Edward Snowden's Whistleblowing Report

For years, millions of people have used a form of information and communication technology (ICT) such as a cell phone or computer to make a phone call or access the internet. For much of the 21st century, while making a private phone call or writing a private email, it was just speculation that someone else could be listening in or reading your inbox. That was the case until early June of 2013 when the world got confirmation that there was mass surveillance being conducted by the National Security Agency or NSA, an intelligence organization of the United States government [1]. Whistleblower Edward Snowden, who is a former Central Intelligence Agency employee, fled the United States and leaked thousands of classified documents [1]. Very briefly, from those documents, it was shown that the NSA collected all United States phone call records, internet records and the content of online communication [2]. For an entire decade according to [2] “the
Every single Canadian and American citizen has the right to privacy and for their private affairs to not be constantly scrutinized by an intelligence organization. It is also true that every single Canadian and American citizen has the right to be safe in their own country and should not need to worry about their safety when using public transportation, or going to a night club or visiting a national attraction. In this essay, I will be relating the ethical frameworks discussed in class to the ethical dilemma of the NSA’s breach of privacy versus national security. More specifically, I will apply the theory of utilitarianism, the theory of deontology and the theory of justice to our ethical dilemma in how each of these theories would go about dealing with this issue and finally, I will end with arguing which theory best handles this