them to do the wrong thing.

I've also mostly decided that the collections the NSA were doing went too far. What remains more troubling to me, however, is their loose interpretation of Section 215 and the fact that Congress was not properly aware of the situation. That seems dangerous to me; the executive branch gaining too much power because it refused to inform the others.

So in that sense, Snowden was justified. The NSA was collecting a level of data that I think was too much, and on top of that they were collecting it illegally and without the consent of the legislative branch of government.

However, Snowden diluted this story with some major missteps. Instead of leaking only information pertaining to the phone metadata, he dumped millions of documents on the media. He went to the media before he went to Congress. He also fled the country to seek asylum in China and Russia.

He leaked too much data. There was too much information there to make a lasting story. The phone records information stuck, but also got somewhat lost in a debate over the rest of it. There were less impactful surveillance schemes that were probably wrong but distracted and diluted the main message. Foreign surveillance information was also outed in these documents, detailing U.S. spying on adversaries and allies alike. This caused real harm to U.S. relations, and drew attention away from the phone records story and more attention to Snowden being a traitor.

He gave the information to the media. The idea was they would be less biased in what to show and what to keep secret, but (as the "Yes, Edward Snowden is a Traitor" article put it) "society has not appointed journalists or newspaper editors to decide these matters, nor are they qualified to do so." They're top priority is not the public welfare, but selling news. They held some items back, but arguably published more than they should have, and also improperly redacted items in some cases. Also, there was information too secret to report. That information now rests on the media's less secure servers, and was read by reporters without security clearance.

He fled the country. Some people have labelled him a coward for this, for breaking a law but not sticking around to try to prove himself justified; for not facing the consequences of his actions. I'm not sure where I stand on this; it's easy to criticize someone for not sacrificing themselves, but then again would I decide to go to jail as a traitor? I'm not sure. However, there is a tradition of people who knowingly break the law (e.g. flag burning) or whistleblow against their companies (e.g. Roger Boisjoly) and accept the consequences. This seems to fly in the face of that tradition.

Also, he carried sensitive U.S. information to adversaries who have complete control over him. For example, Russia could easily pressure him to reveal government secrets; if he doesn't talk, they can extradite him.

In summary, what he did was obviously illegal and partially unethical. There were malicious secrets kept from the American public as well as a lack of Congressional oversight. It was ethical to reveal these, regarding the collection of phone metadata. However, the three main points outlined above were not ethical; ideally he should have leaked much less data, sent it to Congress instead of the media, and remained in the country to try to prove himself in court.

Do the benefits outweigh the harms done to the American public? Hard to say. One article mentions that being aware of possible NSA surveillance probably spurred tech companies to encrypt more of their users' data, trying to avoid a "big brother" scenario. Americans were more aware of the possibilities of espionage, but a Pew survey showed that not many people overall thought worse of the NSA. Laws were eventually passed to forbid the NSA from collecting phone metadata, but the rest of the Patriot Act remained in effect. And there were real harms in terms of relationships with allies. And maybe terrorists will be more careful about how they communicate, but I find it difficult to imagine they weren't careful before. All in all, I think it's about a wash as far as the public well-being goes, but it's really hard to tell.

Personally, the whole discussion has made me more aware of government surveillance. I went from the idea that "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" to a much more cautious "We really shouldn't give the government something it could abuse in the future."