Edward Snowden and the NSA Surveillance Program

Disciplinary ethical codes allow an ICT professional to define standard of conduct and ensure the individual practitioners to meet those standards (Fleischmann, Hui and Wallace 2017). This study will discuss the case ethical issue caused by Edward Snowden in NSA. Moreover, the study will analyze this situation using Doing Ethics Technique. Apart from that, the study will also analyze the situation based on the ACS code of ethics. Both the technique will evaluate the ethical issues of the situation from the perspective of ICT professional. Moreover, the study will also provide a suitable recommendation for resolving the case.

In June 2013, the computer expert and former CIA system administrator Edward Snowden leaked the confidential information about the surveillance program of National Security Agency (NSA) (Philosophytalk.org 2015). The U.S Government used to gather and perform data mining on hundreds of internet traffic and U.S phone through this surveillance program. Moreover, the intension of this surveillance program was to identify the possible link to the known terrorists. However, Edward Snowden has violated the Espionage Act through leaking out the state secret. The computer expert has violated the secrecy agreement of the U.S Government by breaching the ethical codes (Allen 2018). Such unethical behavior of Snowden has just wasted the vision of U.S government towards tracking the activities of the terrorists, which can be dangerous for the country.

• Edward Snowden has breached the ethical norms by leaking the confidential surveillance information of U.S government
• Snowden has caused harm to the national security of U.S through interrupting the data mining surveillance program
• The intension of the Snowden was unethical in the sense that he broke the national law of protecting the national assets from the enemies (BBC News 2014)

• Violation of National Security: EdwardSnowden, the computer expert has violated the national security of U.S through revealing the confidential data mining surveillance programs of NSA.
• Caused Harm to the National Security: EdwardSnowden has interrupted the surveillance program for data mining towards tracking the contacts with known terrorists. In this way, he has caused harm to the national security of U.S and U.S public (Irvine 2018).
• Breach of ICT Professional Code of Ethics:  The computer expert has violated the code of ethics of ICT professionals through leaking out the confidential information of U.S government. Moreover, he has exploited his position of trust for scoring political points.
• Breaking Espionage Act of Data Protection: EdwardSnowden has violated the laws of national security act named Espionage Act of data protection (Dodds 2013). He has breached the law of data protection by revealing the confidential information to the enemies.

• S Government: U.S Government is the prime stakeholder, who is directly affected by this case.  Moreover, Edward Snowden has actually interrupted the big motto of U.S Government towards tracking the terrorism activities. Such interruption can also cause harm to the national security of the country and the citizen (Lyon 2014). Furthermore, the case also has another negative effect on U.S Government, where the Government has been alleged with violating the privacy of citizen through data mining process.
• S Citizen: U.S citizens are also directly involved in this case, where the data mining process has tracked their telephonic information. The case has negative impact on the U.S citizens, where the surveillance program has hampered the security of their personal information and activities. On the other hand, the leaking out of surveillance information has interrupted the program of tracking terrorism activities. Moreover, now, the terrorists can easily fulfil their terrorism activates, which can hamper the quality of life of the U.S citizens.
• Telecommunication and Social Networking Service Company: The case also has negative impact on the Telecommunication and Social Networking Service Company. The reputation of the companies can be destroyed on the ground that those companies have permitted U.S Government to track the Telephonic and internet traffic data of the normal publics (Walsh and Miller 2016).
• Terrorists group and their Associated People: The case has positive impact on the terrorists group and their associated People, which actually have negative consequence on the U.S government and U.S citizens. The terrorists group and their associated People will be alert after revealing information of the surveillance program. Hence, they can easily protect themselves from the Government treats and fulfil their illegal activities.
• ICT Professional: EdwardSnowden has set a negative example for the ICT professional, which can influence the associated colleagues. Such unethical conducts of Edward Snowden can also encourage other ICT professional to do the same (Murata, Adams and Lara Palma 2017).

• Ethical Issue Violation of National Security: EdwardSnowden has violated the ethical norms through breaching the national security of U.S. As per, duty ethics theory, the ethicality of an action is judged on the basis of its adherence with the duty of the actor. Moreover, Edward Snowden has not adhered with his duty of maintaining national security, which can actually hamper the national security of U.S (Near and Miceli 2016).
• Ethical Issue in Causing Harm to the National Security: As per Utilitarianism theory of ethic, ethical action always enhances the wellbeing of people. However, the information leak of EdwardSnowden can cause security harm for the citizen by interrupting the terrorism tracking program (Bannister and Connolly 2014). Hence, it is an unethical action, which will actually enhance the sufferings of U.S citizen.
• Ethical Issue Breach of ICT Professional Code of Ethics: As per duty of ethics, ethical action is always based on certain rules and norms. However, in this case, EdwardSnowden has breached the ethical codes ICT profession through revealing the confidential information of U.S Government. Hence, it is actually an unethical initiative for ICT professional.
• Ethical Issue of Breaking Espionage Act of Data Protection: As per duty ethics, the action of EdwardSnowden is unethical, as he have not adhered with the rules of Espionage Act for protecting national security. However, as per his own justification, he revealed the secure information for the privacy of the public, where his intension was good for protecting public privacy (Murata et al. 2017). Hence, as per virtue theory, this action may not be completely unethical.

