Revision summary
Snowden broke secrecy law to expose mass surveillance and claimed a duty to the public. Stakeholders include the surveilled public, agencies, oversight bodies, journalists and persons exposed in a wider dump. Values in clash are privacy, security, democratic consent, oath and the rule of law. A leak is ethically defensible only as last-resort, proportionate, evidence-based disclosure of a grave abuse. The core surveillance warning can meet that test; an unfiltered spill and unaccountable flight weaken it. Legality is not the whole of ethics, and ethics is not a free pardon.
Model answer
Introduction
Snowden exposed secret mass-surveillance programmes and broke United States secrecy law. The case is not a fan debate. It is a clash among privacy, security, democratic consent, loyalty and the rule of law.
Body
Stakeholders
- The public whose communications were collected, including people who were not suspects.
- Snowden as employee, contractor and citizen who took an oath of secrecy.
- Intelligence agencies and the United States government, charged with preventing attacks.
- Other States and persons named or exposed in the wider document dump.
- Courts, Congress and oversight bodies that were meant to watch the programmes.
- Journalists who received and filtered material.
- Allied governments and their publics, whose data rode on the same pipes.
Ethical issues and competing values
- Privacy and dignity: secret bulk collection treats a population as a haystack, which sits badly with a free society's idea of the person.
- National security and non-maleficence: methods, partners and ongoing operations can be harmed if disclosure is crude.
- Democratic accountability: a programme done "in the people's name" without a meaningful public or even legislative grasp lacks consent.
- Rule of law: the Espionage Act forbids the leak. Conscience does not, by itself, repeal a statute.
- Fidelity and oath: a cleared insider is not a freelance philosopher; the job is built on confidentiality.
- Proportionality and last resort: whistle-blowing ethics asks whether internal inspectors, committees and courts were tried, whether the disclosure was limited to the abuse, and whether the person accepts legal risk rather than a private bargain with a rival State.
- Integrity of information: dumping more than the abuse, if that occurred, mixes public interest with collateral harm.
Options
- Option 1: Treat any leak of classified material as ethically forbidden.
- Merit: protects sources, methods and a professional secret service.
- Demerit: leaves no moral language for a secret that has become a system of suspicion against the innocent, with captured oversight.
- Option 2: Treat Snowden as simply a hero and ignore legality and collateral.
- Merit: names the privacy harm.
- Demerit: erases oath, allied harm, and the difference between a filtered public-interest leak and a data spill.
- Option 3: Weigh justification as last-resort, proportionate disclosure to the public through serious journalism, while still facing legal process.
- Merit: holds both privacy and law in view.
- Demerit: reasonable people will still disagree on whether his actual path met the test.
Values, action and judgement
- I do not treat legality as the whole of ethics. Unjust secret programmes can create a moral remainder.
- I also do not treat every illegal leak as a virtue. Whistle-blowing is justified only when the wrong is grave, evidence is real, internal and legislative paths are blocked or captured, disclosure is minimised to the abuse, and the whistle-blower does not sell the rest to an enemy service.
- On privacy versus security: security is a public good; bulk suspicion without adequate law and oversight is a different good, closer to domination.
- On Snowden: the core revelation of bulk collection served a public that could not consent to what it did not know. That part has a strong ethical claim, later echoed in court and legislative argument in several democracies.
- The claim weakens where the dump risked operations or persons beyond the abuse, and where asylum politics mixed with the moral story.
- Ethically, a justified whistle-blower still stands trial or a public legal process; flight can be understood as fear, but it is not a full substitute for accountability.
- Therefore: legally prohibited, partly ethically defensible as a last-resort warning about mass surveillance; not a blank cheque for every classified taking; competing values are not solved by a flag or by a prison slogan alone.
What a similar officer in India should do
- Use the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014 channels, the competent committee, and, where rights are at stake, courts.
- Do not dump an unfiltered archive on the internet.
