Ed Snowden’s leaks about long-time government operations “spying” on Americans’ personal data might be funny if it weren’t so sad. In a logical sequence that would make even George Orwell laugh, we are now learning that a long line of private contractors are running profitable businesses almost exclusively on the government (us) so that the government (er, or is that us?) can poke, prod, tap and review our exploding reams of digital information about — you guessed it — us. In other words the American public is simultaneously the customer and object of study. We are directly and prodigiously funding our own victimhood! 
But this silliness is likely to pale in comparison to what we can expect from the would-be perps and their PR worlds as this all unravels. Entities like the Carlyle Group have bought or created business subsidiaries solely to reap the rewards from controversial Patriot Act efforts like these. With the latest legislative extension, thousands of Orwell’s Winston can expect to be employed at least through 2015. Those atop these organizations emerging with padded wallets include a long list of bipartisan political elites principally from the “Dubya” Bush and Clinton White Houses.
And now in some circles there shall be hell to pay and it is virtually unimaginable that the big money benefactors and political elite here won’t unleash a torrential PR effort to stem the tide. As with any leaker (from Ellsberg to Assange), talk about the “traitorous” behavior of the leaker will be common — as though if Snowden had simply “kept his mouth shut” this all would be ok. So too will the justification that in the “post 9/11” world, deep reaches into Americans’ civil liberties are correct and righteous and we should be pleased for the privilege to pay for it. The endless conflicts of interest between the players on the corporate, political and working media sides will see short play. Storylines with the logical depth of a bumper-sticker will predominate all the while creating a whirlwind of misinformation, red herrings, straw men and few facts for good measure.
And then one wonders where the PR profession will be in all of this. Will it be a principal player in this tawdry act? Do the PR elites have their own looming conflicts on the matter, feeling that they must play ball lest they are caught in the shrapnel of it all? Is the demand for crisis media services going to become so strong that “good business practices” dictate otherwise sane and reputable PR types dip their toes into the hot water? It is almost certain to be ugly, but let’s hope when it’s over the world of PR will rise, not fall, under the sewage of it all.
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John Durante is marketing services director for WordWrite Communications.
