Edward Snowden leaking the NSA surveillance information has clearly caused both a media and social uproar. At this point in time, when American citizens perception of the government is very poor due to extreme partisanship and a recent government shutdown, this scandal only enhanced the publics lack of trust in the United States Government.
However, even though there clearly are multiple opinions on the the constitutionality and morality of the NSA surveillance, this situation does differ from other similar situations. One relational situation is the IRS targeting scandal. Both of these situations involve the government taking surveillance of persons without them being away of this fact. Both of these situations also raise the questions of if the government is over-reaching its bounds and infringing upon privacy rights by partaking in such actions. However, the clear difference in these situations are that with the IRS, it was a matter of targeting a group of people based on political beliefs. With the NSA, it does not appear that their is any targeting that is not permitted within the “three hops” rule. Although this does allow for a vast amount of people to have surveillance taken upon them, it is still thought that their is probable cause for such surveillance to occur.
Even though the reported number of incidents prevented due to NSA the surveillance went from 54 to 1, it raises the obvious question, is one enough? Although it may be very unnerving to think of how much the NSA knows about you, if this information truly did prevent American lives from being lost, isn’t it worth it? Due to Snowden’s leakage, this debate has begun and will continue for many years, especially given the current political climate.
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