- If every door is captured, a narrow disclosure to a responsible forum remains the ethical last step, with a file of failed internal attempts.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD SEC[Secret bulk surveillance] --> VAL[Privacy versus security] VAL --> INT[Internal oversight] INT --> FAIL[Captured or blind oversight] FAIL --> NARR[Narrow public-interest leak] DUMP[Unfiltered dump] --> HARM[Collateral harm] LAW[Espionage statute] --> COST[Legal cost remains]
Conclusion
Privacy, security, consent and law all have weight. Snowden's core warning about bulk surveillance can be ethically defended as last-resort speech to a public that had not consented. The same defence does not cover careless spill or a cult of the leaker. Law-breaking remains a cost, not a costume.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Case study. Rakesh is a responsible district-level officer, who enjoys the trust of his higher officials. Knowing his honesty, the government entrusted him with the responsibility of identifying the beneficiaries under a health care scheme meant for senior citizens. The criteria to be a beneficiary are the following: (a) 60 years of age or above. (b) Belonging to a reserved community. (c) Family income of less than 1 Lakh rupees per annum. (d) Post-treatment prognosis is likely to be high to make a positive difference to the quality of life of the beneficiary. One day, an old couple visited Rakesh's office with their application. They have been the residents of a village in his district since their birth. The old man is diagnosed with a rare condition that causes obstruction in the large intestine. As a consequence, he has severe abdominal pain frequently that prevents him from doing any physical labour. The couple has no children to support them. The expert surgeon whom they contacted is willing to do the surgery without charging any fee. However, the couple will have to bear the cost of incidental charges, such as medicines, hospitalization, etc., to the tune of rupees one lakh. The couple fulfills all the criteria except criterion 'b'. However, any financial aid would certainly make a significant difference in their quality of life. How should Rakesh respond to the situation? (250 words).
Next question on this syllabus topic (2018 · Q8). View answer →
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If the law forbade the leak, can it still be ethical?
Yes, in a narrow last-resort sense, when a secret programme denies a people the chance to consent and oversight is hollow. That is not the same as saying any leak is ethical.
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Does this mean Indian officers may put classified files on the internet?
No. Use statutory whistle-blowing and courts first. An unfiltered dump is usually a second wrong.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
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2018 · Q8 · GS IV · 20 marks
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2018 · Q12 · GS IV · 20 marks
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2017 · Q10 · GS IV · 20 marks
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2017 · Q11 · GS IV · 20 marks
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Q12 · UPSC Mains 2025 · GS IV · 20 marks
Case study. Ashok is Divisional Commissioner of one of the border districts of the North East State. A few years back, Military has taken over the neighbouring country after overthrowing the elected civil government. Civil war situation is prevailing in the country especially in last two years. However, internal situation further deteriorated due to rebel groups taking over control of certain populated areas near own border. Due to intense fight between military and rebel groups, civilian casualties has increased manifold in recent past. In the meantime, in one night Ashok got information from the local police guarding the border check post that there are about 200-250 people mainly women and children trying to cross over to our side of the border. There are also about 10 soldiers with their weapons in military uniform part of this group who wants to cross over. Women and Children are also crying and begging for help. A few of them are injured and bleeding profusely need immediate medical care. Ashok tried to contact Home Secretary of the State but failed to do so due to poor connectivity mainly due to inclement weather. (a) What are the options available with Ashok to cope with the situation?(b) What are the ethical and legal dilemmas being faced by Ashok?(c) Which of the options, do you think would be more appropriate for Ashok to adopt and why?(d) In the present situation, what are the extra precautionary measures to be taken by the Border Guarding Police in dealing with soldiers in uniform?
Ethics Case Studies
Options range from pushing everyone back to opening the gate to armed men; both extremes fail. The dilemma is non-refoulement and medical duty versus sovereignty and the risk of a ruse. The better path is triage and shelter for civilians, especially women and children, and separate internment of disarmed soldiers pending the Centre. Border police should keep distance, seal weapons, separate camps, and avoid humiliation or leaks. Waiting for a dead phone while a child bleeds is not caution; it is omission.
