In 2013, ex-National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden shocked the world by revealing the American NSA's (and its partners') extensive surveillance programs. The ensuing media discussion became a focal point for the justification and contestation of surveillance in the digital age. This article contributes to the growing body of literature on the discursive construction of surveillance, concentrating on how the practice is (de)legitimized. Methodologically, the paper draws on Critical Discourse Studies, applying the concept of discourse and utilizing insights from Van Leeuwen's categories of legitimation and social actor representation. The data come from the media coverage of the Snowden affair in Finland, whose hitherto very limited state surveillance is now being transformed into extensive digital monitoring. The study concludes that surveillance is (de)legitimized through two main discourses, one legitimizing it by constructing it as a tool for protection against terrorism, the other contesting it by depicting it as a threat to the basic building blocks of democracy. The study suggests that the latter understanding tends to be favored in the media, but the critique of surveillance is on a rather abstract level.

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In the digital era, when security agencies world-wide have been challenging basic democratic principles with massive data gathering, Finland has had a different approach: it has conducted no large-scale surveillance of citizens’ online activities. Now, however, the country is planning such a vast expansion of state surveillance that the constitution itself must be altered. The present article examines one key point in this legislative process to see how the new surveillance measures are argued for and criticized, and how the differing points of view are negotiated to ultimately enable political action. Drawing particularly on Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2012) approach to argumentation in political discourse, the article finds that surveillance is promoted as essential for national security, and criticized especially for its economic risks, consequences for civil rights and questionable effectiveness. Despite this range of critical perspectives, only economic considerations become a topic of extended deliberation.