U.S.-Based Privacy Groups Undermine National Security

Since the loving arms of Vladimir Putin embraced Edward Snowden, he has had a lot to say – Tweeting most days about various perceived human rights abuses, usually targeting his home country here in the United States.

Before that, though, Snowden had no trouble getting his Kremlin-approved messaging out. As recently as last summer, prominent U.S.-based privacy groups have given Snowden a voice and a major platform. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) hosted Edward Snowden for a webinar in June of 2021, celebrating "30 years of defending online freedom." Odd choice to have as a speaker someone who fled to and assisted some of the most repressive regimes on earth in China and then Russia. Not much online freedom there the last time I checked.

Back in September of 2016, The Guardian reported that the Executive Director of the EFF, Cindy Cohn, was one of 21 prominent officials to call for then-President Barack Obama to pardon Edward Snowden. Cohn also suggested that Snowden be given the Nobel Peace Prize in the event a pardon could not be given. Another odd choice for someone who supported one genocidal regime and another murderous with his disclosures.

The hits don’t stop there. EFF awarded Chelsea Manning its "Past Pioneer and Barlow Award Winner" in 2017. Manning's illegal disclosures compromised key intelligence collection platforms and jeopardized Afghan and Iraqi civilians who put their lives on the line to assist coalition efforts.

Snowden is also the president of Freedom of the Press Foundation, a California-based charity that tracks "press freedom violations" in the United States. They seem to be more concerned over who gets denied access to a press conference in the United States versus Russia’s whole-scale roundup of journalists and criminalizing of speech.

Many U.S.-based privacy groups like EFF have created a cottage industry of third-party organizations, lawyers, and activist journalists to highlight so-called abuses by the U.S. government. Yet these groups being mostly silent over human rights abuses by China in Xinjiang and Russia in Ukraine is deafening. Groups like EFF would do better to call out abuses occurring around the world evenly – not just targeting their home country, which draws the most clicks, and the highest contribution levels.

Clearly, the human rights abuses taking place in Ukraine now by Russia and in Xinjiang by China deserve far more scrutiny than the perceived abuses happening in our own country, which are subject to multiple levels of checks and balances.

U.S.-based privacy groups can play an important role in shaping U.S. national security and privacy policy, protecting the rights of the aggrieved, and promoting human rights globally. However, that should not be extended to supporting those undermining U.S. national security like Snowden, Assange, or Manning, as those efforts can backfire and end up working against the very thing the groups were created to protect.

Snowden, Assange, and Manning are three peas in a pod – a pod that has done and continues to do tremendous damage to U.S. national security.

Andy Keiser is a Principal at Navigators Global, a Senior Advisor at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, and a former Senior Advisor to the House Intelligence Committee.