Edward Snowden

[Argus]

I'm sure we can all agree that Snowden won't be getting any jobs involving security in Russia.

It's hard to not feel contempt for the little twerp. There he was, living the life, with a hot stripper girlfriend, and he blew it all in a fit of narcissistic self-righteousness over government security monitoring which was perfectly legal and wasn't harming anyone. Now he's basically condemned to live his life in dictatorships with smothering levels of security and political monitoring where the slightest wrong move could get him beaten or sent to prison or an insane asylum. Smart move there, boy genius.

[kimmy]

a fit of narcissistic self-righteousness over government security monitoring which was perfectly legal and wasn't harming anyone.

I strongly disagree with both of those assessments.

On the claim of "perfectly legal", I call BS because the contractors have access to more than just the "metadata" that the programs' defenders have been talking about. In fact others have come forward to corroborate Snowdens' claims that he had access to pretty much whatever he felt like.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-dec13/whistleblowers_08-01.html

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323997004578641993388259674-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwMTEwNDEyWj.html

As for "not harming anyone", I disagree with that too. "You don't need to worry unless you're on the phone with terrorists!" In the NSA thread I provided examples of how "terrorist" can get redefined to mean whoever's inconvenient to people in power. In Missouri, somebody who attempts to defame a factory farm by exposing animal cruelty is a terrorist. In several US states, TransCanada Pipeline is working with local law enforcement to use anti-terrorism laws to suppress pipeline protests. If the people in power can decide who is a terrorist, then anybody is potentially a terrorist.

And "not harming anyone" is also questionable because of the vast amount of government funds being sunk into this surveillance effort. You could pay down the debt, repair crumbling infrastructure, maintain social security and Medicaid, ... or you could hire a whole army of Snowdens at rich salaries, build a multi-billion dollar fortress in Utah for the computers, ...for programs that have yielded little tangible benefit. When pressed for details about what terrorists they've actually caught, they come up with one guy who wired a few thousand dollars to a known terrorist in Somalia, and a couple of other minor plots. On a benefit vs dollars-spent basis, these programs must be one of the biggest failures in history. They could save more lives and provide more security by installing crossing gates at railroad crossings.

And the questions of "is it legal" and "is it hurting anybody" miss the bigger question "is it something we should be doing".

If what Snowden did is such a bad thing, why is Team Obama suddenly talking about how they welcome spirited debate on how to balance privacy with security? They welcome spirited debate on programs that 3 months ago they didn't want people to know even existed? Really?

-k

[kimmy]

On a related note, Bradley Manning has been found Not Guilty of "aiding the enemy", but still faces up to 136 years in prison for a variety of crimes relating to releasing evidence of US military cover-ups of civilian casualties.

None of the soldiers who slaughtered civilians are facing 136 years in prison. None of the officials that participated in cover-ups are doing 136 years in prison.

It seems clear that embarrassing the authorities is considered a much bigger crime than the actual wrongdoing itself.

So, personally, I don't blame Snowden for not sticking around to "face the music".

-k

[Shady]

And "not harming anyone" is also questionable because of the vast amount of government funds being sunk into this surveillance effort. You could pay down the debt, repair crumbling infrastructure, maintain social security and Medicaid

Sorry, but that's just not true at all. In fact, all of those expenses monumentally dwarf surveillance spending. You could completely elimination all defense spending, and there'd still be a deficit, and the insolvency problems of social security, medicare and medicaid. Not sure where you got that information from.

Edited August 3, 2013 by Shady

[kimmy]

Sorry, but that's just not true at all. In fact, all of those expenses monumentally dwarf surveillance spending.

I didn't mean to compare the overall size of spending. The point was that that money could be spent on things that actually produce tangible benefits.

-k

[Shady]

I didn't mean to compare the overall size of spending. The point was that that money could be spent on things that actually produce tangible benefits.-k

I guess. But doesn't safety and security provide a tangible benefit?

