Ethc3311-Group Discusion 1 PDF

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GROUP DISCUSSION #1 Edward Snowden: Traitor or Hero?

By Team A:

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) Ethics Fundamentals: ETHC3311

Case Study: Edward Snowden: Traitor or Hero? In 2013, computer expert and former CIA systems administrator, Edward Snowden released confidential government documents to the press about the existence of government surveillance programs. According to many legal experts, and the U.S. government, his actions violated the Espionage Act of 1917, which identified the leak of state secrets as an act of treason. Yet despite the fact that he broke the law, Snowden argued that he had a moral obligation to act. He gave a justification for his “whistleblowing” by stating that he had a duty “to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.” According to Snowden, the government’s violation of privacy had to be exposed regardless of legality. Many agreed with Snowden. Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project defended his actions as ethical, arguing that he acted from a sense of public good. Radack said, “Snowden may have violated a secrecy agreement, which is not a loyalty oath but a contract, and a less important one than the social contract a democracy has with its citizenry.” Others argued that even if he was legally culpable, he was not ethically culpable because the law itself was unjust and unconstitutional. The Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, did not find Snowden’s rationale convincing. Holder stated, “He broke the law. He caused harm to our national security and I think that he has to be held accountable for his actions.” Journalists were conflicted about the ethical implications of Snowden’s actions. The editorial board of The New York Times stated, “He may have committed a crime…but he has done his country a great service.” In an Op-ed in the same newspaper, Ed Morrissey argued that Snowden was not a hero, but a criminal: “by leaking information about the behavior rather than reporting it through legal channels, Snowden chose to break the law.” According to Morrissey, Snowden should be prosecuted for his actions, arguing that his actions broke a law “intended to keep legitimate national-security data and assets safe from our enemies; it is intended to keep Americans safe.” In the discussion forum for your group answer the following discussion questions: 1. What values are in conflict in this case? What harm did Snowden cause? What benefits did his actions bring? 2. Were Snowden’s actions ethically justified even if legally prohibited? Why or why not? Make an argument by considering Figure 1.1 on page 11 of the text. 3. Would you change your position if you knew that Snowden’s leak would lead to a loss of life among CIA operatives? What about if it would save lives? 4. Is there a circumstance in which you think whistleblowing would be ethically ideal? How about ethically prohibited?

Individual Member Responses 1. What values are in conflict in this case? What harm did Snowden cause? What benefits did his actions bring? There are many values in conflict in this case, such as professionalism, trustworthiness, society, honesty. Edward Snowden acted unprofessionally towards his employer (NSA) by revealing confidential information. He violated the Espionage Act of 1917 and was accused of theft of the government property. He became a hero for the public and a traitor for the US government. Snowden felt obligated to inform the public about privacy invasion by the government even though it put the US security system in jeopardy. He risked his job, reputation and life to do “the right thing”. There are many employees in NSA who I’m sure knew what was happening, however none of them had courage to inform the public of this issue. This act shows that Snowden had strong values and believes and was ready to lose everything in order to stay true to himself. 2. Were Snowden’s actions ethically justified even if legally prohibited? Why or why not? Make an argument by considering Figure 1.1 on page 11 of the text. I believe, Snowden’s actions were ethically justified even though they were legally prohibited. His thought it was the right thing to do to inform the public, and wrong to continue keeping it as secret and let the government to get away with privacy violation. Snowden decided that he owe the duty to bring up the issue to the public. He valued honesty and society he lived in and his believes were based on public right to protect their privacy. 3. Would you change your position if you knew that Snowden’s leak would lead to a loss of life among CIA operatives? What about if it would save lives? I would not change my position even if I knew that Snowden’s leak would lead to a loss of life among CIA operatives or if it would save lives. Invasion of privacy could lead to revolutions or even war which could result in loss of many more lives. We do not have full picture and all the information on what else has been done by the government, so it is hard to make a conclusion if these two factors could change my opinion. 4. Is there a circumstance in which you think whistleblowing would be ethically ideal? How about ethically prohibited? I think whistleblowing would be ethically ideal in case of scam, corruption, life threatening situation, or public danger. It should not be ethically prohibited because in some cases to be a whistleblower is the right thing to do even if it would hurt your reputation, job position, or even send you to the foreign country to seek asylum.

