The recent case of Edward Snowden and his leaking of top-secret government information relating to NSA snooping project, PRISM, has come at an interesting time for me, since the collision of ethics and morality is becoming an important topic for a new novel I am writing. There are no doubt many important questions raised by this case, but I’m going to focus on just two: Under what circumstances, if any, is it ever right to whistle-blow? Was Snowden right in this particular case? Most of us try to live according to certain moral principles and the philosophy of how we do this is referred to as ethics. The two terms, while closely related, have subtly different meanings: morality usually referring to an individual’s fundamental sense of right and wrong, whereas ethics are rules of conduct defined by an organisation or society. In my opinion, the dilemma of whistle-blowing occurs when ethics and morality collide. As an employee, we are bound by codes of ethics which forbid the leaking of confidential information. Yet sometimes our own moral compass may lead us to believe that the violation of such codes may be justified. But how can we reliably know when this is the case? For every whistle-blower, there are inevitably, many more employees who remain loyal to their employer. Now we could argue that such loyalty is misplaced, or that it’s fear of consequences rather than loyalty that keeps them quiet, but there must also certainly be a number for whom whistle-blowing appears not only unethical, but...