As well as providing an excellent stage for the exercise of collective hypocrisy, on which the same people who pay for espionage can be scandalized when it comes to light, the Snowden case has brought to the table, with stinging clarity, a worrying trend of ‘liberal' democracies of the 21st century: with increasing intensity, state powers control citizens, rather than being controlled by them. Thus, in countries that once presented themselves as defenders of liberty, the precepts of that maxim of supposedly Leninist origin are being realized, according to which real control must always be absolute, since ‘control' supposes, by definition, all controls.

When we talk about espionage we move in the murky areas of the rule of law: there, where, sheltered by the most important raison d'État – the guarantee of citizens' security – the enemies of the state are fought. It is obvious, however, that only a clear definition of the meaning of ‘public security', subject to strict parliamentary control, prevents the appeal to ‘security' gradually becoming an excuse to violate the most basic of rights, at whoever's own discretion and in the name of illegitimate interests, overlooking any presumption of innocence, and opening the door to another class of crime.

What Snowden has discovered then, is that espionage activities sponsored by the U.S. government were not directed exclusively at the combating of potential enemies of the American citizen, but also at their supposed allies; they were not directed solely at the prevention of terrorist plots, but at exploration of the activities of financial institutions; not at preventing criminal activities, but rather at monitoring the conversations of ordinary citizens, who, as well as selflessly paying their taxes under the careful supervision of the ministry of finance, now discover that they have been under surveillance by foreign powers, which, it seems, no one supervises adequately.   

In the same vein, Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, has called for a public debate on the activities undertaken by the American and British security services – NSA and GCHQ – because, by breaking the web's encryption systems, they have made it more vulnerable to attacks orchestrated by the same criminals they themselves are trying to fight. While recognizing that security agencies are needed to combat crime on the Internet, Berners-Lee stresses the need to control their activities. Having said that, it should be noted that this control is not only necessary in order that the web be a ‘safe place' for honest citizens, but also in order to prevent the concept of ‘security' becoming something so elastic that the boundary between ‘normal' and ‘emergency' states remains blurred forever.

From a human rights point of view, it certainly seems as though, from September 11th 2001, the Western world has been in a constant ‘state of emergency'. This is precisely what needs to be reviewed. For many people it is plausible that citizens, under the influence of fear, want to sacrifice their freedoms and privacy to this kind of security. But citizens have not been asked about it. In any case, if that was the attitude of the people, then we would have reason to be worried, since the objective of a political system, and, furthermore, the rationale behind a supposedly liberal system, is not to guarantee any kind of life, but to ensure a free life.

We ignore why Snowden leaked the information about the irregularities of the Prism Program to the international press, rather than address the committee responsible for monitoring intelligence in Congress – which is what, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, he should have done. However, considering that two members of that committee – Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall – had been pointing out, for several years, the possible irregularities in the Prism Program, and no action was known to have taken place, was it not reasonable to assume that the path suggested by the senator was completely useless? Would it have had the same public impact? Moreover: would it have fulfilled the fundamental objective of warning the public of the threat that hangs over them? Seen from the angle of the requirements of the protection of citizens' rights, and in the absence of any information about other possible motivations, Snowden's action seems to be a case of civil resistance against a power that goes too far, forgetting its original task: Snowden refused to cooperate with a system that, by all appearances, at least to his own conscience, had lost sight of its original raison d'être. He has risked a great deal in doing so.

From this perspective, far from judging him an enemy of the state, he should be considered an exponent of the liberal values that have traditionally been the pride of the United States. Something similar could be said of Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, who has been called to appear before the British Parliament in December. Both are facing their governments in the name of the freedom of citizens. It remains to be seen whether these – and, in general, the civil societies of the other Western countries – take up the gauntlet, even symbolically, or if, on the contrary, we will remain settled in quiet servitude, with only a sprinkling of surface-level freedoms.