Why tech companies and the NSA diverge on Snowden

[Commentary] Is Edward Snowden a whistleblower or a traitor? There is a vast cultural divide between Silicon Valley and Washington on this issue, and the reasons reveal much about the broader debates about what to do in the wake of the leaks.

As a member of President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, I spoke with numerous people in the intelligence community. Not one said that Snowden was a whistleblower. The level of anger was palpable. Intelligence officers see Snowden as a serial destroyer of classified secrets. He plotted for months to violate the law on a massive scale. He has tipped off foreign adversaries about numerous programs that will require countless hours of work to revise; many will not regain their previous effectiveness. Even though Snowden rejected all the existing options for a whistleblower -- including congressional committees or avenues within the National Security Agency (NSA) -- the view from Silicon Valley and privacy groups is much different. Last fall, I asked the leader of a Silicon Valley company about the whistleblower-vs.-traitor debate. He said that more than 90 percent of his employees would call Snowden a whistleblower.

Fundamentally, the traitor-or-whistleblower debate comes down to different views of what values should be paramount in governing the Internet we all use. The Internet is where surveillance happens to keep our nation safe. It is also where we engage in e-commerce and express ourselves in infinite ways. The goal is to create one communications structure that safeguards diverse, important values.

[Peter Swire is a professor of law and ethics at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Scheller College of Business. He was a member of President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies]