Trinity College, Dublin Digital Medusa Harvard University Columbia University This memo contains the thoughts and recountings of events that transpired during and after the release of information about the NSA by Edward Snowden in 2013. There are four perspectives: that of someone who was involved with sifting through the information to responsibly inform the public, that of a security area director of the IETF, that of a human rights expert, and that of a computer science and law professor. The purpose of this memo is to provide some historical perspective, while at the same time offering a view as to what security and privacy challenges the technical community should consider.