1. What values are in conflict in this case? What harm did Snowden cause? What benefits did his actions bring? The conflicting values in this case are privacy and security. The government had to decide between its obligation to respect the privacy of its citizens versus the obligation to protect its citizens from threat. Similarly, Snowden had to decide between upholding his legal and contractual agreement to maintain confidentiality versus informing his fellow citizens of an obvious infringement of their right to privacy. The initial harm caused by Snowden’s actions was the loss of trust in government among citizens. Additionally, leaking this information to the public meant that actual terrorists also gained this information which would allow them to adjust their actions, accordingly, potentially placing US citizens at a higher level of risk. The benefit brought by Snowden’s actions was that the public could now voice either their opposition or support of the government’s actions and hopefully better align the government’s actions with the will of the public they serve. 2. Were Snowden’s actions ethically justified even if legally prohibited? Why or why not? Make an argument by considering Figure 1.1 on page 11 of the text. Snowden’s actions were not ethically justified in this situation. When deciding whether or not to leak the information to the public, Snowden was essentially deciding between whether to act in alignment with his duty to serve the country in his position or in alignment with his core value of privacy. Snowden chose to act in alignment with his value of privacy. As shown in Figure 1.1, values are rooted deeper within the self than duty and therefore are more heavily shaped by past experiences and less controlled by conscious, rational thought. While many may agree with the decision Snowden made, subconscious influences motivated him to disregard both the value of security and his duty as a public servant. 3. Would you change your position if you knew that Snowden’s leak would lead to a loss of life among CIA operatives? What about if it would save lives? If I knew Snowden’s leak would lead to a loss of life among CIA operatives, it would further strengthen my belief that his actions were not ethically justified. It would provide evidence that valuing privacy over security was a misjudgment that caused more harm than good. If I knew that Snowden’s leak would save lives, my opinion would change because it would provide evidence that his decision served the values of both privacy and security, rather than just privacy. 4. Is there a circumstance in which you think whistleblowing would be ethically ideal? How about ethically prohibited? A circumstance where whistleblowing would be ethically ideal is if the government were conducting behaviour that was clearly against the public’s will and failed to serve any altruistic purpose. An example of this situation would be if the government were secretly indoctrinating citizens with a specific race or culture in concentration camps. Whistleblowing may be ethically prohibited if the leaked information directly resulted in severe negative consequences and only

uncovered a wrongdoing by the government that was minor in comparison. An example may be if the government was choosing to accept collateral damage in the form of a few lives to prevent a terrorist from killing millions of people. 1. What values are in conflict in this case? What harm did Snowden cause? What benefits did his actions bring? Responsibility, Honesty, Security. Snowden did put security at risk by revealing the gov’t surveillance programs to the public. Protests could have easily turned violent as the public would now feel burned by the very people they elected and would expect they respect their privacy. Furthermore, international relations could have taken a downturn. The public, however, did benefit from Snowden’s whistleblowing by knowing the truth about what the type of security gov’t has in place and how they are using it. 2. Were Snowden’s actions ethically justified even if legally prohibited? Why or why not? Make an argument by considering Figure 1.1 on page 11 of the text. Ethically speaking, I feel Snowden did his due diligence to the people. As it is the 4th amendment of the constitution, the people definitely had a right to know that their privacy was being somehow violated. The company he was working for may have not thought he was acting ethically due to the fact that they have to sign specific agreements before starting the job

3. Would you change your position if you knew that Snowden’s leak would lead to a loss of life among CIA operatives? What about if it would save lives? I wouldn’t change my position here. Lives are lost due to someone’s political agenda which more than likely aren’t publicized, and any additional spying would lead to more deaths. I feel if you are going to take particular jobs of these types, the risk is there, and the individual should be more than aware of what they are getting themselves into. 4. Is there a circumstance in which you think whistleblowing would be ethically ideal? How about ethically prohibited? An ethically ideal circumstance would be to speak out if there was any sort of danger that would cause casualties, like storming the capitol building. An ethically prohibited circumstance would be if by whistleblowing would lead to continuous negative outcomes. My questions prior to reviewing the case: Since I was not familiar with this story, I needed to ask the following question: What was the NSA doing that Snowden considered to be unethical and what information did Snowden leak? Answer: the N.S.A. has built an infrastructure that allowed them to intercept pretty much anything they want to and with this capability, all of our communications whether it be the emails you have between family members, your passwords, your phone records and your credit card. The NSA can get it all because technically they have set up a system to spy on us all (without out knowledge), intercepting all of human communications…. taking whatever information, they chose, whenever they chose to do it. In my opinion, this is not only a complete violation of privacy, but it is, in my opinion no different than any other cyber-criminal. It makes me ask another question…. What is the primary motivation for this violation… the same type of violation that would land and Black hat hacker in prison potentially for life? There is no difference. I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things… I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under. Although I say these things, I have personally been involved in a whistleblowing case where government was involved and I have learned that though moral dilemmas may be presented to us, we MUST carefully think through the consequences and make your decisions accordingly.

