The view from the gallery: international comparison of attitudes to Snowden's revelations about the NSA/GCHQ

The series of revelations made by Edward Snowden revelations starting on 5th June 2013 exposed a true picture of state surveillance or, more precisely, surveillance conducted by an industrial-government complex in the democratic nations. His revelations have attracted heavy doses of both praise and censure; whereas some have positively evaluated his deed as an act of valour to protect democracy against the tyranny of the state, others have criticised him as a traitor to his country that have been preoccupied with responses to the threat of terrorism since the 9.11 attacks. Indeed, the US government filed charges of spying against him on 21st June, and he is forced to live in exile in Moscow. He said that only the American people could decide whether sacrificing his life was worth it by their response [10]. The Pew Research Foundation found in a survey that although Americans are deeply split on whether Snowden's actions served or harmed the public interest, that younger groups regarded his actions as more beneficial than harmful when compared with older groups

Inspired by the Pew Research Foundation's surveys [13, 14], an international group of academics led by the authors of this paper have conducted surveys on young people (students at their universities) about their attitudes to privacy online, and the actions of Bradley/Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden in separate and different modes of grand leaks. This survey has been deployed in China, Germany, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and Taiwan. with further deployments expected.