Snowden and Journalists Have a Lot in Common

This summer, information about the Edward Snowden CIA leak came in as hot news all across America. And as more detail emerged regarding the extent to which Snowden leaked serious government secrets, the world turned its focus to American surveillance and several nations, including our allies, and started questioning American motives and reasons behind the government's spying.

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, and until 2013, the Pentagon Papers remained the largest US information leak in history. Speaking on Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who released information about government phone and internet surveillance, Ellsberg says, "“I was overjoyed that finally an official with high or a former official with high access, good knowledge of the abusive system that he was revealing was ready to tell the truth at whatever cost to his own future safety, or his career, ready to give up his career, risk even prison to inform the American people.”

While Ellsberg has vehemently supported Snowden's decision to leak very important government intelligence information to the American public, the negative effects of his actions have been felt throughout the world. President Obama launched a huge search party once Snowden's whereabouts became unknown, and has since demanded Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to release Snowden to the fate of American hands. 

Snowden does not stand alone in his choice to reveal government secrets to the general public. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst working in the US army, shared government secrets pertaining to army intelligence to the international, anti-secret organization, WikiLeaks. And much like Snowden, received backlash from the American government. He has received 35 years in prison for violating the privacy of the American government under the Espionage Act.

What the American public sometimes forgets when huge stories of "whistleblowers" hits the media, is that while the government can remain angry at the now very public, private information that was released, what Snowden, Manning, and even Ellsberg were doing was exercising their First Amendment rights. When these individuals are punished or publicly condemned, the government is essentially issuing a statement that discourages the public from their ability to practice their rights as American citizens. 

This could prove even more dangerous for journalists, practicing their right as public servants to gather information anonymously and to publish the truth. This has become evident through recent arrests and intense surveillance of CNN, Associated Press, and Fox News journalists. If Snowden is tried under the Espionage Act of 1917, what is there to stop newspapers such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal from such trials when releasing important information for the benefit of public knowledge?

In recent years, there has been increasing government discouragement of honest journalism. Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning are two Americans who, perhaps through dishonorable means, released information about private government information to very public forums that led to an uproar of anger and confusion by the American public. But without them, and without the journalists who work to aid the general public, the government could get away with acts of censorship and oppression. Snowden is just one step along the path of this "war on journalism," and the silencing of journalists is not too far in the future.