Snowden's biggest takeaway is that we should stop letting our government go behind our backs to monitor us. Snowden is a social commentary on the power that the United States government holds on the world in terms of surveillance. Though the movie provides good arguments for both sides, it paints the holders of counterpoints to be antagonists, ultimately being a "blatantly biased" film [2].
Take, for example, Snowden's CIA recruiter, Corbin O'Brian. Firstly, his character is an allusion to Orwell's 1984, which can be seen from his name, as well as him saying Orwellian things like "Secrecy is security, and security is victory" [1]. Secondly, his character is portrayed as a dark and mysterious, almost villainous antagonist; throughout the movie, he is shown wearing dark clothes, oftentimes meeting Snowden wearing a black coat and hat while Snowden himself is dressed normally. O'Brian is the host for counterpoints to Snowden's arguments against surveillance. In the beginning (19:41), O'Brien asks his class if Bush is violating the 4th amendment by allowing courts to "order to widen domestic monitoring". A member of the class responds by saying that technically yes, but it is not criminal depending on who is asked, to which he replies with saying that journalists will say "Yes". He then proceeds to explain that there is a system, FISA, which allows secret courts to administer warrants based on suspicion - something that journalists wouldn't know about. His main point is that the government can, in times of need for security, can, and should, surrender civilian privacy in the name of safety, a direct counter-argument to Snowden's philosophy. Another interesting point from O'Brien is that
"How can we protect against nuclear war, terror attacks, cyber-attacks without a central Intel factory working around the world night and day", concluding that terrorists can strike at any moment and 24-hour surveillance is needed to stop them. He says, "Most Americans don’t want freedom, they want security", again reaffirming his previous points. Even Snowden is quoted as saying, "I could stop a dirty bomb and save thousands of lives", showing that even he believes there could be some good in government surveillance.
Snowden makes sure to address all of these counterpoints in the movie. He frequently talks to O'Brien about the hacking tools and databases of the NSA and CIA, and how it's wrong to have access to everyone's private information. Throughout the movie there are instances where Snowden is talking in the background while there are visual explanations on the screen. During these moments he usually explains his point of view. In one such moment, he goes to explain that by investigating one suspicious person, in 2 degrees of separation he can encounter around 2 million people, most of which are innocent, "Dentists" and other law abiding people getting their privacy infringed upon. He frequently mentions that spy hacking tools that the NSA have access to, and the movie frequently portrays Snowden as highly uncomfortable with these invasions of privacy. In the beginning he is exposed by a character named Gabriel that the NSA has tools like XKeyscore and Optic Nerve that allow them to literally look into the lives of others via their webcams. This causes Snowden to start physically taping his webcams and upsetting his girlfriend by not telling her why she has to be more secure with her nude pictures and webcams. Snowden actually passes out a few times (in the movie it's because of work stress) but every instance of a pass-out usually involves Snowden overthinking the surveillance going on around him, leading to him being overwhelmed to the point of collapsing. In the movie he says that surveillance is “Not about terrorism, terrorism is the excuse; it's about economic and social control, protecting supremacy of your government”, concluding that privacy is not in the government's interest. Snowden justifies his whistleblowing by claiming that we won't do anything as a nation to even consider changing our policies because we don't have the substance to talk about it; "Without the information to start a public debate, we're lost. You know, the people being able to question our government and hold it accountable — that's the principle that the United States of America was founded on. If we want to protect our national security, we should be protecting that principle". We won't be able to question our government if we don't have the material to question them on, he says.
Snowden is justified in blowing the whistle. From a Kantian perspective, he has a duty to inform society of the wrongdoings of the United States Government. Since Snowden had no proper legal channels of communication, the only way he could get justice was to illegally sneak out the information to the public. Snowden tried raising red flags to at least ten different internal officials, each to no avail [3]. From an act utilitarian perspective, his actions provided more benefit than harm. The benefits of his whistleblowing, to this day, include the Pentagon opening investigation into the NSA, Obama admitting that no conversation would be held about surveillance without Snowden, tech companies needing to provide encryption policies, personal increase in encryption usage, and more [5][6]. In conclusion, the benefits of Snowden's actions outweigh the harms, and he is not only justified in whistleblowing but obligated.
