Hero or Traitor? Edward Snowden and the NSA Spying Program case study tackles the controversy of the NSA's program which was gathering telephone records of millions of Verizon customers in the U.S. as divulged by a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.
Laura Winig; Christopher Robichaud
Harvard Business Review (HKS798-PDF-ENG)
December 23, 2015
Case questions answered:
- Who is Edward Snowden? Why did he leave the U.S.? Is he a hero or a traitor? Why?
- What is government surveillance? Is it legal? If so, cite the law/s which makes it so.
- In your opinion, is government surveillance an effective method of gathering useful information? Why or why not?
- Which Congressional Act enables government surveillance? Is the Act Constitutional? Why or why not?
- Can our government conduct surveillance on Americans inside the U.S.? If so, cite the law/s which allows it to do so.
- How would you deal with a situation in which you are targeted for government surveillance?
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Hero or Traitor? Edward Snowden and the NSA Spying Program Case Answers
A. Who is Edward Snowden? Why did he leave the U.S.? Is he a hero or a traitor? Why?
Edward Snowden is a former employee of the CIA who managed to get top-secret information from the National Security Agency (NSA) and leaked it to the public in 2013.
In his revelation, he said that an extensive government surveillance program was invasively spying on each and every American citizen. He later fled to Russia for security reasons.
According to my assessment, Edward is a hero because he told everyone what the government was secretly doing by looking at the personal information of the citizens, therefore violating their privacy.
He did not use the secret information for his personal gain by selling it to other people. It was a courageous step to take, so Edward Snowden is a hero.
B. What is government surveillance? Is it legal? If so, cite the law/s which makes it so.
Government surveillance is the process of monitoring domestic communications and communication records of ordinary Americans.
I believe that government surveillance is a critical way of enhancing the security of Americans. Section 215 of The Patriotic Act was enacted to enable the government to undertake surveillance programs even with minimal court powers.
It is important to note that the government has the…
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