I started in a Security Co-Op position with Raytheon at the beginning of the semester. While I was going through the interview process, I was asked multiple times what I thought of Edward Snowden and what he did in his position at the NSA. This was when I began to understand the impact of Snowden’s actions as they pertained to the US Government and its defense contractors holding Classified information.
There will always be multiple beliefs of whether Snowden’s actions were beneficial to the American public or not. On one hand, the information he released informed the public of the monitoring abilities the Government was capable of. As a Democracy, it is important that the public is understanding of what the Government can do that will affect them, both negatively and positively, in order to prevent any unwarranted monitoring. After watching John Oliver’s interview with Snowden, it is clear that the general public is unaware of what Snowden has done to inform them of the current intrusion to privacy that was occurring within the United States. This leak of Classified information may have encouraged some to change their current ways to enhance their privacy. However, this leak did not seem to affect the public as much as Edward Snowden hoped that it would.
As for the Government, the Snowden leaks seem to have affected them and their processes substantially more than the public’s processes. Working for Raytheon’s Security department has shown me the how the Government and their contractors have changed their ways to prevent another Classified information leak. The Defense Security Services (DSS) has implemented additional checks and balances in order to prevent additional leaks by monitoring who is capable of downloading and printing Classified information. It also regulates the amount of content that users are able to access and download. While the regulations will not eliminate the possibility of leaks, it will reduce the access that users have to Classified content. The DSS has also encouraged contractors to enhance their insider threat mitigation programs. Therefore, Raytheon employees are now regularly reminded of the importance of reporting any suspicious activity within the company. It is unfortunate that these precautions did not take place until a leak occurred, but it Is nice to see that US Classified information is becoming more secure.
The American public will always want the Government to protect them from any threats. In order to do this however, sometimes the Government is required to look within its own population for these potential threats. Whether it is the right thing to do or not, it will always be a topic of discussion for those that care about their own safety and privacy.
Great points! It always is difficult when to draw the line for the government between our safety and privacy. It is especially difficult to interpret James Madison's true meaning as the father of the constitution. Certainly he didn't factor in the extent that terrorism has on the world today so it is becomes a question whether the government has gone too far in this day and age.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, Snowden was trying to give the people information so they could have a voice, yet the line became fuzzy because the government was affected by this leak. I think the government should be able to find threats within our society and our people, but where do we end the line? This whole privacy and safety topic will be around for a long time!
ReplyDeleteI don't think the line that Raytheon is drawing is so fuzzy. They have data they need to protect, so they do what any company with sensitive information would do, make sure that what is classified, stays classified. What Snowden revealed, however, is that stuff that was not really classified, was labeled that way. Moreover, what is crucially different is that the ONLY way to reveal how far the government went in their global quest for all information (under the guise of catching the bad guys - after all, sifting through all that data will let the bad guys through), was to take it and let journalists tell the story. If he was a just a normal whistleblower, like others before him, NO information would get to the public. So, it's important to keep all this in mind. It is not a "trade-off" between privacy and safety. Raytheon is doing what the NSA should have done, protect the classified info by checking who was accessing it. Thanks for the interesting perspective.
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