From a Kantian point of view, the government's surveillance of the American people is clearly unethical. Typically, the surveillance will obviously start with someone who is suspected of terrorism. However, when using a surveillance tool such as XKeyscore, the government will also look at the people in contact with the target, and the people in contact with those. By the time the surveillor is three hops out from the target, they are looking at the information of over two and a half million people, almost all of whom are entirely innocent. This is a clear violation of these people's privacy, as the government has no reasonable suspicion against them.
One of the main arguments supporting these surveillance tactics is that they are all approved through courts, and therefore are allowed. However, most of these are approved through FISA, a secret government court [7]. Because of the nature of these proceedings, they are private and the suspect obviously does not have a change to defend themselves [8]. Unfortunately, this leads to very one-sided proceedings, and at the end of the day the court can make unethical decisions and nobody would know [8].
All of these actions are justified by stating that they are necessary to prevent terrorism, but in reality, the only thing being prevented is the supremacy of the US government. For example, in the movie Snowden learns of malware planted in other countries' networks. Many times, these are not countries that America is even at war with; it is purely so that the American government can have complete economic and social control over the other countries. At the end of the day, the government is using the American people, as well as those of other countries, as a means to an end, growing as a world power without actually protecting those at risk.
References:
[1] Business Insider, Szoldra, Paul, "'Snowden' portrays the infamous NSA leaker as a hero, but leaves many big questions unanswered", http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-movie-review-2016-9
[2] ars technica, MACHKOVECH, SAM, "Snowden’s bias is blatant—but Gordon-Levitt makes its message powerful", https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/09/snowden-sees-stone-return-to-war-film-relevance-thanks-mostly-to-gordon-levitt/
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/07/snowden-i-raised-nsa-concerns-internally-over-10-times-before-going-rogue/?utm_term=.183bedd88b1b
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/22/pentagon-report-snowden-leaks-national-security
[5] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/5-ways-edward-snowden-impacted-world-nsa-leaks-article-1.2381980
[6] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/05/edward-snowden-nsa-effect_n_5447431.html
[10] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nsa-programs-may-be-legal-but-are-they-ethical/
[11] S. I. Vladeck, "The FISA court and Article III," Washington and Lee Law Review, vol. 72, (3), pp. 1161, 2015.
Take, for example, Snowden's CIA recruiter, Corbin O'Brian. Firstly, his character is an allusion to Orwell's 1984, which can be seen from his name, as well as him saying Orwellian things like "Secrecy is security, and security is victory" [1]. Secondly, his character is portrayed as a dark and mysterious, almost villainous antagonist; throughout the movie, he is shown wearing dark clothes, oftentimes meeting Snowden wearing a black coat and hat while Snowden himself is dressed normally. O'Brian is the host for counterpoints to Snowden's arguments against surveillance. In the beginning (19:41), O'Brien asks his class if Bush is violating the 4th amendment by allowing courts to "order to widen domestic monitoring". A member of the class responds by saying that technically yes, but it is not criminal depending on who is asked, to which he replies with saying that journalists will say "Yes". He then proceeds to explain that there is a system, FISA, which allows secret courts to administer warrants based on suspicion - something that journalists wouldn't know about. His main point is that the government can, in times of need for security, can, and should, surrender civilian privacy in the name of safety, a direct counter-argument to Snowden's philosophy. Another interesting point from O'Brien is that
"How can we protect against nuclear war, terror attacks, cyber-attacks without a central Intel factory working around the world night and day", concluding that terrorists can strike at any moment and 24-hour surveillance is needed to stop them. He says, "Most Americans don’t want freedom, they want security", again reaffirming his previous points. Even Snowden is quoted as saying, "I could stop a dirty bomb and save thousands of lives", showing that even he believes there could be some good in government surveillance.