[ReeferMadness]

On a related note, Bradley Manning has been found Not Guilty of "aiding the enemy", but still faces up to 136 years in prison for a variety of crimes relating to releasing evidence of US military cover-ups of civilian casualties.

None of the soldiers who slaughtered civilians are facing 136 years in prison. None of the officials that participated in cover-ups are doing 136 years in prison.

It seems clear that embarrassing the authorities is considered a much bigger crime than the actual wrongdoing itself.

So, personally, I don't blame Snowden for not sticking around to "face the music".

-k

Exactly so. Snowden can watch the kangaroo court that Bradley Manning is enduring and decide how he will be treated.

[GostHacked]

I guess. But doesn't safety and security provide a tangible benefit?

This is blanket security/surveillance. In order to get the real guys, they need targeted specific surveillance.

Kimmy is in the right frame of mind with the concerns she has for this. As do I. I keep stressing that it is important to understand the tech to know how it is all done.

IF you are not doing anything wrong, why are they spying on you? And why are you conditioned to accept mass surveillance all under the guise of protecting against terrorism?

Protect you from Al-Queda types? Why protect you from them here, yet support the same terrorists to help bring down a foreign government?

Sure makes sense.

It's a slap in the face for the U.S., .

The NSA spy program is a slap in your face by your own government. What is the condition of sympathizing with your captor/controllers?

[kimmy]

I guess. But doesn't safety and security provide a tangible benefit?

Sure, but how effective is this massive surveillance program at actually providing safety and security? As mentioned already, they're able to come up with very few examples of these programs leading to arrests or stopping terrorist activities. Did they stop the Boston bombings?

Far more Americans are injured and killed at railroad crossings than by terrorists. If providing safety and security is the goal, spending a few million bucks putting up gates and flashers at all level crossings would go a lot farther than spending billions on surveillance.

Hey, how about proper oversight of fertilizer plants? I bet that could provide safety and security!

-k

[dre]

It's a slap in the face for the U.S., so apparently it's all good. Russia being lauded over the U.S.? It's unbelievable, really. I don't understand why the same scrutiny isn't being applied to said countries, but that goes against the trend these days.

Its not a slap in the face for the US though if you consider the "US" as being the people that live in America. Most of those people believe Snowden is a whistle blower and has a legitimate case to seek assylum. Its merely a slap in the face to the government and authoritarian sycophants that would like to see this guy get a longer sentence than a murderer or rapist simply because he challenged their beloved state authority.

And like I said the US itself has a history of granting asylum to such people itself as do many other countries.

[bleeding heart]

If what Snowden did is such a bad thing, why is Team Obama suddenly talking about how they welcome spirited debate on how to balance privacy with security? They welcome spirited debate on programs that 3 months ago they didn't want people to know even existed? Really?

-k

Yeah, really.

On a directly related note, Obama's got a bit of a winning formula here; his supporters cherish him to a silly degree (though admittedly a bit of the shine seems to be finally rubbing off); and most of his opponents, who hate his "socialism" [sic] and so on...are pretty much ok with draconian domestic spying practices. Heck, it sounds downright...Republican!

But I'm not that pessimistic...I'm smelling something of a groundswell here against these Bush-enacted, Obama-increased policies.

(By the way, what the sweet, sweet F*** are Obama's staunchest defenders doing? Did they not hate...hate...Bush for the same sorts of things?)

So, personally, I don't blame Snowden for not sticking around to "face the music".

No. And, since some of the Snowden critics have summoned the name of Daniel Ellsberg, as taking the correct stance of facing the music....Ellsberg himself says Snowden was wise to take off.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-07/opinions/40427629_1_daniel-ellsberg-pentagon-papers-snowden-s

Edited August 3, 2013 by bleeding heart

[ReeferMadness]

But I'm not that pessimistic...I'm smelling something of a groundswell here against these Bush-enacted, Obama-increased policies.

(By the way, what the sweet, sweet F*** are Obama's staunchest defenders doing? Did they not hate...hate...Bush for the same sorts of things?)

