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Case Study: Edward Snowden and Big Data
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“I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.” -Edward Snowden
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Identified Issues and Challenges
There are various challenges identified throughout the Snowden case that stakeholders face. The intrusion of privacy as revealed by the events by the US government is the first and foremost concern by citizens. By releasing the NSA’s metadata collection programs, Snowden was able to reveal just how much the government was collecting on everyday citizens. According to the “2011 FISA court opinion” for the first time since Snowden’s revelation a federal court validated his concerns by saying “some NSA surveillance actions were unconstitutional.” This seemingly simple statement is a huge red flag. A national agency aimed at keeping America safe and secure admitted to being unconstitutional when it comes to the privacy of the public. In response to this event, numerous polls have shown a shift in US public opinion in regards to surveillance policies within the US government. This breach in national security by the powers that be in regards to civil liberties is evident in the concerns of millions across the globe.
-Molley Sanders
Sources:
https://www.eff.org/document/october-3-2011-fisc-opinion-holding-nsa-surveillance-unconstitutional
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Differing Interests
Many stakeholder groups have various vested interests and goals when it comes to the outcome of this widespread epidemic. The National Security Agency obviously wanted to convict Snowden of espionage and sentence him to capital punishment as a result of his actions. In the eyes of many, his actions were deemed a disgrace and the highest form of treason to which he should serve the penalty for. However, to many more he is viewed with utmost respect and considered a hero. Among these groups there are also those who view him as both. They view him as a criminal for what he did, but a hero for the courage it took to stand up for the people. In addition to these categories there are then the number of those from other countries who were thankful for the revelation of this information. For this was not an internal matter only, but also one involving international security. When interviewed, Snowden stated: “I think the driving principle is that you have to have a greater commitment to justice than a fear of the law.”
-Molley Sanders
Sources:
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/05/18/edward-snowden-talks-ethics-of-whistleblowing/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why
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Key Problems Needing Intervention
There are several key problems in regards to this national security breach which should be addressed professionally. The main issue is how a low-level contract consultant was able to access such sensitive data from the NSA. According to Mike Lloyd, chief technology officer at a network security firm “Even diligent defenders struggle to keep up with all the latest weaknesses, and the dizzying interactions between interdependent systems and layers. We cannot defend what we cannot understand.” Snowden had an extensive background working under various statuses such as an IT specialist, a senior adviser for the CIA, and a telecommunications systems information officer. All of these positions aided in his knowledge and discovery of the various NSA programs and how they were being utilized. The NSA and other such organizations need to take a step back in evaluating just how easily one can access and expose their systems. Had Snowden wanted to shut down the surveillance system and/or do some real damage with his findings he certainly knew how to. It should come as a relief to NSA that this classified information regarding surveillance didn’t fall into the wrong hands, but only to a citizen who wanted to reveal truth and justice.
-Molley Sanders
Sources:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/11/snowden-nsa-hacking-privileged-accounts/2412507/
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Issues With Snowden’s Leaks
by Isabelina Barrientos
Although many people can agree that Snowden’s leaks revealed information to the American people that was crucial for us to know, it is clear to see that they may have done more harm than good in the realm of national security and other countries’ intelligence on us.
One of the first aspects of the leaks that comes to mind is their legality. Edward Snowden was aware of how illegal it was to share classified information. The documents that he took with him to Hong Kong could have landed him in prison for decades just for leaving their designated facility and sharing them in the manner that he did would guarantee life in prison were he to come back to the United States. As a government employee, Snowden displayed a complete lack of integrity in exposing a program that he disagreed with - if all government employees were to act in similar ways, our nation would collapse.
Snowden was also criticized for the manner in which he leaked the information. Rather than making collaborations with journalists and reporting the information strategically so as to avoid putting our national security at risk, he put out massive amounts of classified documents in a way that many would consider reckless and irresponsible. He claims to have thought very long and hard about how he would go about sharing the information, but his actions show it may not have been as well thought-out as he claims.
The fact that Snowden went to Hong Kong to leak the information is also troubling to many. Although he claims that it is a haven for free speech, the fact that Hong Kong is run by China, one of the U.S.’s competitors and adversaries when it comes to information and a nation with limited individual liberties. It doesn’t help Snowden’s case that some of his information on how the NSA was collecting metadata proved that we were illegally tracking not only our own citizens, but those of other countries as well, including China. This created a mistrust in the United States in other countries’ governments and would excuse them doing the same to our citizens.
As important as it is to consider how Snowden’s actions may be heroic, it is also crucial to note the flaws in the way he went about sharing our government’s wrongdoings. This helps us not only judge the character of Edward Snowden, but assist those who plan on whistleblowing in the future in leaking information in the most ethical way possible.
Source:
Toobin, J. (2014, July 16). Edward Snowden Is No Hero. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/edward-snowden-is-no-hero
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What He Revealed, cont.
Snowden revealed many ways the NSA and United States government were spying on US citizens, but he also revealed the government is spying on citizens of foreign countries. He explained how with the use of a program, code-named PRISM, the government collects the internet data of foreigners from all of the major internet providers. This means the government wasn’t only spying on its own citizens but also millions of people around the world. Just like all of the other things Snowden revealed, the government was using PRISM to seek out incriminating information on people who they could label as potential terrorists. This is a global invasion of privacy and I’m glad Snowden made this eye-opening reveal.
