Snowden Claims the NSA Will Ruin the Internet
The well-known NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, spoke at the recent SXSW (South by Southwest) conference. It is clear that Snowden feels no remorse for his actions. Instead, he is still speaking out about the NSA and condemning his former employer. Snowden spoke at the SXSW conference digitally, as he still has to remain out of the country to avoid prosecution. His topic remained, the peril of the NSA’s mass surveillance. Snowden used colorful phrases like “setting fire to the Internet” in regard to the Director of National Security Agency General Keith Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. He feels that the management’s actions are compromising the security of the republic and the Internet. If the Internet is not secure, its future is in question. The United States has been a leader in Internet innovation and the NSA is undermining the progress of the technology by “eroding our protections of communications to get an attack advantage.” As Snowden has said before the NSA is really harming the security of our nation by putting offense before defense. However, one may think that Snowden himself put the country at great risk by exposing the NSA’s acts and the manner they go about conducting them. Snowden refutes that this put the nation at risk. Instead he claims that it makes us more secure because there is transparency and this will force the government to make things more secure. His argument depends on the idea that the integrity of your personal communications has some bearing on the nation’s larger interests. This may not be true for everyone, but for many business dealings it is important and may have a large impact on the economy for the country or internationally if that communication is available. Therefore, less trust in the security of your communication leads to less business dealing, less communication overall. This affects the economy and the future of how the Internet can thrive and grow, because it is a system based on the connection of and communication between people.
