This book aims to explain the US violation of the human right to privacy unveiled by Edward Snowden with a newly developed comprehensive spiral model. After analyzing the social and juridical roots of the norm of privacy, it portrays the countering of privacy by the security norm in the US public debate and the US policy from the 1930s to 2013. On the basis of this case study the author refines the spiral model invented by Risse et al. Finally, the book explores the reaction of several actors following the Snowden disclosures and analyzes the tools these actors have used to influence the behavior of the USA. Thereby the author examines if the US reactions to the Snowden disclosures since 2013 follow the heuristic approach o