Former CIA employee Edward Snowden was regarded accountable for one of the most significant leaks in US history. He brought to light highly classified information pertaining to National Security Agency (NSA) programs both within the United States and around the world that saw it collect personal information from its citizens ranging from phone calls made, email messages sent and received, contacts and friends, and details on how they spend their time. Following Snowden's acts, there was widespread concern over the extent to which security agencies should acquire personal information. While on the one hand, opinion leaders and security experts regard him as a traitor whose actions threaten national security, others on the other hand hail him as a whistle blower and one who put to light actions of the NSA that infringe on security of personal information.
This paper assesses the dilemma of Snowden’s actions by considering three views: the official secrets act, a perceived duty to share and the damage it does to national security. The paper elaborates on each of these views in light of his actions and advances an argument regarding the dilemma between them. It concludes by providing the author’s view on Snowden’s actions.
Official secrets act
The official secrets act of 1911 to 1989 elaborated on the various legislations that would furnish state and official secrets related to national security with protection (Cobain, 2017). As Cobain postulates, the second section of the 1911 official secrets act advocated for the criminalization of individuals who were convicted with
disclosure or receipt of any piece of official information in whatever capacity.
. As such, it implied that at the time, any civil servants who shared government secrets with, for instance, their spouses, were guilty of being convicted to up-to two years in jail. In addition, their spouses were liable to the same sentence for simply receiving the classified information. As a result of this law, many journalists, civil servants, government contractors and MPs were prosecuted for disclosing such information. The act as well meant that employees of the state had to sign off in agreement that they would not disclose any official agreements before accepting their work contracts.
The 1989 amendment of the law saw it do away with the draconian section two. With the amendment, came liberty to disclose official secrets without any conviction unlike the 1911 act that convicted them for the most trivial disclosures. However, following Snowden’s actions in disclosing highly classified state information, more measures were required by law on counteracting disclosure in the digital age. As Cobain adds, a new law opines that not only should those who disclose official information be persecuted, those who receive or gather such information should in the same way be persecuted.
Snowden’s actions are prosecutable according to the Official Secrets Act as he disclosed information that put national security at risk. As he served as a government official at the time of the disclosure, he broke his oath of protecting state information.
Perceived duty to share
Cassidy, 2013 advances various arguments as to why Snowden is a hero based on the notion of a perceived duty to share. First, he argues that it is through his actions that the public was made aware of the NSA’s information gathering programs. His argument is based on the perception that through disclosure, he performed greater public service that outweighed the trust he breached. He likens Snowden’s actions to those of Mordecai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician who revealed details of Israeli nuclear weapons in illustration of his level of service.
Second, Cassidy argues that through the disclosure, the public was made aware of the fact that the NSA gathers public information such as emails and call logs of citizens who are in no way linked with terrorism without obtaining court warrants. Snowden carefully reviewed the evidence and with the disclosure, he was interested in making the public aware of this notion that NSA didn’t have a right to.
What could be argued to be Snowden’s main role as a whistle-blower was that he brought to light questionable activities that those in power would have preferred to maintain as secrets (Cassidy, 2013). He made the public aware that the NSA uses intercepts to spy on people’s communications, both email and phone log information which in effect led to public outcry on the same.
Damage to National Security
Toobin, 2013 argues that Snowden is a traitor who deserves to be prosecuted and put behind bars for his actions that had a huge negative impact on national security. This damage is seen in a couple of ways. First, by leaking NSA’s programs on the particular details that the agency spies on, phone call logs and emails, this meant that terrorist groups were made aware that any communication they undertake across public networks were being spied on and as such, this would mean that they would be easily tracked. As a result, one shortcoming of the disclosure was that it led to the terrorist groups devising communication methods that were more difficult for the NSA to track.
Second, with the public outcry that would result from the disclosure, NSA would be forced to close some critical programs that would leave its security efforts compromised. For instance, with termination of communication surveillance programs, terrorist groups would take advantage of such a situation to easily plan attacks without security agencies being aware. As a result, negative security consequences would result from disclosure of highly classified information.
Conclusion
Edward Snowden’s actions attract both positive and negative viewpoints. On the one hand, through his disclosure, the public domain was made aware of actions performed by the government that infringed on their personal information without court warrants. This meant that their emails and phone communications were spied on and would be easily intercepted leading to a breach of confidentiality. On the other hand, his actions put national security at risk as he exposed highly classified security operations. The NSA uses such surveillance programs to ward off insecurity threats owing to the 9/11 occurrence. Though citizens are under surveillance as well, the intention is to investigate criminal and suspicious activity within the population.
The dilemma between the threat to national security and the perceived duty to share brought about by Snowden’s actions exists in part due to the amendment of the second section of Official Secrets Act of 1911 in 1989. According to the second section of the 1911 Act, individuals were prosecuted for the most trivial disclosures of official secrets. With the 1989 amendment, this prosecution was done away with thereby leading to the witnessed disclosures of official information. Focus should be emphasized on enforcing legislation on individuals who perpetrate such disclosures in a bid to ward off such behavior.
References:
Editorial Board. (2014). Opinion | Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 16 July 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/opinion/edward-snowden-whistle-blower.html
Cassidy, J. (2013). Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero. The New Yorker. Retrieved 16 July 2017, from http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-edward-snowden-is-a-hero
Cobain, I. (2017). This assault on whistleblowers exceeds even the draconian 1911 act | Ian Cobain. the Guardian. Retrieved 16 July 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/15/whistleblowers-law-commission-official-secrets-act
Toobin, J. (2013). Edward Snowden Is No Hero. The New Yorker. Retrieved 16 July 2017, from http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/edward-snowden-is-no-hero
