I first read the BBC News article that details some of the information in the millions of classified documents. I wasn’t so surprised about learning that the NSA listens in on millions of Americans. I was shocked about hearing that they also surveilled several UN Ambassadors. But there were so many different pieces of information that I was reading about that I started to get confused. I couldn’t figure out what his motivations were or why he chose these specific documents. They seemed so broad that it clouded any ethical goal he claimed to have had and made it seem like he was just leaking the information because he could. Then I read the Washington Post article about Edward Snowden’s impact. They described everything I was feeling and put some reasoning behind it that made sense to me.
Eventually I was able to get a clearer vision of what his goal was. He wanted to bring attention to the way that these government agencies were using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to justify and allow these surveillances and seemingly infringe upon our privacy. This section specifically allowed “access to records and other items”. Up until Snowden’s leak, this allowed the bulk collection of phone metadata by agencies by the NSA through phone companies like Verizon. They were performing what they called third hop queries. “A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.” In 2015, this section was not renewed when the USA Freedom Act was passed, which replaced the Patriot Act. So in a way, Snowden was successful in making some sort of an impact on the way that the government goes about collecting information on people.
However, I think there are a lot of problems with the way Snowden went about this. He stole over a million classified documents, without even reading them. He just handed them over without knowing what exactly was in them. If he had only leaked the information about collecting phone records, I think it would have been received a lot differently. But then he also leaked information about the way the government surveils other countries. Thank goodness we didn’t start any wars as a result of this, because I feel like that was a very real possibility! At the very least he definitely hurt some international relations. And I honestly don’t care that my government may or may not be listening to my phone calls if I happened to be “three hop queries” away from someone possibly connected to a terrorist organization. That is exactly the kind of thing I expect the National SECURITY Agency to do if it helps keep me safe.
I do not think that what he did was beneficial to the public. I do think he harmed the security of the United States and its allies. I don’t think that these revelations impacted my views on government and national security. I think that these agencies are doing what they need to do in order to maintain our security. As far as my opinion of technology, I think it is smart of these agencies to take advantage of all of the information that is already out there and use it to gain intelligence. I don’t think he should be pardoned. There is a reason that leaking that type of information is illegal, and when you do something illegal you have to go to jail. That is not an attack on whistleblowers, because I really don’t think that what he did constitutes as whistleblowing.