Final Project Report
No Place to Hide begins by introducing emails from a potential source using the alias ‘Cincinnatus’ asking Greenwald to install encryption for his email so that Cincinnatus, who we later learn is Edward Snowden, and Greenwald can communicate through secure channels, a request that Greenwald ignores. He begins work with an unknown leaker only after a meeting with Laura Poitras in New York, who promises to reveal incriminating documents about domestic spying by the American government on a colossal scale. Following more encrypted online chats and cross-checking the story with their respective editors Greenwald, Poitras, and Ewan MacAskill are on a plane to Hong Kong to meet their source. The group follows instructions on where to find this mysterious person. After we meet Edward Snowden Greenwald begins diving into Snowden’s personal life, NSA documents to report on the NSA’s surveillance programs. The book’s focus shifts from the story of how the documents were leaked and becomes much less about Snowden’s story and more about the actual material that was in the leaked NSA documents.
Using documents leaked by Snowden, Greenwald details the NSA’s relationship with corporations, the NSA’s association with allied intelligence agencies, and how the NSA spied on foreign political and economic leaders. For example, Greenwald describes how Microsoft helped the NSA circumvent encryption used by their Skype and the Outlook services, while they publicly proclaimed the security of Microsoft services. Some of these technologies were allowing the government to hack a computer’s webcam and spy on citizens of interest, or even just innocent people. Another example is x-keyscore is a NSA program that can provide nearly real time tracking of a target’s online activity. Many of the programs and capacities discussed in this section have already been made public. The purpose of the extensive surveillance mechanisms is described by Greenwald as “the complete elimination of electronic privacy worldwide.” Something else that troubles him is the belief that the aim is not that the government wants to have all the information but they want to use it to restrict individual’s god given freedoms. Throughout the last few chapters of the book Greenwald discusses all the different effects that being watched has on an individual’s mind. Greenwald argues that increased internet activity makes mass online surveillance much more dangerous. Greenwald criticizes how the government is constantly making claims that all of the increased surveillance is just means of preventing an attack on our country. Greenwald makes claims the extreme quantity of data collected is actually putting citizens at more of a risk. Whether you agree with Greenwald’s opinions, you can’t deny that he is asking the right questions.
A main theme from the book that we’ve discussed in class is whistleblowing and leaking. Leaking is disclosing secret, official information to the media or public, often anonymously. Whistleblowing is exposing information about activities which may be illegal, unethical, or immoral within an organization. Ed Snowden is a whistleblower. Him leaking the NSA documents was illegal, that’s why he fled the country. Whether or not you think what he did was unethical or immoral is up for you to decide. I agree with what Ed Snowden did, he gave up his freedom and risked his life to expose the appalling abuses of the United States intelligence agencies. In Snowden’s word: “The N.S.A. has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.” After Snowden revealed the documents various reforms of intelligence agencies were formed. President Obama made claims that these reforms had nothing to do with the documents recently released by Snowden, but nobody believed him. This is a reason why I agree with what Snowden, his bravery caused the government to change. A counterexample for this is as an United States government employee part of your job is to keep what you are doing in confidentiality, even more than that Snowden’s position as an NSA agent requires extreme confidentiality. Snowden was in a position where he knew large amounts of government secrets and he chose to expose the government. Snowden was the only whistleblower the book touched on, however our syllabus gave us of video of William “Bill” Binney. Binney is whistleblower and former NSA agent crypto-mathematician. Binney belongs to a group of four whistleblowers, each of whom left the NSA after raising concerns about failures in the agency’s intelligence-gathering capabilities. Binney did not flee the country and is still relevant, mainly by making controversial statements. The first controversial statement he made was 9/11 could’ve been prevented. The other was he made remarks stating Ed Snowden leaks could’ve been prevented. Binney worked together with fellow whistleblower Ed Loomis and a small team of specialists, to build technology to store data from fiber optic cables. The result was Thinthread, a process “for collection and rapid analysis of billions of electronic records”. The Thinthread project was canceled three weeks before 9/11. Binney makes claims that Thinthread had the ability to prevent 9/11 and Snowden’s leaks. He makes explains that his program was designed to monitor the NSA internally. Thus cutting down excessive supervision and Snowden’s ability to download top secret documents. In the debate on Snowden as either patriot or traitor, Binney supports my claims that Snowden did the right thing: “I would put him as a patriot, yes. He is trying to stand up for the Constitution. That’s what we all did and our government attacked us for doing that. So, in my view, the government is the criminal here.”
Privacy is another theme that No Place to Hide featured. The three aspects of privacy are Freedom from intrusion (being left alone), control of information about oneself, and freedom from surveillance (from being tracked, followed, watched). Snowden’s documents exposed the NSA. He revealed the government was violating all of three of key aspects of privacy. NSA violated American’s freedom of intrusion by spying on random innocent citizens. The second aspect of privacy went right out the window. Americans seemingly had no control of information about oneself because the NSA was storing citizen’s every shred of online data. The last aspect of privacy is freedom of surveillance. The NSA broke this aspect of privacy as well. Like I talked about earlier they would hack a computer’s webcam and spy on citizens. Another example of them violating this aspect of privacy is the NSA had the ability to hack any person’s phone and listen to their conversations. I think the most important part of Internet privacy is that if we take away privacy from the Internet, than the Internet is no longer what it was made to be. The Internet has endless possibilities for what an individual can do. It was made to be an open forum where great minds can share their opinions and ideas. If this ability is taken away and the government watches what individuals do, then Internet use will decline and possibly ruin a valuable asset. While all of this is scary stuff some people may counter it with they don’t care about what tactics intelligence agencies use as long as they are keeping us safe. If we let the government get away with violating the three key aspects of privacy, we soon will have no privacy or freedom which is what this country was built on.
To reiterate the my main points, Ed Snowden is a whistleblower. Although Snowden is a whistleblower I think he did the right thing. He got word out about how the government was using excessive surveillance tactics. This allowed citizens to determine how much they put on the Internet. Snowden exposed America’s government for violating the three main aspects of privacy. The three aspects of privacy are Freedom from intrusion, control of information about oneself, and freedom from surveillance. Without Snowden the majority of citizens would be unaware of the needless surveillance. Now individuals can make the decision of whether or not they want to leave information off the internet.