People need to look at Snowden in another light and at another level. Our economy, and our currency, is based on trust and faith in the system— faith that the dollar and our worth will not have dramatically fluctuated overnight. The future of the economy and our currency is based on technology, just look at the changing business landscape. The United States is in the midst of a transformation into a service based economy, and as time goes on, more of those services are digital.

Last year, High-tech companies captured $19B (65%) in Venture Capital funding (Source). The businesses that will run tomorrow are the ones with industry-changing models that are scalable, and technology can scale way easier than an Oil giant or Walmart can. Companies like Uber and bleeding-edge technologies like Bitcoin have already rapidly changed the landscape in relatively little time.

This change is good. Since Uber opened doors in Seattle, DUI arrests have been down by 10%. If even 10% of potential drunk drivers were off the road due to the ease of finding safe, reliable transportation, I would call that a win. That’s 10% more mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters that wouldn’t be potentially killed by drunk drivers on the road. While this example is extreme, it is proof that these technologies are powerful.

Now, imagine a world where the government continues down this path and tightens control of the Internet to more extremes. The NSA will have broken all encryption methods and can easily track our purchases and know anything about us at a moments notice. Imagine if the FCC continues down the path of attacking net neutrality and implements paid fast lanes to the Internet. Technology startups without significant capital to make co-location agreements with ISPs will simply die off. Uber would have died off, as they would not have the speed of other apps and the public would not trust that their rides are not being monitored.

While some may say they do not care about privacy, these actions are in clear violation of a U.S. Citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights. There is no need to argue the merits of the Forth Amendment, people much older than us already have. When we ignore these clear violations, we set precedents that will lead us down a path to a more authoritarian society with less freedom and more surveillance.

The key issue here is that the NSA’s programs fundamentally challenge the foundation of an open and secure platform that can be used to share real time knowledge throughout the world. If people can’t trust that their information is safe and secure, they will lose faith in it. If we can’t trust and have faith in the system, we are bound to fail.

Snowden may have hurt the United States’ short term interests as it relates to defense and terrorism, but in the long term more transparency will enable a stronger future. The faster this march progresses, the stronger the foundation will be for future generations to build on.

When talking about the economy, the best minds always mention how “uncertainty” can drastically affect markets. Just look at the 2008 crash, we were uncertain about housing prices (a majority of our wealth), so we stopped spending and we plunged into a recession. This same concept of uncertainty can be applied to our advanced infrastructure, the foundation of our modern society. If we are uncertain about the future, say in regards to net neutrality, or security, or even our freedom to speak up against injustices, it will have ripple effects in our new, digital economy.

The US Government would do well to understand that their NSA hacking programs, lack of transparency, and intent to control the digital infrastructure could end up doing far more damage than the culmination of all of Snowden’s leaks, and while he should not be glorified or vilified, he did fire up the conversation.

-JC