NSA should renew the surveillance program for tracking the activities of the terrorists. Moreover, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should have to satisfy more legal requirements prior to access the Americans’ communication from the NSA database for the investigation of the agency (Raab and Szekely 2017).  In such legal requirement, the FBI would get a warrant before searching the information from the NSA database. Hence, it would be very difficult for someone to pass on any information to unauthentic person. Apart from that, NSA can also use Homomorphic encryption, which can be use towards aggregating the encrypted data (Kalogridis et al. 2014). It would help in both privacy of secure information in the NSA database and useful aggregate information.  

• More Legal Requirement for Data Access: NSA should set more legal requirements for accessing the confidential information in the renewed surveillance program. Moreover, in this security measure, the FBI would get an alert, when a person would try to access the secure and confidential information from the NSA database. In this way, no person even within the NSA members would be able to access the confidential information without the permission of FBI. Hence, the chance of violation of security measures would be reduced.
• Proper Encryption: NSA can also use proper encryption for protecting the confidential information. In this way, it would be extremely difficult for any unauthentic person for understand the meaning of encrypted confidential information (Gotterbarn and Miller 2017). Hence, it would be extremely difficult for the enemies like the terrorists in this case to understand the encrypted form of confidential information.
• Access Control for Handling Confidential Data: NSA can also use access control system for handing the confidential data in the Database. Moreover, in such system, a NSA member requires permission from the Data Steward towards handling confidential information. Data Steward would give permission to access confidential information only in case of critical business requirement (Raab and Szekely 2017). Hence, it would be extremely difficult to for any NSA member to get access to the confidential database information without critical requirement for the investigation.

Among the above mentioned 3 options, access control for handling confidential data would be best for resolving such case. As per Kalogridis et al. (2014), in case of more legal requirement for accessing data, it might be possible for someone within the FBI members to avoid the alert on request of getting access to confidential data. Furthermore, Raab and Szekely (2017) stated that in encryption process, it might be possible for someone within the NSA to help the unauthentic person in understanding the encrypted form of confidential information. Such person may easily unethically violate his/her duty to pass on the confidential information to the enemies. However, Raab and Szekely (2017) opined that in case of access control for handling confidential information, the permission for accessing confidential information would be system generated through Data Steward. Moreover, the request for accessing data would fit the critical business requirement in the Data Steward. Hence, no person, even within the NSA members can unethically violate their duties by unnecessary accessing database information and pass on them to unauthentic persons.

Resolving the Case

In this code of ethics, an ICT professional is supposed to place the interest of public above those of his/her personal interests or sectional interests. In this case, the NSA surveillance program was initiated for tracking the contacts of the persons with the known terrorists. Moreover, the interest of this program was to protect the U.S public from the threats of terrorists. However, Edward Snowden gave priority of his personal interest to be hero to the public by revealing the data mining process of NSA (Whitehouse et al. 2016). In this way, Edward Snowden has underestimated the public interest of being protected from the terrorists.

In this code of ethics, an ICT professional is supposed to enhance the quality of life of the people, who are affected by his/her work. However, in this case, Edward Snowden interrupted the surveillance program of NSA, which used to track the contacts of the terrorists. In this way, this person has caused harm to the national security, which can directly harm the quality of life of the U.S citizen (Díaz-Campo and Segado-Boj 2015). Hence, Edward Snowden has actually violated the ACS Code of Ethics.

Honesty

In this code of Ethics, an ICT professional is supposed to be honest his/her representing the skills, knowledge and service. However, in this case, Edward Snowden has demonstrated dishonesty in representing his service by leaking out the confidential information of NSA to the public. Moreover, this computer expert was not actually loyal to his profession.  

Competence

In this code of Ethics, an ICT professional is supposed to work competently and diligently for his/her stakeholders. Being an ICT professional, Edward Snowden should be his prime duty to protect the confidential information of NSA competently and diligently. However, Edward Snowden failed to maintain his competence and diligence of this duty by revealing the confidential information of U.S government to the public.

In this code of ethics, an ICT professional is supposed to enhance his/her own professional development as well as his/her colleagues’ professional development. However, in this case, being an ICT professional, Edward Snowden has violated the national security and set a negative example for his other colleagues (Valentine, Fleischman and Bateman 2015). In this way, he actually hindered his own as well as his colleagues’ professional development.

Professionalism

In this code of ethics, an ICT professional is supposed to enhance the integrity of the society and respect the members for each other. However, in this case, Edward Snowden has not demonstrated his professionalism by leaking out the confidential information of NSA to the public. Moreover, he has just exploited his position for disintegrating the society by causing harm to the national security.

Analyzing the Situation using Doing Ethics Technique

Conclusion

While concluding the situation using Doing Ethics Technique, it can be said that Edward Snowden has just violated the ethical norms by leaking out the information of NSA surveillance program. Moreover, he has caused harm to the national security of U.S.  Such situation can be handled through access control on handling the confidential information of NSA database. On the other hand, as per ACS code of ethics, being an ICT professional, Edward Snowden was not at all professional to his profession. He was incapable of protecting the confidential information of NSA.

NSA should provide proper training to its ICT professionals for enhancing their professional development. In this way, such ICT professionals would be loyal to their duties and roles and protect the confidential information of the NSA database. On the other, NSA should strongly initiate the access control for handling the confidential information of database. Moreover, in such privacy system, any ICT professional would require permission from the Data Steward for getting access to confidential information. Hence, it would not be possible for any NSA members to access the confidential information unnecessary and reveal them to unauthentic persons.

References

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