Snowden's Revelations are of 'No Benefit to Society' (Elsevier,
The Netherlands)
"The consequence of the Snowden's action is an even more
intense collective suspicion of one another, governments and businesses. In this
era of extensive individualization, this is of absolutely no benefit to society.
... One of the side effects of a democracy is that everyone surrenders a little
freedom (including privacy) through legislation, with the ultimate aim of being
able to enjoy a safe society. ... The beauty of this system is that the
obedient citizen has nothing to fear."
The
world has been talking for weeks about
Edward Snowden. He has been characterized in all sorts of ways: dissident,
hero, traitor, victims, whistleblower.
Media
wonder where this man is, where he can and should go, and what the consequences
would be if he were extradited to the United States.
It
is striking that there is so little discussion of the underlying issue, just as few today are talking about the extensive leak by WikiLeaks and
its spokesman Julian Assange, who less than three years agocreated a worldwide stir.
According to
Elsevier
Support
for Edward Snowden comes from a shared distrust of government, since his
revelations were nothing surprising. The real issue is that Snowden and
Assange have knowingly leaked a lot of very sensitive information with the objective
of letting the world know that governments are well aware of our daily comings
and goings - and that the government monitors much of our communications for vaguely
formulated "suspicious words."
The
bizarre thing is that this really isn't news. Following the horrific events of
2001, America has, in cooperation with
other authorities, put in motion a process that should prevent such attacks in
the future.
This
process is governed democratically, through legislation and the judiciary. The
fact that such monitoring of our daily business is this thorough was perhaps
less well known. And the fact that big companies like Facebook
and Google cooperate with this on such a scale was also perhaps not understood.
Public property
That
was naive. For years, we have been confronted with reports about the extensive
espionage activities of governments. And we know that the information we seek
and share via social media and search engines is public property.
The
consequence of Snowden's action is an even more intense collective suspicion
of one another, governments and businesses. In this era of extensive
individualization, this is of absolutely no benefit to society.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
One
of the side effects of a democracy is that everyone surrenders a little freedom
(including privacy) through legislation, with the ultimate aim of being able to
enjoy a safe society.
Privacy
The
beauty of this system is that the obedient citizen has nothing to fear. That
people around the world feel the need to share their private lives is something
that carries individual responsibility.
Snowden
need not spend decades in prison. However, it is fair that this man will be
tried for leaking classified information, an offense under the law.
It
is painful that he has done exactly what he accuses the government of doing:
unlawfully sharing sensitive information. The pot calls the kettle black.
