Edward Snowden, a computer expert and former CIA systems administrator, released confidential Government documents to the press about the existence of Government surveillance programmes. According to many legal experts and the US Government, his actions violated the Espionage Act of 1917, which identified the leak of State secrets as an act of treason. Yet, despite the fact that he broke the law, Snowden argued that he had a moral obligation to act. He gave a justification for his “whistle blowing” by stating that he had a duty “to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.” According to Snowden, the Government’s violation of privacy had to be exposed regardless of legality since more substantive issues of social action and public morality were involved here. Many agreed with Snowden. Few argued that he broke the law and compromised national security, for which he should be held accountable. Do you agree that Snowden’s actions were ethically justified even if legally prohibited? Why or why not? Make an argument by weighing the competing values in this case.

The Snowden case poses the classic conflict between legal obligation and moral conviction – whether an act that is unlawful can nonetheless be ethically justified.

Competing values

• For Snowden: the citizen's right to know, protection of privacy and civil liberties, accountability of secret state power, and the moral duty to expose a wrong done "in the people's name".
• Against Snowden: rule of law, sanctity of oath and official secrecy, national security, and the danger that selective leaking by individuals substitutes personal judgement for democratic institutions.

Tests of ethical whistleblowing

• Is the disclosed wrong serious and genuine? (mass surveillance raised real constitutional concerns).
• Were internal/lawful channels exhausted first?
• Was disclosure proportionate – limited to the wrong, not indiscriminate?
• Was the whistleblower willing to face accountability?

Weighing the case

On the first test Snowden scores well: he exposed programmes later found by courts and review boards to be legally questionable, and public debate and reform followed. On proportionality and channels he is weaker – he bypassed available oversight mechanisms, disclosed a very large volume of material with security implications, and left the jurisdiction rather than facing trial, which dilutes the moral force of civil disobedience.

My position

I hold that his core disclosure – revealing unconstitutional mass surveillance – was ethically defensible, because exposing a grave institutional wrong that citizens cannot otherwise know can be a higher duty than obedience to an unjust secrecy law. However, ethical justification is conditional: it does not extend to indiscriminate leaks, and true civil disobedience (in the Gandhian sense) accepts the legal penalty. The durable ethical solution is robust statutory whistleblower protection and independent oversight, so that conscientious officials need not choose between the law and their conscience.