No. And, since some of the Snowden critics have summoned the name of Daniel Ellsberg, as taking the correct stance of facing the music....Ellsberg himself says Snowden was wise to take off.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-07/opinions/40427629_1_daniel-ellsberg-pentagon-papers-snowden-s

Obama's supporters rationalize (probably correctly) that Obama is the lesser of the two evils. It just shows how little real choice there is in American democracy. Chomsky refers to the Republicans and Democrats as one party with two wings.

Ellsberg's comments are instructive and insightful.

Many people compare Edward Snowden to me unfavorably for leaving the country and seeking asylum, rather than facing trial as I did. I don’t agree. The country I stayed in was a different America, a long time ago.

There is no chance that experience could be reproduced today, let alone that a trial could be terminated by the revelation of White House actions against a defendant that were clearly criminal in Richard Nixon’s era — and figured in his resignation in the face of impeachment — but are today all regarded as legal (including an attempt to “incapacitate me totally”).

[jbg]

Of course I would not have been. I'm honest enough to admit it.

You will not see a post where I expressed outrage. On the other hand it's O.K. with me if there are consequences for sticking your thumb, needlessly, in the U.S.'s eye.

Nobody has done that. The majority of Americans believe Snowden is a necessary whistle blower. And nobody in their right mind believes he should be returned to the US to face a longer sentence than a murder or rapist... for simply telling Americans that the Obama administration was reading their phone records and emails.

If Snowden was such a hero why did he need to take the coward's way out and flee? Couldn't he have invited himself to testify before Congress?

This was a man who didn't take his duty to his country seriously.

[Guest American Woman]

Its not a slap in the face for the US though if you consider the "US" as being the people that live in America. Most of those people believe Snowden is a whistle blower and has a legitimate case to seek assylum.

As always, that depends on which poll you are looking at:

Poll: Americans Turn On Snowden, Majority Supports Criminal Charges

Edward Snowden Poll Finds More Americans Now Think He Did The Wrong Thing

Poll: Snowden should be prosecuted for NSA leaks

WSJ/NBC Poll: Most Americans View Snowden Negatively

At any rate, it is a slap in the face by those offering asylum; the offers of asylum aren't based on polls or what the majority of Americans supposedly think.

[ReeferMadness]

If Snowden was such a hero why did he need to take the coward's way out and flee? Couldn't he have invited himself to testify before Congress?

This was a man who didn't take his duty to his country seriously.

Read Daniel Ellbserg's comments on the topic. Ellsberg did stick around - back in the 70's.

[jbg]

Read Daniel Ellbserg's comments on the topic. Ellsberg did stick around - back in the 70's.

Link?

[kimmy]

Well, here's one in which Ellsberg says that Manning and Snowden were right to leak the information. Ellsberg says that he wasted years trying to go through "proper channels" and believes he cost thousands of lives by not leaking the information sooner.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/03/208602113/pentagon-papers-leaker-daniel-ellsberg-praises-snowden-manning

And here's one in which Ellsberg says that he doesn't blame Snowden for not sticking around:

In a Washington Post op-ed, Ellsberg responded to the people who have criticized Snowden for seeking asylum outside the U.S. instead of facing trial.

"Many people compare Edward Snowden to me unfavorably for leaving the country and seeking asylum, rather than facing trial as I did," he wrote. "I don't agree. The country I stayed in was a different America, a long time ago."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/08/daniel-ellsberg-edward-snowden-asylum_n_3562505.html

-k

[bleeding heart]

Link?

There's one five posts up from yours...and another, one post down.

[Argus]

I strongly disagree with both of those assessments.

On the claim of "perfectly legal", I call BS because the contractors have access to more than just the "metadata" that the programs' defenders have been talking about. In fact others have come forward to corroborate Snowdens' claims that he had access to pretty much whatever he felt like.

