Ethics & Professional Practice: Edward Snowden Case Analysis Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of the Edward Snowden case, examining the ethical and professional practice implications related to information privacy and security. It evaluates the actions of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA), and the reporters involved, using the ACS Code of Ethics as a framework. The report identifies key ethical issues such as the right to information confidentiality, misuse of personal information, and lack of information privacy. It also explores alternative actions that could have been taken to avoid the incident, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing public interest and enhancing the quality of life in accordance with ethical guidelines. The analysis considers the perspectives of various stakeholders affected by the incident, including US citizens, the NSA, and telecommunications providers, ultimately advocating for a balanced approach that respects both individual rights and national security concerns.

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Ethics and Professional Practice
Student Name
Institution

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Executive Summary
Ethics is the philosophical study of morality, which consists of beliefs of right and wrong and
good and bad. These beliefs can include judgments, principles, and theories. Participating in the
exploration of morality thus doing ethic is inescapable. We all must make moral judgments,
assess moral norms, judge people’s character, and question the soundness of our moral outlooks.
ICT ethics works in ensuring that people are protected from misuse of their information by
unauthorized persons which might interfere with their privacy or affect the emotionally,
psychologically and physically. This scenario therefore involve an analysis of a case scenario of
Edward Snowden who was an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton and worked under National
Security Agency. The report analyzes various actions taken by Edward and evaluate it based on
various ICT Ethics that regulate the use of information from other people. The report also looks
at the NSA ethical behavior on whether or not it was good to use citizen’s data without their
consent. In this report a doing ethics technique is used to analyze the situation and provide
solutions based on what ACS Code of Ethics state on users information.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................2
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Case Analysis using Doing Ethics Technique..............................................................................3
ACS Code of Ethics.......................................................................................................................5
Primacy of Public Interest.........................................................................................................5
Enhancement of Quality Life....................................................................................................5
Honesty........................................................................................................................................6
Competence.................................................................................................................................6
Professionalism...........................................................................................................................6
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................7

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List of Abbreviations
ACS - Australian Computer Society
ICT – Information Communication Technology
NSA – National Security Agency

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Introduction
Ethics in the world of ICT are standards that governs how individuals or organizations should
handle and manage other people’s information. This is as a result of development of ICT which
apart from having positive impact in the society, it can also be used to cause problems or
negative impacts that can affect other people (AYNSLEY, 2015). Therefore, there is need for an
ethical approach that will help recognize and reduce some of these negative impacts for the
betterment of equality in the use of ICT (Bowern, 2006). ICT ethics works in ensuring that
people are protected from misuse of their information by unauthorized persons which might
interfere with their privacy or affect the emotionally, psychologically and physically.
This report therefore provides an analysis of a case scenario of Edward Snowden who was an
employee of Booz Allen Hamilton and worked under National Security Agency. The report
analyzes various actions taken by Edward and evaluate it based on various ICT Ethics that
regulate the use of information from other people. The report also looks at the NSA ethical
behavior on whether or not it was good to use citizen’s data without their consent (Nces, 2018).
In this report a doing ethics technique is used to analyze the situation and provide solutions based
on what ACS Code of Ethics state on users information.
Case Analysis using Doing Ethics Technique
This case scenario addresses a situation where Edward an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton but
working at NSA leaks a very confidential information from the NSA to the reporters at the
Guardian and the Washington Post and Edward goes ahead to admit the incident when
implicated. This kind of an act is a breach to the code of ethic by Edward as an employee who
probably have signed a non-disclosure agreement with the US organization (HHS.gov, 2018).
Edward act interferes with the privacy and integrity of the leaked information and this can affect
the reputation of the NSA greatly as well as jeopardize its operations. On the other hand the NSA
is implicated of using tracking and gathering information from millions of US citizens without
their consent (NIILER, 2017). First this is a breach of US citizen’s privacy as well as information
protection as they are entitled to. Secondly, this act by National Security Agency does not
conform to the ethical behavior that protects information owners from having their information
misused or used by third parties without their knowledge. After this incident Edward flee US to
avoid being charged for leaking such a confidential information despite US citizens referring to
him as a whistle blower and others as a traitor. Therefore this scenario’s synopsis is based on
information privacy and misuse of information without the owner’s consent.
From this scenario, there a number of participants that are highly affected by the Edward action
as well as the NSA action. First, the fact the reporters have made it public that the National
Security Agency is involved in data mining from millions of US citizens by tracking their phones
and traffics, tarnishes their reputation and causes problems with some of the US citizens who
feels that NSA have infringed on their civil rights that protects their information from being used
without their knowledge (Vaughn, 2016). This will also reduce the public trust that NSA
organization had gained from the public and thus affecting their operations. Secondly, the
leaking of the NSA surveillance security programs exposes will greatly affect their operations
and might put the US citizens at risk since the organization might lose some of the terrorist’s

