Those who gather intelligence and consumers of intelligence should find the Edward Snowden case instructive in how ‘un-secretive’ secretive information actually is, over and above, governments and individuals who run affairs of the state need to realise that no one really is untouchable, hence exercise caution and due diligence in the discharge of their duties. I hope someone senior from the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) reads this. I am following the case of Snowden with the same interest I followed Julian Assange’s case, and that of Bradley Manning. Snowden, if you do not know, is the bloke who was a contractor for the CIA and its spy activities only to later reveal massive surveillance programmes on individual citizens of the USA. Now, Snowden has revealed that he joined Booz Allen Hamilton specifically to ‘harvest’ data on the machines that the National Security Agency’s surveillance has been on.
Effectively, he did not join the company because he was looking for a job or fanatical about spying, only he was looking to become a hero, a martyr if the need be for citizens’ right to know. And this is not an ambivalent and political guy, no; he was just a boy who grew up like the rest liking computers and programmes.From this we must deduce that the likes of our own DIS need be very careful how they go about their surveillance activities. We need them to know they must act with great caution.It is a monumental task to be entrusted with the protection of a nation’s secrets, to be bestowed with a duty to serve and protect its interests.
