The article entitled as ‘Edward Snowden is No Hero’, by Jeffrey Toobin, addresses the issue related to the unauthorized access to the individual’s personal details to the government organization. The author has discussed the concerns of Edward Snowden about the prevalence of access to the personal information of a large amount of population without the adequate judgment about the use of the information by the organization. The concerns of the author are considered as a whistle-blower issue that can enlighten and address the wellbeing of the society by indicating the prevalence of an unethical practical. Moreover, the author’s concerns are also criticized on the basis of the self-centered approach towards enlightening the critical information about the objectives of a government organization (Toobin, 2013).
The article enlightens the act of Edward Snowden with different perspectives in order to determine consequences of his action of leaking the information about National Security Agency. It has been inferred that NSA has been tracking all the communications, including phone calls and emails incorporated by the Americans. The author has enlightened the claim made by Edward Snowden that the NSA has developed an infrastructure that is able to intercept every possible means of communication and hence, the author is has enlightened the concerns about giving such power to the government agency and is highly insecure about the availability of his personal information to the NSA (Toobin, 2013).
However, the author has also challenged the professional integrity of Edward Snowden due to the act of leaking the confidential documents about the government agencies. This act is considered highly unethical and equivalent to a crime by means of compromising the wellbeing of the organization. In this instance, the claim made by the author in incorporated with the fact that the illegal use of personal data has been legitimized by the court order for the organization and hence, the counterargument has questioned the integrity of the organization towards the use and access to the critical information (Toobin, 2013).
The act of Edward Snowden, in which he fled from America to Hong Kong is highly criticized because such public officers vow to maintain the secrecy of the information from the external threats. The act of switching towards Hong Kong has provided the Chinese government with the high probability to approach Edward Snowden and acquire the classified information about the systems and processes of the U.S government organization. The author has incorporated the dominant emotion of concern towards the inappropriate use of the classified information by the antigovernment agencies. Edward Snowden has only focused on the access to his private information to the government, which has not been misused in any manner and it is considered as the duty of the government to control the country’s internal operations by reducing the prevalence of the external threats. The self-centralized focus of Edward Snowden has threatened the wellbeing of the country by misusing the whistle-blower law (Toobin, 2013).
The overall article is interesting as it enlightens the negative prospects of the actions incorporated by Edward Snowden, however, some negative prospects are also in accordance with the counter arguments provided by Edward Snowden. The article provides strong explanation to the background, problem and claims, and draws the strong conclusions to the support the inclinations of the author. The basic objective of the article is to enlighten the unethical practices incorporated by the organizations in order to ensure the continuity in the work processes, whereas the unethical use of government law has also been enlightened as they have been misused by the formal employee of the government agency (Toobin, 2013).
The code of ethics is observed to be disregarded by Edward Snowden so that his ego towards the prevalence of personal information by the government can be maintained at the cost of jeopardizing his own career and wellbeing of the country. Similarly, the code of ethics is also enlightened in a broader perspective in which the organization’s code of ethics towards transparency has been incorporated and defendant against the organization’s focus towards the greater good for the company. The article complements the knowledge acquired from the course of communication as it entails the ethical responsibility towards maintaining the privacy of the information and documents in a real life prospects (Toobin, 2013).
References
Smith, H. J., Dinev, T., & Xu, H. (2011). Information privacy research: an interdisciplinary review. MIS quarterly, 35(4), 989-1016.
Toobin, J. (2013). Edward Snowden is No Hero. The New Yorker. Available from: http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/edward-snowden-is-no-hero
