What does Edward Snowden think of privacy? Is it something you can protect with the right measures? Does Snowden think that privacy is unattainable and you should just accept that you’re being spied on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Edward Snowden, privacy was the motivation for blowing the whistle. Snowden saw mass surveillance to be an unconstitutional violation of privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Learn more about Snowden, privacy protections he would recommend, and the risks you’re facing in the digital age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
In late 2012, laws about mass surveillance were under fire. Both the UK and Australian governments were proposing legislation about recording metadata. These laws were pitched as security measures. This was the point when Ed realized that no matter how much he tried to reconcile technology and the government, it was impossible. He couldn\u2019t be part of both circles, and the government was the one to leave.<\/strong> Ed still liked teaching and wanted to help the public defend itself against mass surveillance. Even though he was leaking information about mass surveillance, he knew that wasn\u2019t going to be enough to allow people to retain their privacy. <\/strong>He taught a workshop on encryption. This was also practice for explaining things to a layperson\u2019s audience, which he\u2019d have to do when he blew the whistle. Many of the people who showed up weren\u2019t particularly worried about mass surveillance, they just wanted control over their privacy. For Snowden, privacy was paramount and it was valuable to teach tools to protect people. You may not think you particularly care about privacy. Maybe you think you don\u2019t have anything to hide, or you don\u2019t mind giving up some information about yourself for convenience. For example, you might think giving Google your location is worth getting driving directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, not caring about your personal privacy also has an impact on everyone else\u2019s. If you don\u2019t value your privacy, then you\u2019re assuming that no one else should either. There are plenty of things such as medical history and religion that people have good reasons to want to keep to themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy is a right. People shouldn\u2019t have to defend why they want it; the government should have to justify why it\u2019s allowed to violate it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2011, clouds\u2014servers that are accessed via the Internet\u2014were becoming popular both with the intelligence community and the public. Public clouds were available through sites such as Amazon, Apple, and Google. Clouds solved the problem of limited storage on a personal computer\u2014clouds had lots of free or inexpensive space. Clouds can also be used as a backup for information stored on a computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, whenever you put something on the cloud, you\u2019re saving it to someone else\u2019s server. Whoever owns the server can dictate the terms of service,<\/strong> and some terms give the owner a lot of power over what they can do with files saved on their servers. They can often delete whatever they want, delete your accounts but keep your data, and sometimes take ownership of your data. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What does Edward Snowden think of privacy? Is it something you can protect with the right measures? Does Snowden think that privacy is unattainable and you should just accept that you’re being spied on? For Edward Snowden, privacy was the motivation for blowing the whistle. Snowden saw mass surveillance to be an unconstitutional violation of privacy. Learn more about Snowden, privacy protections he would recommend, and the risks you’re facing in the digital age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,24],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-12388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethics","category-society","tag-permanent-record","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy Privacy Is Important<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Clouds and Privacy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n