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leads thus exposing the citizens to various dangers. These actions also causes problems to
Edward as he is forced to flee his country for releasing confidential information that is meant to
protect the US citizens from any terror attacks. His actions leads to commotion in his country by
also putting his fellow citizen’s lives in danger by interfering with the integrity of his country’s
security information. Also through this incident, phone and traffic service providers will also be
affected because the section of the citizens that view Edward as a whistle blower will be
answerable as to why they allowed NSA to gain access to their information without any
consultation or awareness. In addition the reporters and the two organizations that is the
Guardian and the Washington post will also be affected for publishing such a confidential
information of security matter to the public. In general therefore, the whole incident will affect a
great part of the country’s well-being by raising questions concerning different institutions that
have been involved in this situation.
From this scenario therefore, there are a number of ethical issues raised by Edward the
employee, the reporters and the National Security Agency (NSA). These issues include; the right
to information confidentiality and integrity, misuses of personal information, lack of information
privacy and competency (VAUGHN, 2015). By leaking the information to the reporters, Edward
interfered with the confidentiality of the NSA security information which led to issues of privacy
once the reporters had published the information on the public domain. This was unethical
because as an employee, it was therefore appropriate for Edward to analyze the usage of the
information and what benefits it has before he could share it with the reporters. On the other
hand, the reporters considering the importance of security to the US citizens could have also
evaluated the report and the impact it could cause to the country before going live with the
information. Therefore, it was unethical for the two parties to disclose that classified information
to the public as this interfered with the security of the country and raised an alarm or an
opportunity that could be exploited by the terrorists due to divisions as a result of leaked
information.
According to the United State of America Privacy Act of 1974 which applies to all Federal
agencies and their employees, an individual is supposed to be safeguarded against invasion by
federal agencies of his or her personal privacy by ensuring that the information is collected,
maintained and used in appropriate and lawful manner that do not endanger the owner. From this
cased therefore it is the duty of the National Security Agency (NSA) and all of its employees
including Edward to ensure that the information gathered from the citizens phones and traffics is
well protected and is not shared with unauthorized persons. Also considering that Edward was an
employee of a different organization which worked under the NSA, the agency should have put
appropriate mechanism to prevent unauthorized persons such as Edward from accessing the
classified information by interfering with its integrity thus affecting NSA operations.
Based on what happened therefore, there exist various options that could have been taken to
avoid this incident. First, even though Edward saw it fit to let the public know of what the
agency does in order to access the US citizens information and use it for security reasons without
their consent, it could have been morally upright if Edward considered to keep it a secret since
this was done for security purposes (Lucas, 2011). It was therefore not right for Edward to
expose this critical information to the public through the Guardian and Washington Post

