Snowden Ledgett Debate

            The decisions made in secret by the NSA without the public’s awareness, and without the public’s consent and without even representatives in the government having knowledge of these decisions, were exposed by Edward Snowden this past June. The both sides of the debate are to be noted in that Snowden believes the general public should be informed of the government’s actions but he also took the data information he had about the United States and gave access to Russia as well as China, which put the United States in a very vulnerable position. Snowden giving China and Russia access to this data is unknown but the United States government assumes they had taken advantage of it.

            The NSA’s position on Snowden’s revelations disregard the citizen rights over the security of the nation. Ledgett’s response to Snowden’s revelations is that there were some truths to his revelations as well as some half truths and extrapolations. Ledgett paints the image that the people that work for the NSA are good “citizens” and makes the connection that they are just like us. And he says that Snowden’s actions were inappropriate because he essentially put people’s lives at risk. The nature of the way the NSA had access to the information was attained in an illegitimate and wrongful way to begin with, all in the hope of protecting the United States citizens.

            Both sides of the debate point out some valid issues that need to be addressed in order for the case to be accurately analyzed. The whole situation could have been avoided if the NSA was upfront with the citizens of the United States and informed the public about the systems that were put into place. That being said the reason these operations were secret was that the nature of the operations violated citizen’s privacy in an attempt to secure the nations protection. The debate outlines where the line should be drawn in order to protect the nation state. The bottom line is that the general public should be informed of the NSA’s activity.

Edward Snowden was not in the wrong for revealing the government’s misdoings, but when he went to China and Russia with the classified information, in order to escape the United States government prosecutions he had put the nation in a vulnerable position. It is unfair that he has to be prosecuted for his actions in the first place, as the information he revealed pertained to the government violating citizen rights.

 Ledgett made the argument that; “We don’t have to give up liberty in order to have security.” While the American Constitution guarantees against unnecessary search and seizure, the liberties of Americans were in fact compromised in order to have security in this case. The information that was being collected by the NSA was an unnecessary sort of search and seizure of all citizens, in order to have access to a particular kind of person that was associated with counterterrorism, proliferation or another intelligence target. Overall, I would say this was being used as an emotional cover on the NSA’s actions. The NSA’s rebuttal was one that was expected and aligned with the political and national ideologies that the United States continues to enforce. The factors that play a role in the debate are politics, corporations, and the media.

The politics involved in the NSA’s actions were ones that weren’t explicitly recognized by the governing body of the United States. Not only was the public not informed but also neither were government officials. That being said the NSA acted on the behalf of their own interests, as the systems put in place do not reflect the opinions of the general public but ignore the general publics concerns. And in the rebuttal of Snowden’s revelations the general publics opinion on the issue is very well ignored. The NSA can be looked as a corporation that is backed by the United States government, and through their actions suggests that they believe that the public is incapable of making rational decisions. NSA not only believes that the mass mind is unreasonable, and irrational, but also believes that the government is unreasonable and irrational.

The NSA points to terrorism as the reason to have the system in place, which corresponds to the United States, enforced ideologies. The NSA is taking advantage of the governments ability to program fear in citizens and control it. Going back to the false propaganda publicized in the media about the events of 9/11 created the idea in the American mind that the United States has enemies, and therefore can never be weak. The average American is exposed to a sort of propaganda the Government puts forth that justifies its unethical actions. The NSA uses terrorism as a justification for the unethical systems it was using to obtain information, while the big picture reveals that the NSA enforces half-truths, and extrapolations of ideologies put in place by the government, that mask the true unethical nature of their actions.