Snowden makes sure to address all of these counterpoints in the movie. He frequently talks to O'Brien about the hacking tools and databases of the NSA and CIA, and how it's wrong to have access to everyone's private information. Throughout the movie there are instances where Snowden is talking in the background while there are visual explanations on the screen. During these moments he usually explains his point of view. In one such moment, he goes to explain that by investigating one suspicious person, in 2 degrees of separation he can encounter around 2 million people, most of which are innocent, "Dentists" and other law abiding people getting their privacy infringed upon. He frequently mentions that spy hacking tools that the NSA have access to, and the movie frequently portrays Snowden as highly uncomfortable with these invasions of privacy. In the beginning he is exposed by a character named Gabriel that the NSA has tools like XKeyscore and Optic Nerve that allow them to literally look into the lives of others via their webcams. This causes Snowden to start physically taping his webcams and upsetting his girlfriend by not telling her why she has to be more secure with her nude pictures and webcams. Snowden actually passes out a few times (in the movie it's because of work stress) but every instance of a pass-out usually involves Snowden overthinking the surveillance going on around him, leading to him being overwhelmed to the point of collapsing. In the movie he says that surveillance is “Not about terrorism, terrorism is the excuse; it's about economic and social control, protecting supremacy of your government”, concluding that privacy is not in the government's interest. Snowden justifies his whistleblowing by claiming that we won't do anything as a nation to even consider changing our policies because we don't have the substance to talk about it; "Without the information to start a public debate, we're lost. You know, the people being able to question our government and hold it accountable — that's the principle that the United States of America was founded on. If we want to protect our national security, we should be protecting that principle". We won't be able to question our government if we don't have the material to question them on, he says.
Snowden is justified in blowing the whistle. From a Kantian perspective, he has a duty to inform society of the wrongdoings of the United States Government. Since Snowden had no proper legal channels of communication, the only way he could get justice was to illegally sneak out the information to the public. Snowden tried raising red flags to at least ten different internal officials, each to no avail [3]. From an act utilitarian perspective, his actions provided more benefit than harm. The benefits of his whistleblowing, to this day, include the Pentagon opening investigation into the NSA, Obama admitting that no conversation would be held about surveillance without Snowden, tech companies needing to provide encryption policies, personal increase in encryption usage, and more [5][6]. In conclusion, the benefits of Snowden's actions outweigh the harms, and he is not only justified in whistleblowing but obligated.
From a Kantian point of view, the government's surveillance of the American people is clearly unethical. Typically, the surveillance will obviously start with someone who is suspected of terrorism. However, when using a surveillance tool such as XKeyscore, the government will also look at the people in contact with the target, and the people in contact with those. By the time the surveillor is three hops out from the target, they are looking at the information of over two and a half million people, almost all of whom are entirely innocent. This is a clear violation of these people's privacy, as the government has no reasonable suspicion against them.
One of the main arguments supporting these surveillance tactics is that they are all approved through courts, and therefore are allowed. However, most of these are approved through FISA, a secret government court [7]. Because of the nature of these proceedings, they are private and the suspect obviously does not have a change to defend themselves [8]. Unfortunately, this leads to very one-sided proceedings, and at the end of the day the court can make unethical decisions and nobody would know [8].
All of these actions are justified by stating that they are necessary to prevent terrorism, but in reality, the only thing being prevented is the supremacy of the US government. For example, in the movie Snowden learns of malware planted in other countries' networks. Many times, these are not countries that America is even at war with; it is purely so that the American government can have complete economic and social control over the other countries. At the end of the day, the government is using the American people, as well as those of other countries, as a means to an end, growing as a world power without actually protecting those at risk.
References:
[1] Business Insider, Szoldra, Paul, "'Snowden' portrays the infamous NSA leaker as a hero, but leaves many big questions unanswered", http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-movie-review-2016-9
[2] ars technica, MACHKOVECH, SAM, "Snowden’s bias is blatant—but Gordon-Levitt makes its message powerful", https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/09/snowden-sees-stone-return-to-war-film-relevance-thanks-mostly-to-gordon-levitt/
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/07/snowden-i-raised-nsa-concerns-internally-over-10-times-before-going-rogue/?utm_term=.183bedd88b1b
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/22/pentagon-report-snowden-leaks-national-security
[5] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/5-ways-edward-snowden-impacted-world-nsa-leaks-article-1.2381980
[6] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/05/edward-snowden-nsa-effect_n_5447431.html
[10] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nsa-programs-may-be-legal-but-are-they-ethical/
[11] S. I. Vladeck, "The FISA court and Article III," Washington and Lee Law Review, vol. 72, (3), pp. 1161, 2015.