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reporters as this affected a very important agency that is entitled in safeguarding the country’s
citizens (Weckert and Lucas, 2013). The reporters also should have evaluate the magnitude of
the effect that this incident would cause before publishing the reports. This therefore portrayed
unethical behavior on their side by not considering the lives of the fellow citizens and the ruin of
NSA organization reputations as a result of making the security program known to the public.
ACS Code of Ethics
ACS code of ethics is part of an ACS constitution that highlight various societal values that need
to be upheld by all professionals in various fields including ICT (CSSE, 2018). These values are
meant to enhance professionalism in the way various persons in ICT performs their duties. The
professionals should therefore adhere to these values in order to impact the society positively and
improve their quality in services delivery (ACS, 2014). It is therefore morally right for the
professionals in ICT to be good citizens and perform their duties in accordance to the laws that
governs their professional as well as practicing the societal values highlighted in the ACS code
of ethics. Therefore, based on these scenario, all the players which include: Edward, National
Security Agency (NSA) and the reporters from both the Guardian and the Washington Post
should have adhered to the following ACS code of ethics to avoid the problems that resulted
from their actions.
Primacy of Public Interest
This ACS code of ethics is aimed at ensuring that public interest is put above any personal
interest, business and sectional interests (Nces, 2018). It considers the effect a particular action
will have on the general public irrespective of whether or not that particular action will satisfy
the needs of just one individual. In this scenario therefore, Edward should have evaluated his
actions based on whether the security program carried out by the NSA which involved capturing
phone user’s information and traffic was with the best interest of the US citizen. Considering that
NSA was mandated to protect the citizens of the United States and that the phone and traffic
information captured was not used for any malicious purposes but rather for enhancing security,
Edward should not have released the information to the reporters but rather should have
remained silent for the purposes of protecting the interest of the general public. On the other
hand, it was unwise also for the reporters from both the Guardian and the Washington post to
publish the leaked information to the public as this raised many problems including divisions and
exposed the citizens to terrorist attacks via other means hence going against the primacy of
public interest.
Enhancement of Quality Life
It is the duty of every employee of any organization such as Edward to ensure that the lives of
other citizens are safe guarded and of good quality. By interfering with the classified information
that helped NSA to track down terrorists, Edward not only affected the quality of life of the US
citizens but also exposed them into dangers (CSSE, 2018). Before this information was leaked,
the relationship between NSA and the US citizens was of good quality and the agency was able
to provide quality protection for the general public. Therefore, both Edward and the reporters
should have adhered with enhancement of quality life code of ethics that would have ensured

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that the agency continued to provide their quality and uncompromised services to the US
citizens.
Honesty
Honesty as a virtue is consider one of the ACS code of ethics that help employees and other
stakeholders to remain true in their work (Bowern, 2006). From this situation, both the NSA and
Booz Allen Hamilton had trusted Edward to be a faithful employee and to adhere to the
organizations laws that governs the confidentiality of their work. Contrary to this, Edward
decided to betray these two organization by leaking their confidential information to other
unauthorized party. This was unethical of him and his actions portrayed an act of dishonesty in
executing his duties as an employee at NSA.
Competence
A competent employee is expected to conduct his or her duties diligently to their employers. By
diligently it means that the employee should not engage in any act that might compromise the
operations of the organization at all cost. This therefore means that Edward as an employee did
not perform his duties as expected and his sense of incompetency costed NSA a big deal thus
interfering with the integrity of its information as well as creating mistrust from the members of
the public. Therefore, there was lack of competency as a code of conduct on Edward side thus
paralyzing all the efforts by the NSA to protect the US citizens from terrorist attacks.
Professionalism
This ACS code of ethics entails upholding of the societal integrity and enhancing respect among
the members of the organizations and society at large. This ensures that experts or professionals
conducts their operations at a high degree of professionalism without being compromised at any
given time (Black and Roberts, 2018). Based on this scenario therefore, it is evident that the way
Edward conducted himself was lacking in terms of professionalism and he did not uphold the
integrity that comes with his position as an employee at NSA. Also the reporters did not as well
behave in a professional manner considering that the information they published to the public
was so critical and could cause a lot of harm to both the national security agency and the public.
Therefore, both Edward and the reporters should have behaved in a more professional manner by
first evaluating on the importance of this information to the country in enhancing the security of
its citizens before deciding on whether or not to publish it.
All these ACS code of ethics if could have been adhered to first by Edward and then the
reporters, none of the scenarios that happened could have happened. The ACS code of ethics
therefore could have acted as a pillar for the parties to provide quality services and to stick with
their duties without affecting either the NSA or the public as it was the case in the given case
study.

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Conclusion
In conclusion therefore, from both the analysis using the doing ethics technique and ACS code of
ethics for this case study, it can be seen that various code of ethics were not adhered to by the
Edward and the reporters. It is therefore clear to say that, before anyone makes any decision on
an action that could affect other persons, it is good to analyze it and weigh its importance based
on things such as public interest, professionalisms, competency and honesty. It is also goo to
follow all the stipulated laws that governs the privacy and confidentiality of other people’s
information by not sharing or leaking it to unauthorized persons as Edward did in this case study.
Code of ethics in ICT professional is very critical and essential as it ensures that the
professionals make appropriate decisions and do not interfere with the operations of others as
stipulated in the ICT ten commandments that one should not use somebody else’s information to
cause harm to them.

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References
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May 2018].
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20 May 2018].
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Tomw.net.au. (2015). Basic ICT Professional Ethics. [online] Available at:
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