¡Abajo el secreto, viva la privacidad! Dilemas mediáticos en el asunto Snowden

Abstract

This article is an analysis of three journalistic accounts of the leaking of documents from the United States National Security Agency, done by Edward Snowden: a book, a movie, and an interview. The goal is to bring to light some ethical and political dilemmas underlying the case. First, a paradoxical tension between the demand for transparency versus the state’s secrecy and the need of personal secrecy for the right to privacy, which nowadays reflects the publicity versus secrecy dialectic in early modernity. Second, the hack-activist ethic facing the conflicts between anonymity and visibility. Third, the journalists trusted by Snowden confront the dilemma between the obligations of information and the protection of source confidentiality. The Snowden affair is thus an opportunity to learn some lessons about the ethics of communication in the digital age.