I don't doubt they have access to any kind of electronic communication. But they need a warrant to listen to it, which is what makes it legal. Look, did you know that hackers are able to turn on your web cam without your knowledge? Why wouldn't you think the NSA could do that or worse? I always figured they could vacuum your computer any time they wanted, any computer, and probably have a program which would instantly put together a file on what kind of person, age, race, sex, likes and dislikes, is using that computer. There's nothing new here.

Because the real protection you have from invasion of privacy is numbers. The government cannot possibly actually listen to what everyone is saying. You need humans to play the conversion back in real time, so the government wouldn't be able to listen to more than a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of such stuff, even if they wanted to.

As for "not harming anyone", I disagree with that too. "You don't need to worry unless you're on the phone with terrorists!" In the NSA thread I provided examples of how "terrorist" can get redefined to mean whoever's inconvenient to people in power.

More concerning is the willingness of American politicians to prostitute themselves to corporate interests, as in the laws designed to suppress video of cruelty to animals in factory farms and the like. Such laws are fundamentally undemocratic and probably unconstitutional. I have a great deal of doubt that the courts will accept these, and presume that any use of them to justify warrants for electronic surveillance will, like the laws themselves, eventually be thrown out.

And "not harming anyone" is also questionable because of the vast amount of government funds being sunk into this surveillance effort.

Oh, I doubt the cost is all that high. When you compare it to what they spend on their military, with warships going for billions apiece, and a few million soldiers to be paid, the NSA is no big deal. I believe their entire budget is something like $10-12b. And a lot of what they do is necessary work.

If what Snowden did is such a bad thing, why is Team Obama suddenly talking about how they welcome spirited debate on how to balance privacy with security? They welcome spirited debate on programs that 3 months ago they didn't want people to know even existed? Really?

Obama is just a politician, and a weak one at that. His political statements and positions are guided by the wind, on what he feels his base wants to hear him say at any given point in time. I wouldn't take anything he says as relating to morality or right and wrong.

[cybercoma]

I always figured they could vacuum your computer any time they wanted, any computer, and probably have a program which would instantly put together a file on what kind of person, age, race, sex, likes and dislikes, is using that computer. There's nothing new here.

What you "always figured" was a conspiracy theory until it was confirmed. If even a year ago you would have been running around warning people about the NSA reading all of your emails, tapping all of your phone calls, storing all of the information, and analyzing it without your knowledge or consent of its contents, you would have been laughed off the forum as a tin-foil-hat wearing lunatic. In fact, I bet you would have been the first person to get on a poster's case that was doing that then. However, now that the scope of the program has been confirmed and the US government has been caught in numerous lies trying to do damage control, a lot of people are saying exactly what you're saying. I don't know if it's because you want to feel like you're smarter than everyone else because you "knew it all along," but nobody knew the full extent of these activities. Everyone knew that they could spy on people in these ways with warrants, going through the proper checks and balances, and also that in some very limited cases they may try to skirt those checks. Nobody knew that it was completely widespread and common that they were watching everyone's communications without a warrant and more importantly storing that data for later use. This wasn't common knowledge and any suggestion that you knew this was going on I'm going to call BS on. You may have suspected, but then again people suspect that Elvis is still alive and aliens crashed in Roswell.

[GostHacked]

Cybercoma

I had suspected and wellm known about some of it for some years. This is a whole other level in which this program is operating under. It's not massive surveillance, it is much much more than massive.

The data the are storing is run through computer analytic programs/algorithms, ect. Looking for specific things it will send a notice to the human operators to verify the info. With computer power these days and Google's new quantum computer, the amount of data out there won't be difficult for a quantum computer to parse through.

Argus

The court that gives out the warrants are the intelligence service's own courts. NOT the courts that would traditionally have approved a warrant. This is a key point in changing how warrants are handled now. If we all work under one judicial system for oversight, why does the US government have the ability to work under a different set of rules?

Just because the criminals break laws, means the government can break them in order to catch criminals? End justifying the means? Change the law so actions previously taken by the government that were considered illegal are now legal. Moving the bar.

[kimmy]

I don't doubt they have access to any kind of electronic communication. But they need a warrant to listen to it, which is what makes it legal.

