MKT 305 Consumer Behavior Assignment - Desklib
Added on 2020-05-16
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Running head: SNOWDEN AND ETHICSSNOWDEN AND ETHICSName of the Student:Name of the University:Author Note:
SNOWDEN AND ETHICS1Question 1.The movie ‘Snowden’ is based on the real life experience of Edward Snowden. It isthe biographicalspythriller film directed byOliver Stone. It is written by Oliver Stone andKieran Fitzgerald. This film is a complete revelation of Snowden’s life and his ethicalconcerns that eventually guided him to indulge in forgery with his own organization. Thecharacter of Edward Snowden is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Laura Poitras is thedocumentarian and Glenn Greenwald is the journalist to whom Snowden smuggled the secretinformation regarding unlawful mass surveillance by the National Security Agency anddecided to reveal. The character of Edward Snowden has been portrait as a mentally strong person withmorality and love for his country. The movie ignites the audience to select a suitableadjective for the protagonist whether he is a traitor or patriot, spy or soldier, fugitive or hero.The movie starts with Snowden’s background as a soldier of the US army. After he wasinjured and discharged from the special force, he applied for the position at the CIA or theCentral Intelligence Agency. Here he underwent screening process and selected to work inthe department of cyberwarfare. It discloses the fact that all his life he served his nation eitheras soldier or a hacker. In the movies Snowden met his girlfriend Lindsay Mills over a social networking site.They started to stay together but had a complete opposing political ideology. They haddifferent ideologies regarding the social problems and ethical responses of the governmentbut they had a strong feeling as well as understanding for each other. Mills found out thatSnowden was a shy person so she wanted to bring him out of his shell. She clicked severalpictures of Snowden which demonstrates her personality as an extrovert that completecontrasts the nature of Snowden. However, Lindsay Mills joined Snowden all his tours for
SNOWDEN AND ETHICS2example in 2007, she joined Snowden in his trip to Geneva to maintain computer networksecurity. She joined Snowden in Tokyo trip in 2009. Snowden used to take her in businessparties where they met a number of diplomats. Here Snowden’s task was to find a banker forsurveillance purpose. Lindsay Mills helped Snowden to meet a banker named Marwan Al-Kirmani. Despite joining Snowden in every trip, Lindsay had no idea about her boyfriend’splan that is to illegal disclosure of secret documents. Corbin O’Brianwas the deputy director of CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency. Heis a man with great experience and expertise. He interviewed Snowden but found his answerinsufficient but realised the potential within Snowden. In the movie this character is shown tohave different ideology which open up new aspect of threat. Corbin O’Brianis critical aboutthe political agendas of the USA therefore, analysed the concept of terrorism inversely. Hebelieved in omnipresence of modern battlefield in society therefore, opined that the recurrentusage of bombs was irrational and irrelevant because modem wars are fought by brains notwith weapons. To him, terrorism is a short term threat (Heyler et al. 2016). It needs physicalhandling. The government knows its source therefore they can trace and terminate suchproblems but real threats will be coming from intellectual level. Hank Forrester had a great influence on the mind of the protagonist (Cameron &O'Leary, 2015). He was the engineer, counsellor and instructor. He is in charge of keepingeye on the works of the employees so that they don’t start to take drugs to escape the stress oftheir jobs. Here, Snowden revealed that computers were his sin of choice on which Forresterwelcomed Snowden in the organization terming it to be a whorehouse. Beside these majorcharacters, the character of NSA Dep. Director Lowell, Laura Poitras, Ewen MacAskill,Glen Greenwald and Gabriel Sol are also important to understand the events demonstrated inthe movie ‘Snowden’.
SNOWDEN AND ETHICS3Each of the characters has their own understanding and concept of secrecy in theirminds. Some of the character assign with the utilitarian theory whereas the others believe inuniversalism (Cianci et al., 2014). Both of these theories explain the moral status of thecharacters. The philosophy of normative ethics discuss that morals are determined byactions. The concept of consequentialism evaluates the morality of actions by theconsequences (Crane, & Matten, 2016). Through this theory the individuals first think aboutthe positive of negative consequences of their actions then they act. On the other hand, somepeople do not judge the consequence but focus on the general good (Denning, 2014). Theyact without thinking the rightness and wrongness of the action or the systems of rules. In the movie, one can find people following either of these approaches to support theirperspectives. For instance, the employees or the mangers working in the National SecurityAgency assign with the theory that they are working for preventing terrorism by maintainingsecrecy (Dane & Sonenshein, 2015). The characters of CIA agents and Corbin O'Brianconsider that secrecy is security and security is victory over the rivals. Based on thisunderstanding they take measures to mitigate the real threats (Effelsberg, Solga & Gurt,2014). They identify the scopes from which the opponents can enter their security systemthen think about the consequences of their actions and finally react. The methods ofsurveillance that their organisation applies to prevent the threats, successfully illusions theemployees by realising them that they are doing good (Feltham, 2017). The movie discusses many ethical dilemmas through the character of Snowden whichmade him to question the system as well as the involvement in surveillance program(Hopkins, 2017). He does not think that about the consequence but feels that his measurescan save many lives. Therefore, he violets the security clearance to inform public about theunethical initiatives of the trusted security agency of the USA (Harrington, 2014). In thecharacter of Snowden, the concept of legal amalgamates with ethical because to him, what
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