Recommendation for Action on Edward Snowden Case

Recommendation for action on Edward Snowden case

Submitted to:

Senate Subcommittee

Prepared by:

Joseph Worman / ME

Shawn Kohl / EE

2-5-14

Summary

Mr. Snowden is potentially facing very serious charges should he return to the US. We do not believe this is ethical or in the interest of the majority of society. Snowden has done, in our opinion, a great deed in uncovering the unruly power of the government. He should be granted a pardon from President Obama.

Background

Edward Snowden is a former CIA and NSA employee, who has leaked information of surveillance being conducted by the government. Information revealed showed the use of programs such as PRISM and XKeyscore to survey activity on the internet. In addition, information of the government surveying phone calls of top world leaders, such as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, have been reported.

According to documents released to The Guardian and The Washington Post, the program PRISM accounts for 91% of the information collected over the internet by NSA. PRISM is a data mining program that finds patterns in large sets of information and transforms it into a structure that is both readable and useable. The problem with this program is that its capabilities are being abused. Within the information that Snowden revealed, it shows that the information being collected was far greater than had been specified by the government which in our opinion is unlawful.

Evaluation of data

What is said between one individual to another is between them, period.  Mr. Snowden did not want to rock the nation with what he released to the public; he simply wanted to let the people of the country decide whether or not security or freedom was more important.  This was from a conversation Snowden had with The Guardian.  The article then goes to tell the reader about how a US Judge found the information released by Snowden to probably be unconstitutional.  This means that what the government is doing, what OUR government is doing, was considered by a Judge to be mostly unconstitutional.  

It is doubtful that Mr. Obama will grant Snowden amnesty given his previous actions toward whistleblowers of this kind.is this use of the espionage act? We believe our government could not be any more incorrect in their actions. In fact, they should be pursuing a case in the False Claims Act when The Continental congress has declared it the duty of "all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other the inhabitants thereof" to inform the Continental Congress or proper authorities of "misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge.". Clearly Snowden has acted in the correct manner in this case.

        While he has broken his confidentiality agreement that comes with being a government employee, it was for all the right reasons. He has not given harmful information to enemies of the U.S. only important information to the citizens. He did a great service to the people and took the risk upon himself for what he thought was right. Under the circumstances he had very few options and made a decision for the greater good even though it may have broken a government rule it was following a morale code.