There are legitimate reasons to believe Edward Snowden was
wrong to leak what he did. I have little doubt that analyzing metadata could
indeed be very helpful in identifying terrorist activity, and compared to other
methods of rooting out suspected terrorists, it’s relatively mild. Of course he
must also have broken the terms of his contracts, which presumably had very
strong NDA requirements, but most people don’t seem to find that the salient
ethical point.
However, these are not among those legitimate reasons.
For society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and
cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By
deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all
of these things.
So by revealing that the NSA is gathering enormous amounts
of data on us, without our knowledge and therefore obviously without our
consent, it is Snowden who has betrayed the basic levels of trust in society.
Indeed. Just as when I reveal to the police that my neighbor traffics in underage
Bulgarian prostitutes, I am the one who has betrayed basic human trust - and
indeed the very fabric of our society.
And unilateral leaks are so
last year. I much prefer leaks that have been thoroughly discussed by committee
and approved by the appropriate supervisors.
He betrayed honesty and integrity, the foundation of all cooperative
activity. He made explicit and implicit oaths to respect the secrecy of the
information with which he was entrusted. He betrayed his oaths.
Keeping secrets, big or small, can often be the right thing
to do, but that activity is not terribly correlated with “honesty and integrity.”
I think the word you’re looking for is “discretion,” which is a value that he
could plausibly be accused of betraying. Discretion isn't synonymous with “keeping
all secrets no matter what,” but there would at least be a case to be made. Aside
from that, if honesty and integrity are the foundation of all cooperative
activity, and government is a cooperative enterprise… Then I suppose it’s
impossible that government could have been dishonest with us, and we have
always been at war with Eastasia.
He betrayed his friends. Anybody who worked with him will be suspect.
Young people in positions like that will no longer be trusted with
responsibility for fear that they will turn into another Snowden.
OK, this one’s pretty legit. His friends and family will
indeed suffer for this decision. “Betrayed” seems a little overly dramatic, but
you’re a writer, so I’ll let it slide.
Good luck populating your data analyst positions with senior
citizens, though.
He betrayed the cause of open government. Every time there is a leak
like this, the powers that be close the circle of trust a little tighter. They
limit debate a little more.
Now you’re just fucking with us, right?
He betrayed the privacy of us all. If federal security agencies can’t do
vast data sweeps, they will inevitably revert to the older, more intrusive
eavesdropping methods.
Uh-huh. Telling us about the large-scale invasion of privacy
perpetrated by the NSA is a much greater privacy violation than the invasion
itself. We shouldn't be allowed to make the decision regarding what degree of
privacy violations we will allow in an open or democratic manner. And preventing one government abuse of power inevitably results in an even worse abuse of power. And if we don’t
let kids smoke pot, they’ll inevitably
shoot up heroin. And if we don’t invade foreign countries to root out
terrorists, we’ll inevitably have to
nuke them from orbit.
Give me a break.
He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United
States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about
what should be exposed. Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited the democratic
structures of accountability, putting his own preferences above everything else.
…They created the United States so that an unelected
government body could conduct wide-ranging surveillance on its citizenry
without their knowledge or consent? Perhaps we’re reading different
Constitutions. Granted, my copy doesn't specifically
discuss cell phone metadata, but arguing that the spirit of the Constitution leans
more towards secret government surveillance than towards the free and open flow
of information strikes me as a little, well… fucking insane.
You’re allowed to believe that the Constitution does not
adequately equip our society to deal with today’s threats, which are quite
different from those we faced in 1787. Indeed, it would be extraordinarily
strange if the Founders were somehow able to predict the kind of information
society we live in today and design the Constitution for that society. You’re
allowed to believe the Constitution should be changed to meet the needs of
today’s society. You’re not allowed to just believe that the Constitution says
whatever you wish it did. At least, you’re not allowed to do that and be anything resembling a public
intellectual.
OK, I guess sometimes I wish I wrote the rules around here,
too!
