Edward Snowden, the lowlevel government contractor who handed over secret information from the National Security Agency to The Guardian and the Washington Post in June 2013, seems to have disappeared from the news. I’m sorry about that because this is a news story I’m really interested in.
I’m very torn about how I feel about this incident. Most news stories I follow I easily form an opinion about—for, against, disgusted by—but I am conflicted by the story of this mild-mannered, 30-something, American office worker turned spy.
Wearing my journalism hat, I want to applaud Snowden. As a reporter, keeping tabs on our local government entities, I think what Snowden has done is important. As a journalist, I don’t like anything being withheld from the American public. As a free citizen of a free country, we should have access to everything our government is doing.
Especially if our government is spying on us.
From the confidential documents that Snowden digitally smuggled out of the National Security Agency, we have learned that the NSA was abusing its authority to listen in on phone calls and to monitor email conversations using an operation called PRISM. The NSA uses PRISM to retrieve information from the cyber companies we deal with every day—Apple, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, facebook, and so on.
None of these surveillance systems are supposed to be used to spy on the American people. At a hearing of the Senate intelligence committee in March 2013, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden asked James Clapper, the director of national intelligence: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
“No sir,” replied Clapper.
When Snowden released his information in June 2013 we learned that this is not true.
I don’t like the idea of our government gathering private conversations. I understand that at this point in history, all of this metadata, all of the bits and bytes, is just being stored. But I’ve read George Orwell and Aldous Huxley and Ray Bradbury. I have a healthy fear of government intrusion and control.
For that reason, I think it is good that Snowden blew the whistle.
But I stop short of calling him a hero. I know that he has been touted as a patriot on college campuses and in coffee shops across the country. According to Reuters, Swedish sociology professor Stefan Svallfors has nominated Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize.
But I have a different perspective than the college students and Swedish sociologists. As a former military wife, my first thought was— how does this affect the men and women of our Armed Forces, Embassy and the National Security Agency field workers?
In the 20-plus years that I lived on or near military bases with my soldier husband, I learned not to talk about deployments or new equipment. I knew there were places on post where I wasn’t allowed. When we were assigned to Fort Belvoir, Virginia and Chuck worked with the Military District of Washington (MDW), I knew that he couldn’t talk about some of the training that took place.
So, part of me feels that perhaps Edward Snowden did betray our country. He insists he gave out data that pertains only to spying on U.S. citizens. He is confident that the confidential information was not harmful to NSA agents in the field or our military in hostile situations.
But who is he, a mildmannered, 30-something, American, office worker turned spy, to determine what is—and what isn’t— important?
Likewise the Washington Post and The Guardian. In an interview shortly after accepting the intelligence data, one of The Guardian’s officials stated that it would protect the information. But if this turns out to be vitally critical security information— about troop movements in a military situation, about plans to thwart a terrorist attack, or something that must be cloaked in secrecy, how can The Guardian guarantee that it will remain safe?
According to another article in The Hill in June 2013, the NSA claims that the agency “disrupted” more than 50 potential terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies because of these spying programs.
I’m not the only one confused. Researching where Edward Snowden is now (still hiding in Russia) and what the surveillance programs he leaked were about, I found many pundits weighing in on the question: Is Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor?
Any answers out there? Maybe if the government is reading, they can let me know.
I believe that our national
security lies not just in
protecting our borders, but in
bridging divides.
Joe Lieberman
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