Case scenario: Edward Snowden and the NSA
Discuss about the Australasian Journal of Information System.
Ethics in the world of ICT are standards that governs how individuals or organizations should handle and manage other people’s information. This is as a result of development of ICT which apart from having positive impact in the society, it can also be used to cause problems or negative impacts that can affect other people (AYNSLEY, 2015). Therefore, there is need for an ethical approach that will help recognize and reduce some of these negative impacts for the betterment of equality in the use of ICT (Bowern, 2006). ICT ethics works in ensuring that people are protected from misuse of their information by unauthorized persons which might interfere with their privacy or affect the emotionally, psychologically and physically.
This report therefore provides an analysis of a case scenario of Edward Snowden who was an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton and worked under National Security Agency. The report analyzes various actions taken by Edward and evaluate it based on various ICT Ethics that regulate the use of information from other people. The report also looks at the NSA ethical behavior on whether or not it was good to use citizen’s data without their consent (Nces, 2018). In this report a doing ethics technique is used to analyze the situation and provide solutions based on what ACS Code of Ethics state on users information.
This case scenario addresses a situation where Edward an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton but working at NSA leaks a very confidential information from the NSA to the reporters at the Guardian and the Washington Post and Edward goes ahead to admit the incident when implicated. This kind of an act is a breach to the code of ethic by Edward as an employee who probably have signed a non-disclosure agreement with the US organization (HHS.gov, 2018). Edward act interferes with the privacy and integrity of the leaked information and this can affect the reputation of the NSA greatly as well as jeopardize its operations. On the other hand the NSA is implicated of using tracking and gathering information from millions of US citizens without their consent (NIILER, 2017). First this is a breach of US citizen’s privacy as well as information protection as they are entitled to. Secondly, this act by National Security Agency does not conform to the ethical behavior that protects information owners from having their information misused or used by third parties without their knowledge. After this incident Edward flee US to avoid being charged for leaking such a confidential information despite US citizens referring to him as a whistle blower and others as a traitor. Therefore this scenario’s synopsis is based on information privacy and misuse of information without the owner’s consent.
Participants and Impact of the Incident
From this scenario, there a number of participants that are highly affected by the Edward action as well as the NSA action. First, the fact the reporters have made it public that the National Security Agency is involved in data mining from millions of US citizens by tracking their phones and traffics, tarnishes their reputation and causes problems with some of the US citizens who feels that NSA have infringed on their civil rights that protects their information from being used without their knowledge (Vaughn, 2016). This will also reduce the public trust that NSA organization had gained from the public and thus affecting their operations. Secondly, the leaking of the NSA surveillance security programs exposes will greatly affect their operations and might put the US citizens at risk since the organization might lose some of the terrorist’s leads thus exposing the citizens to various dangers. These actions also causes problems to Edward as he is forced to flee his country for releasing confidential information that is meant to protect the US citizens from any terror attacks. His actions leads to commotion in his country by also putting his fellow citizen’s lives in danger by interfering with the integrity of his country’s security information. Also through this incident, phone and traffic service providers will also be affected because the section of the citizens that view Edward as a whistle blower will be answerable as to why they allowed NSA to gain access to their information without any consultation or awareness. In addition the reporters and the two organizations that is the Guardian and the Washington post will also be affected for publishing such a confidential information of security matter to the public. In general therefore, the whole incident will affect a great part of the country’s well-being by raising questions concerning different institutions that have been involved in this situation.
From this scenario therefore, there are a number of ethical issues raised by Edward the employee, the reporters and the National Security Agency (NSA). These issues include; the right to information confidentiality and integrity, misuses of personal information, lack of information privacy and competency (VAUGHN, 2015). By leaking the information to the reporters, Edward interfered with the confidentiality of the NSA security information which led to issues of privacy once the reporters had published the information on the public domain. This was unethical because as an employee, it was therefore appropriate for Edward to analyze the usage of the information and what benefits it has before he could share it with the reporters. On the other hand, the reporters considering the importance of security to the US citizens could have also evaluated the report and the impact it could cause to the country before going live with the information. Therefore, it was unethical for the two parties to disclose that classified information to the public as this interfered with the security of the country and raised an alarm or an opportunity that could be exploited by the terrorists due to divisions as a result of leaked information.
Ethical Issues Raised by Edward, the Reporters and the NSA
According to the United State of America Privacy Act of 1974 which applies to all Federal agencies and their employees, an individual is supposed to be safeguarded against invasion by federal agencies of his or her personal privacy by ensuring that the information is collected, maintained and used in appropriate and lawful manner that do not endanger the owner. From this cased therefore it is the duty of the National Security Agency (NSA) and all of its employees including Edward to ensure that the information gathered from the citizens phones and traffics is well protected and is not shared with unauthorized persons. Also considering that Edward was an employee of a different organization which worked under the NSA, the agency should have put appropriate mechanism to prevent unauthorized persons such as Edward from accessing the classified information by interfering with its integrity thus affecting NSA operations.
Based on what happened therefore, there exist various options that could have been taken to avoid this incident. First, even though Edward saw it fit to let the public know of what the agency does in order to access the US citizens information and use it for security reasons without their consent, it could have been morally upright if Edward considered to keep it a secret since this was done for security purposes (Lucas, 2011). It was therefore not right for Edward to expose this critical information to the public through the Guardian and Washington Post reporters as this affected a very important agency that is entitled in safeguarding the country’s citizens (Weckert and Lucas, 2013). The reporters also should have evaluate the magnitude of the effect that this incident would cause before publishing the reports. This therefore portrayed unethical behavior on their side by not considering the lives of the fellow citizens and the ruin of NSA organization reputations as a result of making the security program known to the public.