Warrants? We ain't got warrants! We don't need to show you no steekin' warrants!

"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".

US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.

Here's an NSA training material PowerPoint presentation that Snowden provided to the Guardian.

Because the real protection you have from invasion of privacy is numbers. The government cannot possibly actually listen to what everyone is saying. You need humans to play the conversion back in real time, so the government wouldn't be able to listen to more than a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of such stuff, even if they wanted to.

Sure. Don't do anything that gets you flagged, and you'll stay below the radar.

I've bought bulk quantities of ammunition online. You've written several times about the overprosecution of child pornography.

I bet we're both flagged, Argus.

If I'm not flagged yet, then...

fertilizer backpack pressure cooker white power Quran allah akbar occupy nobama patriot don't tread on me

...how about now?

More concerning is the willingness of American politicians to prostitute themselves to corporate interests, as in the laws designed to suppress video of cruelty to animals in factory farms and the like. Such laws are fundamentally undemocratic and probably unconstitutional. I have a great deal of doubt that the courts will accept these, and presume that any use of them to justify warrants for electronic surveillance will, like the laws themselves, eventually be thrown out.

Yeah, if the politicians and law enforcement people were all Good-Guys, giving them access to tools like this wouldn't be a concern at all, would it. But they're not all Good-Guys, and many of them are not even Average-Guys.

Oh, I doubt the cost is all that high. When you compare it to what they spend on their military, with warships going for billions apiece, and a few million soldiers to be paid, the NSA is no big deal. I believe their entire budget is something like $10-12b. And a lot of what they do is necessary work.

Earlier on we learned that there are a half-million private security contractors with Top Secret clearance, and the number with lower security clearances in the millions. And that's not even counting federal employees. Early in the thread I quoted an analyst who said that the sheer size of these programs made a leak inevitable. This has become a huge industry in America.

-k

[GostHacked]

If I'm not flagged yet, then...

fertilizer backpack pressure cooker white power Quran allah akbar occupy nobama patriot don't tread on me

...how about now?

Mention anything about the constitution, that should put you on their radar right quick.

[bleeding heart]

Mention anything about the constitution, that should put you on their radar right quick.

Well...I'm gonna go with Kimmy's ammo and child-porn witch-hunt scenarios as more plausible.

[Albert_Einstein]

I don't doubt they have access to any kind of electronic communication. But they need a warrant to listen to it, which is what makes it legal. Look, did you know that hackers are able to turn on your web cam without your knowledge? Why wouldn't you think the NSA could do that or worse? I always figured they could vacuum your computer any time they wanted, any computer, and probably have a program which would instantly put together a file on what kind of person, age, race, sex, likes and dislikes, is using that computer. There's nothing new here.

Because the real protection you have from invasion of privacy is numbers. The government cannot possibly actually listen to what everyone is saying. You need humans to play the conversion back in real time, so the government wouldn't be able to listen to more than a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of such stuff, even if they wanted to.

More concerning is the willingness of American politicians to prostitute themselves to corporate interests, as in the laws designed to suppress video of cruelty to animals in factory farms and the like. Such laws are fundamentally undemocratic and probably unconstitutional. I have a great deal of doubt that the courts will accept these, and presume that any use of them to justify warrants for electronic surveillance will, like the laws themselves, eventually be thrown out.

The lack of international outrage over this systematic and pervasive invasion of privacy is deeply troubling. I'm not sure if people don't know or just don't care. Or don't care enough to bother figuring out if they should care.

For all of the US angst over whether the NSA is or should be spying on its own citizens, there seems to be no controversy regarding the openly acknowledged spying on citizens of the rest of the world. Maybe people aren't aware of the percentage of worldwide internet traffic that flows through the US. The US exercises a large degree of control over the internet and Snowden's revelations will provide other countries with more of a lever to question that.

And what of Joe Q Citizen? Democracy is a hollow concept unless people care enough to at least voice opinions. Oh, and become aware enough to hold intelligent opinions.