Before reading the case questions, I made a lot of assumptions based purely on my own personal beliefs but also based on firsthand personal experience and that is what drove me to answer the initial question that I did have. Now to look at the case study questions: 1. What values are in conflict in this case? What harm did Snowden cause? What benefits did his actions bring? I believe that there are a number of values in conflict here. The values in conflict for the Edward Snowden case are that he spoke about how Americans are being spied on by specific organizations, especially the NSA, and that relative information is collected about them without their consent. Edward Snowden was seen as a saint by a lot of the American public for this, but he was demonized and is a criminal to the American government. The harm that he caused relates to how he caused a stirrup in American perceptions of their government and released documents that were supposed to be confidential. The benefits that Snowden brought were the assurance and data to support some conspiracy theorists' suggestion of the government spying on people without warrant, and a few other things the government hides from the public. Other than this there was NO benefit to Snowden. 2. Were Snowden’s actions ethically justified even if legally prohibited? Why or why not? Make an argument by considering Figure 1.1 on page 11 of the text. Now this again is my personal opinion but to an extent based on personal experiences. Snowden’s actions seemed to be ethically justified, even though it was legally prohibited although I question the how an act taken against an unethical action can or should be “legally prohibited”. Snowden was a character who seemed to be more about doing right for the American public over trying to do shady things behind the scenes. People might say “he must have had something to gain from the whistle blowing, but from personal experience and from other whistleblower stories… there is NEVER anything positive that is gained other than a sense of your own need to follow your personal values and ethics. He tried to expose this side of the government to the public, after they denied the ability to find any higher-ups who could oversee some of the unconstitutional things the NSA was doing. He tried to report these things before it got out of hand, in his eyes, and then he released all of the documents, when he felt that there was nothing else, he could do. Again, from personal experience, whistleblowing DOES NOT ever benefit the whistle blower. One must look carefully at the consequences of doing what Snowden did and note that although he did what was ethically the right thing, there were lives put at risk as a result of his actions. Since we aren’t going into a really deep debate on this one, I will only say that I would ask one further question: “Despite Snowden putting lives at risk due to his whistleblowing, but does this fact make his act wrong? Does his “telling the truth” cancel out that the government is operating

in a manner that put all of us in jail, potentially for life”. The hypocrisy of politics and the “elite” (said loosely) never ceases to amaze me. 3. Would you change your position if you knew that Snowden’s leak would lead to a loss of life among CIA operatives? What about if it would save lives? I think that I wouldn't change positions, even if Snowden's leak lead to the loss of life among CIA operatives, because the unnecessary spying can lead to even more lives lost. There is no reason for the NSA and CIA to feel the need to creep into the private lives of other people and store information, without a specific warrant (say if it's a suspected terrorist or something similar). In my opinion, holding on to one’s private information without permission, in a way shows us how much the government actually trusts its people and respects the people that “government” actually work for. Basically, there is a complete lack of trust between government and their employer which is the people. To delve deeper into this, you must ask yourself: What would my employer do to me if I was “taking employer information and selling it to whomever I felt like it because I personally believed it was for the betterment of the country or for any other reason?” We would be fired and charged criminally. This is simply the same thing that the government is doing but for whatever hypocritical reasoning used, it is OK. I do understand the that government gives a reasonable explanation for what they do with this information but “Does it make stealing private information ok?”. To answer that question, from a personal perspective and belief lol, “Stealing information is condoned if you are in a positions of power?” 4. Is there a circumstance in which you think whistleblowing would be ethically ideal? How about ethically prohibited? Whistleblowing can be ethically ideal at a time that corruption is occurring while being held from the public. I think Snowden's entire case is a good example of when whistleblowing is ethically proper. He tried to report to the proper channels and people ignored what was going on, so he did what he felt was needed. He signed up to protect the American public, when he chose his occupation, and decided to go through with his choice, rather than walk back on it like many others did. Whistleblowing shouldn't be ethically prohibited, because it is meant to protect the general public. In my opinion, coming forward as a whistleblower is the bravest thing one can do as it has “NO” benefits for the whistle-blower. Typically, no one will have your back… you will likely lose more than you might gain, and you will be blackballed from work and so many other things. I know from personal experience that whistle blowing is never worth it. No matter what your personal values and ethics are… NO ONE will “have your back”. Your life WILL be devastated…. NOT WORTH IT.

Group Discussions – Based on Individual Responses Conclusion Through “meetings” as defined by our team, in the Charter, members had several “meetings” regarding this case study. From our “meetings” we discussed individual responses and it was clear that how we each interpreted the case was based on a combination of personal values, beliefs and attitudes as well as objectivity when faced with evaluating a moral dilemma case such as this one. Some may say that objectivity of ethical beliefs is only perceived, and this may be true as at the core of all decisions that involve a moral dilemma there will likely be some degree of personal bias. However, we understand that to analyze moral dilemma cases such as the Snowden case, there are things such as legal considerations; public opinion and other extenuating circumstances that must be considered and where objectivity must be used for fair decision making. Our team had concluded that………

References Psychology Now – A magazine of ideas Is Morality Objective? Retrieved: https://philosophynow.org/issues/115/Is_Morality_Objective McLachlan, Jane Ann, The Right Choice – Making ethical decisions on the Job...