ACS code of ethics is part of an ACS constitution that highlight various societal values that need to be upheld by all professionals in various fields including ICT (CSSE, 2018). These values are meant to enhance professionalism in the way various persons in ICT performs their duties. The professionals should therefore adhere to these values in order to impact the society positively and improve their quality in services delivery (ACS, 2014). It is therefore morally right for the professionals in ICT to be good citizens and perform their duties in accordance to the laws that governs their professional as well as practicing the societal values highlighted in the ACS code of ethics. Therefore, based on these scenario, all the players which include: Edward, National Security Agency (NSA) and the reporters from both the Guardian and the Washington Post should have adhered to the following ACS code of ethics to avoid the problems that resulted from their actions.
Options to Avoid the Incident
This ACS code of ethics is aimed at ensuring that public interest is put above any personal interest, business and sectional interests (Nces, 2018). It considers the effect a particular action will have on the general public irrespective of whether or not that particular action will satisfy the needs of just one individual. In this scenario therefore, Edward should have evaluated his actions based on whether the security program carried out by the NSA which involved capturing phone user’s information and traffic was with the best interest of the US citizen. Considering that NSA was mandated to protect the citizens of the United States and that the phone and traffic information captured was not used for any malicious purposes but rather for enhancing security, Edward should not have released the information to the reporters but rather should have remained silent for the purposes of protecting the interest of the general public. On the other hand, it was unwise also for the reporters from both the Guardian and the Washington post to publish the leaked information to the public as this raised many problems including divisions and exposed the citizens to terrorist attacks via other means hence going against the primacy of public interest.
It is the duty of every employee of any organization such as Edward to ensure that the lives of other citizens are safe guarded and of good quality. By interfering with the classified information that helped NSA to track down terrorists, Edward not only affected the quality of life of the US citizens but also exposed them into dangers (CSSE, 2018). Before this information was leaked, the relationship between NSA and the US citizens was of good quality and the agency was able to provide quality protection for the general public. Therefore, both Edward and the reporters should have adhered with enhancement of quality life code of ethics that would have ensured that the agency continued to provide their quality and uncompromised services to the US citizens.
Honesty as a virtue is consider one of the ACS code of ethics that help employees and other stakeholders to remain true in their work (Bowern, 2006). From this situation, both the NSA and Booz Allen Hamilton had trusted Edward to be a faithful employee and to adhere to the organizations laws that governs the confidentiality of their work. Contrary to this, Edward decided to betray these two organization by leaking their confidential information to other unauthorized party. This was unethical of him and his actions portrayed an act of dishonesty in executing his duties as an employee at NSA.
The Relevance of ACS Code of Ethics in ICT
A competent employee is expected to conduct his or her duties diligently to their employers. By diligently it means that the employee should not engage in any act that might compromise the operations of the organization at all cost. This therefore means that Edward as an employee did not perform his duties as expected and his sense of incompetency costed NSA a big deal thus interfering with the integrity of its information as well as creating mistrust from the members of the public. Therefore, there was lack of competency as a code of conduct on Edward side thus paralyzing all the efforts by the NSA to protect the US citizens from terrorist attacks.
This ACS code of ethics entails upholding of the societal integrity and enhancing respect among the members of the organizations and society at large. This ensures that experts or professionals conducts their operations at a high degree of professionalism without being compromised at any given time (Black and Roberts, 2018). Based on this scenario therefore, it is evident that the way Edward conducted himself was lacking in terms of professionalism and he did not uphold the integrity that comes with his position as an employee at NSA. Also the reporters did not as well behave in a professional manner considering that the information they published to the public was so critical and could cause a lot of harm to both the national security agency and the public. Therefore, both Edward and the reporters should have behaved in a more professional manner by first evaluating on the importance of this information to the country in enhancing the security of its citizens before deciding on whether or not to publish it.
All these ACS code of ethics if could have been adhered to first by Edward and then the reporters, none of the scenarios that happened could have happened. The ACS code of ethics therefore could have acted as a pillar for the parties to provide quality services and to stick with their duties without affecting either the NSA or the public as it was the case in the given case study.
Conclusion
In conclusion therefore, from both the analysis using the doing ethics technique and ACS code of ethics for this case study, it can be seen that various code of ethics were not adhered to by the Edward and the reporters. It is therefore clear to say that, before anyone makes any decision on an action that could affect other persons, it is good to analyze it and weigh its importance based on things such as public interest, professionalisms, competency and honesty. It is also goo to follow all the stipulated laws that governs the privacy and confidentiality of other people’s information by not sharing or leaking it to unauthorized persons as Edward did in this case study. Code of ethics in ICT professional is very critical and essential as it ensures that the professionals make appropriate decisions and do not interfere with the operations of others as stipulated in the ICT ten commandments that one should not use somebody else’s information to cause harm to them.
References
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Weckert, J. and Lucas, R. (2013). Professionalism in the Information and Communication Technology Industry. [online] Press.anu.edu.au. Available at: https://press.anu.edu.au/apps/bookworm/view/Professionalism+in+the+Information+and+Communication+Technology+Industry/10791/ch03.xhtml#toc_marker-12 [Accessed 20 May 2018].
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