We Cannot Sacrifice Liberty for Security

By now, I would hope that the majority of students at Middlebury College have heard of the whistleblower Edward Snowden and know why he is currently stuck in legal limbo in Russia. Most people have probably also heard of “Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization, and Management” (PRISM), though the role and significance of PRISM has most likely been overshadowed in most people’s minds by the government’s reaction to Snowden’s actions.

Since May 2013, Snowden has taken temporary asylum first in Hong Kong and then in Russia after leaking to the Guardian papers exposing the massive and secretive data mining program, PRISM, operated by the National Security Agency (NSA) since 2007. The reaction to the leaked information by the public was largely one of outrage: calling for more transparency in our government and fear of a Big Brother scenario in which the government spies on its citizens constantly. However, President Obama’s reaction – aside from a few comments assuring the average American citizen that they are safe from government spies – has been to label Snowden as a criminal and a traitor to his country.

This past summer, the trial of another major whistleblower under fire for exposing secrets of the United States government, Chelsea Manning (née Bradley Manning) came to a close. Though Manning was acquitted of the charge of aiding the enemy, she was still charged with five counts of espionage and theft. There are many parallels between the Snowden and Manning cases, but I think the differences raise some interesting questions about Obama’s handling of Snowden.

I do, in large part, support the actions of Manning. I believe that her decision to put herself at risk by leaking the Iraq War Logs to the organization WikiLeaks was incredibly brave and that she brought to light many injustices conducted by the U.S. government through the course of the war in Iraq. It is our right as U.S. citizens to be made aware of what our government does in the course of war – both good and bad. However, I do understand the government’s case in arguing that Manning’s actions put the lives of many U.S. soldiers in danger and that was important in considering her sentence.

To me, though, Snowden is different. This is information that absolutely deserves to be made public and I find it hard to believe that the lives of U.S. citizens are put in danger by this knowledge reaching any of America’s “enemies.” The U.S. government is in a scramble to cover the publicity nightmare following these leaks and suddenly the babblings of tin-foil wearing conspiracy theorists seem a bit more grounded in truth. Numerous documented cases of public officials lying, under oath, about the existence of domestic spying programs; private data is being collected from sites such as Google and Facebook, both through explicit cooperation with these companies and through the application of illicit backdoor access to data; access to this mined data is being provided to Israel, regulated only on an “honor system.” All of this and more has been revealed by these leaks and there is some indication that there may be even more information that Snowden has withheld as of yet.

The Guardian recently published an opinion piece by Bruce Schneier, in which Schneier issued a call to members of the tech and internet industries, as well as the public at large, to reject this reality of government spying and “take back the internet.” I am not saying that everyone at the College should seek out government secrets in order to expose them. However, I am saying that we as a society should promote a culture in which whistle-blowers and the journalists who support them by publishing their leaks should be applauded as champions of justice – not labeled as traitors to their government.

In some of the information revealed by Snowden’s leaks, it has been shown that Congress has the power to challenge requests by the NSA for certain information. If Congress is supposed to represent the people, then it is our job to contact our representatives in Congress and tell them that we will not stand for these attempts at tyranny. We cannot sacrifice our liberty in the name of security. This is not the first injustice conducted by an otherwise flawless government. However, it takes a whole new level of apparent maliciousness to actively spy on your own citizens – and then to blatantly deny it in court.