-Brent Reber
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/edward-snowden-says-motive-behind-leaks-was-to-expose-surveillance-state/2013/06/09/aa3f0804-d13b-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?utm_term=.dbccab8017ef
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What He Revealed
Snowden’s leaks revealed many horrible things the government and NSA were doing. The NSA was illegally collecting data on citizens of the United States. One of the ways they did this was by recording all of the phone calls made on the entire Verizon Network, one of America’s top phone companies. This represents Big Data on a massive scale. Millions of phone calls are made every day on this network and every single one is being recorded. This is a massive invasion of privacy. People’s personal and even business conversations are being recorded and judged by the government to determine if they are a threat to the country. Someone could be having a bad day and be venting on the phone to their friend and say something incriminating and the government could flag that person as a threat. This is very scary to consider and Snowden felt that the world deserved to know their phone calls were no longer private.
- Brent Reber
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/edward-snowden-says-motive-behind-leaks-was-to-expose-surveillance-state/2013/06/09/aa3f0804-d13b-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?utm_term=.873cdb79c986
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Why Snowden Did It
While working with the NSA, Snowden discovered that the government was using data algorithms to illegally record millions of citizens’ data. This data included phone calls, text messages, and emails. Since the government was spying on its citizens without warrants or any ties to terror groups, Snowden decided to expose this information to the public.
-Brent Reber
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-edward-snowden-is-a-hero
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Video
youtube
The 2016 film directed by Oliver Stone is a dramatization of the life of Edward Snowden which outlines his background, his time in the NSA, and his leaking of classified information. Although it is not a documentary and isn’t completely accurate to the reality of his life, it does get the key points right and kindled the public’s interest in what Snowden went through as a whistleblower.
-Isabelina Barrientos
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Another Issue
Snowden’s leaks may have lend to the overhaul of a 7year old Al-Qaida encoding software “Mujahideen Secrets”. Big data companies have allegedly found direct evidence that Al-Qiada revamped their software after Snowden leaked classified info.
-Cheyenne Badgett
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/08/01/336958020/big-data-firm-says-it-can-link-snowden-data-to-changed-terrorist-behavior
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Big Data Controversy/Other Issue
Does big data actually improve security or does it really provide a “placebo” effect. A argument can be made that the use of big data analytics infringes on civil liberties and can also make finding potential threats harder.
-Cheyenne Badgett
https://www.forbes.com/sites/silberzahnjones/2013/07/11/snowden-and-the-challenge-of-intelligence-the-practical-case-against-nsa-big-data/#60f6199e5f4b
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The Issue/Resolution
Edward Snowden’s actions brought to light key flaws in the NSA’s security, corporations and businesses everywhere. The NSA realized that its security for classified information was no were near what it should be if a IT administrator was able to access it with a few thumb drives. As a result, big data is now used to secure information more efficiently and analyze employee’s behavior at work to monitor their performance.
-Cheyenne Badgett
https://www.ft.com/content/9a4bcf88-ebf5-11e3-ab1b-00144feabdc0
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Quote
America is a fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.
Edward Snowden
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Snowden’s Crime
Snowden’s crime according to the government was releasing thousands of classified documents to reporters about various government surveillance and other government projects. He was charged with Espionage, theft, and unauthorized communication of national defense information.
- Michael McCarty
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Snowden’s Job
Edward Snowden worked as a System administrator for the NSA. Relating to Big Data, a system administrator in general is someone who manages the operation of a computer system. Someone who is a system administrator often handles and sees large quantities of information and if they don’t do their job is could mess up multiple computers, data, and the entire network.
- Michael McCarty
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Big Data Definition
Keeping Big Data in mind, the definition is “extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions”
- Michael McCarty
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Big Data in the Government
By Isabelina Barrientos
Prior to Edward Snowden’s release of the NSA documents that exposed the U.S. Government for its surveillance of Americans, the term “big data” was typically used to describe the large data sets that analyzed patterns and associations that were used by companies in the private sector for marketing and advertising. Of course, no one wants their tweets and google searches to end up in any devices but their own and those who they willfully choose to share it with, but data being in the hands of marketing and advertising teams and computer scientists isn’t too bothersome - Target can’t arrest you, Forever 21 doesn’t care what your address is, Amazon doesn’t want to know what your search history is if it doesn’t maximize their profit.
When all of your information on the internet and personal devices including your personal messages and phone calls are being analyzed by the government, however, big data becomes an entirely different monster to Americans. The government can throw you in jail for selling small quantities of marijuana, they can detain and question you if they have the most minor suspicion that you may be a terrorist, they can take you to court for streaming songs and movies from the internet - and their collection of your data greatly facilitates this in a way that the world has never seem before. With a $600 billion military budget with drones, tanks, and atomic bombs and the possibility to slowly turn into an authoritarian dictatorship that throws its dissidents into gulags and work camps, Americans do, as they should, fear the government.
There are those who claim that they don’t do anything wrong so they have nothing to worry about, those who say that the government having our information keeps us safe, and those who remain in a blissful state of trust in the government and faith that nothing bad will come out of big data in the public sector. On the other hand, there are those like myself who believe that unless a person poses a serious threat to our national security, the government should not tap into any individual’s private life without informed consent. In my eyes, the government having our information gives them exponentially more power over our individual liberty and I don’t see it going in a way that is less Orwellian and authoritarian.
One of the biggest issues that I take with what the NSA was doing was that not only did they not inform us of it, they intentionally tried to hide it from us and are actively making attempts to incarcerate the man who brought their behavior to light. This is why I see Snowden as a hero - exposing this didn’t stop the government from continuing to spy on us and we still can’t do anything to stop them from doing so, but being informed is crucial in maintaining a free society and ensuring that we stay aware of what they have got against us when the government abuses its power in the future.
Source:
Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: Capacities, consequences, critique. Big Data & Society, 1(2). Retrieved February 10, 2017, from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2053951714541861
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