Ethical Issues in Snowden's Whistleblowing

Running head: ETHICAL ISSUES IN THE SNOWDEN’S WHISTLEBLOWING
ETHICAL ISSUES IN THE SNOWDEN’S WHISTLEBLOWING
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ETHICAL ISSUES IN THE SNOWDEN’S WHISTLEBLOWING1
Cyber security
The ethical issues in the Snowden’s whistleblowing on NSA spying practices:
There were various ethical issues in the Snowden’s whistleblowing on NSA spying
practices (Lyon, 2014). Before analyzing if the act of Snowden is right or wrong and what
actually motivated him in doing this, it is important to analyze this act from ethical point of view
which brings some ethical issues which are the followings:
Violating autonomy of others: in order to access those confidential information that he leaked
publicly, Snowden had to steal the access code of his colleagues which means that he has not
respected the autonomy of others and hence this is an violation of ethical principles which
promotes autonomy of everyone and recommend that privacy should be preserved for which it is
required to ensure autonomy of others (Fidler, 2015).
Stealing information from other: stealing is a serious offense when it comes to analyzing the
action from ethical point of view, no matter for what reason the accused person has stolen the
information. Hence, this act of Snowden is a violation of ethics and moral integrity, another
important aspect of personal ethics (Lustgarten, 2015). It violates some important ethical values
such as honesty, integrity and respect to others which include respect for other security and
privacy as well.
Was act of Snowden right or wrong?
It is not easy to identify if Snowden has done it right or wrong as different people has different
view on this aspect. Some people thinks that what Snowden did was absolutely right, while other
thinks he was nothing but a traitor, especially for the people of America who thinks that leaking
classified information, he has only exploited national security and it was absolutely not required
as access to those information has very little implications for most of the people (Miller & Walsh