Q11 · UPSC Mains 2025 · GS IV · 20 marks
Case study. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program, MGNREGA was earlier known as National Rural Employment Scheme, NREGA. It is an Indian Social Welfare Program that aimed at fulfilling the 'Right to Work' provisions made in the Constitution. MGNREGA was launched in 2006 under Rural Employment Sector by the Ministry of Rural Development. Main objective of the program is to give legal guarantee of wage employment to the adult members of rural households who are willing to do unskilled manual labour work subject to a maximum of 100 days per year for every household. Every rural household has the right to register under the scheme, job card is issued to the registered, Job Card holder can seek employment; State Government shall pay 25% of minimum wage for the first 30 days as compensatory daily unemployment allowance to the families and of wage for remaining period of the year. MGNREGA work was undertaken by various Gram Panchayats. You have been appointed as an Administrator Incharge of the District. You have been given the responsibility of monitoring MGNREGA work undertaken by various Gram Panchayats. You are also given the authority to give technical sanctions to all MGNREGA works. In one of the Panchayats in your jurisdiction, you notice that your predecessor has mismanaged the Program in terms of: (i) Money not disbursed to actual job-seekers.(ii) Muster Rolls of the Labourers not properly maintained.(iii) Mismatch between the work done and payments made.(iv) Payments made to fictitious persons.(v) Job Cards were given without looking into the need of person.(vi) Mismanagement of funds and to the extent of siphoning of funds.(vii) Approved works that never existed. (a) What is your reaction to the above situation and how do you restore the proper functioning of MGNREGA Program in this regard?(b) What actions would you initiate, to solve the various issues listed above?(c) How would you deal with the above situation?
Ethics Case Studies
The first duty is to protect records, tell workers the truth, and stop further theft. Arrears must reach real job-seekers while ghosts, fake works and siphoned funds go to vigilance and the police. Job cards should be re-verified without stripping genuine households. The predecessor deserves due process, not a media hanging or a cover-up. Social audit, geotagging and a public dashboard keep the repair from rotting again.
Q10 · UPSC Mains 2025 · GS IV · 20 marks
Case study. Rajesh is a Group A officer with nine years of service. He is posted as Administrative Officer in an Oil Public Sector undertaking. As an Administrative Officer he is responsible for managing and coordinating various administrative tasks to ensure smooth functioning of office. He also manages office supplies, equipment etc. Rajesh is now sufficient senior and is expecting his next promotion in JAG (Junior Administrative Grade) in the next one or two years. He knows that promotion is based on examination of ACRs/Performance Appraisal of last few years (5 years or so) of an officer by a DPC (Departmental Promotion Committee) and an officer lacking requisite grading of ACRs may not be found fit for promotion. Consequences of losing promotion may entail financial and reputational loss and set-back for career progression. Though he also puts his best efforts in official discharge of his duties, yet he is unsure of assessment by his superior officer. He is now putting extra efforts so that he gets thumping report at the end of financial year. As Administrative Officer, Rajesh is regularly interacting with his immediate boss, who is his reporting officer for writing his ACR. One day he calls Rajesh and wants him to buy computer-related stationery on priority from a particular vendor. Rajesh instructs his office to initiate action for procuring these items. During the day, the dealing Assistant brings an estimate of Rupees Thirty Five Lakhs covering all stationery items from the same vendor. It is noticed that as per delegated financial powers, as provided in the GFR (General Financial Rules) as applicable in that Organisation, expenditure for office items exceeding Rupees Thirty Lakhs requires sanction of the next higher authority (boss in the present case). Rajesh knows that immediate superior would expect all these purchases should be done at his level and may not appreciate such lack of initiative on his part. During discussions with office, he learns that common practice of splitting of expenditure (where large order is divided into a series of smaller ones) is followed to avoid obtaining sanction from higher authority. This practice is against the rules and may come to the adverse notice of Audit. Rajesh is perturbed. He is unsure of taking decision in the matter. (a) What are the options available with Rajesh in the above situation?(b) What are the ethical issues involved in this case?(c) Which would be the most appropriate option for Rajesh and why?
Ethics Case Studies
Splitting ₹35 lakh into smaller bills to avoid the boss’s sanction is a GFR violation, even if it is a common trick. The ethical issues are career fear, a named vendor, and the habit of collective cheating. Rajesh’s options include splitting, lawful phasing, written illegal orders, or a proper sanction. The right choice is a single proposal to the competent authority and a competitive purchase. A promotion that needs a false indent is not worth the integrity it costs.
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