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Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

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Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#291

Post by [deleted] »

roenxi wrote: post #213
mindslight wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The threat isn't corporations In a thread about surveillance, why are you drawing a dichotomy between different surveillers and basically giving one a pass? They're both prongs of the same threat! On the collection side, every bit vacuumed up commercially is available for use by the government. And on the use side, there is little difference between a government proper and corporations that have achieved enough pow…

Corporate surveillance is only a problem because it will sooner or later feed in to government surveillance. If I could wave a wand and stop that happening I'd be fine with corporate surveillance; I'm annoyed but not threatened by the idea that someone will study my every movement trying to sell me things I want. I'm threatened if the extremely arbitrary government decides that I'm an undesirable for some reason. > c…

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#292

Post by luxuryballs »

empath75 wrote: post #138

I think the administration badly, badly mishandled Snowden and Assange, and allowed Russia to coopt them by isolating and threatening them. If they had treated them as whistleblowers and journalists (even if they had nefarious motivations), they could have kept them in "the west" instead of driving them into the arms of Russia. I don't believe that Assange was a Russian agent at the beginning but he was surely one by…

Hold up, where did you get the idea that Assange has at any time worked for “the Russians”? It seems like he’s stuck to his guns and his convictions on Wikileaks without any misstep. There was never any indication that he had a change in loyalties or that the quality of Wikileak’s content had changed, was there?

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#293

Post by joemi »

matt_morgan wrote: post #19

Or how about from a library. https://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=edward...

Or from an indie bookstore, using this site that will show you indie bookstores near you that have it available for preorder: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250237231

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#294

Post by throw0101a »

dahdum wrote: post #243
kerkeslager wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the Cold War, the US government did a lot of things which were extraordinarily harmful to US Citizens and contributed nothing to fighting Soviet totalitarianism. Soviet totalitarianism was certainly a threat, but US repsonses to Soviet totalitarianism were often counterproductive. There's a strong argument to be made that the US government did more harm to US citizens during the Cold War than the Soviets ever…

> There's a strong argument to be made that the US government did more harm to US citizens during the Cold War than the Soviets ever did. I'd be open to hearing evidence that the NSA was an exception, but you certainly haven't presented any. What harm do you claim the NSA did to Americans in that time? Their mandate is foreign surveillance, and while citizens do get caught in their net (especially with foreign contac…

> What harm do you claim the NSA did to Americans in that time?

The GP did not say "NSA", but "US government". See for example:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#295

Post by wannabcodr »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #286
wannabcodr wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I don’t have a clean link to the book 2) Yes Russian speaking folks are in our IC, military, private sector etc. and are certain to have been in his orbit 3) someone could ask mr Omidyar Given his connections to Booz and his level of intelligence (punahou grad along with Obama etc) He could be a total patriot at heart and it would be difficult to know the difference. Shit, maybe Pierre is a triple agent, a regular…

So, all speculation? I mean based on what he has released he's an american patriot. I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary. Of course the US govt will try smear him and cover up after he exposed their actions.

It’s impossible to tell without access to the full trove. He could be releasing things in a way that either minimizes or maximizes damage (or anywhere in between) to the US.

Yes, we can only speculate. I’m not in the intelligence community and those who are aren’t likely to voice things publicly.

The whole situation seems odd. A calculating genius spends months planning what is ostensibly a haphazard plan to wind up in Russia supposedly not by choice? Then Omidyar also in Hawaii and connected to Booz buys up the secrets. Seems odd to me.

If Mr. Omidyar were patriotic maybe he would have bought up the secrets and kept 100% of them private, thus extending the oath of secrecy that military officers all take. Mr. Omidyar has come forward as an agent of the free press, not as a sworn patriotic military officer. Difficult to tell his motivations from the outside yet worthy of speculation.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#296

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

treypitt wrote: post #179
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the administration badly, badly mishandled [whistleblowers] Yes, but by design. Other than passing lip service towards transparency. The fact is Obama admin actively sought to silence them. I know this isn’t popular because HN won’t want to hear anything bad about Obama, but it’s a fact. In the seven years of Obama's presidency, the administration launched a record number of cases against those who revealed…

Agreed. one of the most illuminating aspects of the Obama administration was the divergence between great tolerance for corporate whistleblowers on the one hand, and animosity toward government whistleblowers on the other. Also, people cite the "more than any other administration" argument frequently, especially in media, but rarely think to mention the small sample size. nice work!

Yea, there is a special handling of that whole line. More than any other administration - doesn’t seem like much. And the qualifier that we’re talking about 8 makes it seem less important.

However, those 8 people also the qualifier of “combined” where the sum of people charged with espionage until Obama was less than 8 people total, and then he comes in and exceeds that. No one should believe that from 2008-2016 we had some resurgence of traitors to the country. Just people charged as such in most cases for doing the right thing overall.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#297

Post by slg »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #267
bdhess wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think calling Assange a journalist is very debatable. He certainly doesn’t comply with the ethical norms of the profession.

People say this on this basis of hearsay, like he “selectively released documents” for which there is no evidence.

One huge ethical red flag for Assange and Wikileaks is their view on redacting documents. They published numerous details that a traditional journalistic outlet would never make public include the names of informants. This almost certainly resulted in people being killed.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#298

Post by [deleted] »

ptero wrote: post #109
jonahbenton wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the case for both govt and private corporate surveillance? How widespread is the use of Alexa in your area?

The key difference is that you can decide not to buy corporate products you do not want, but have to comply with the laws. I am a lot less concerned about stupid things done by a majority for convenience (and I can choose whether to do participate or not) than about the law that forces the same stupidity down my throat. My 2c.

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#299

Post by throw0101a »

Miner49er wrote: post #268
pstuart wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assange is an attention whore. I had such high hopes for wikileaks but it was, in the end, a vehicle for him to promote himself.

You think Assange put himself at as much risk as he did to promote himself? He spent 7 years locked in an embassy (to great detriment to his health and was arguably worse then jail), is now in jail, and is facing at least life in prison, if not the death penalty. You really think he did all that just to promote himself and for some attention?

> He spent 7 years locked in an embassy ...

To avoid criminal charges for things unrelated to his political/journalistic exploits. Plenty of people run when faced with possible jail time, e.g., Roman Polanski.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#300

Post by snowden_report »

mgamache wrote: post #279
snowden_report wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much discussion on this topic relies on popular sentiment and media reporting. The redacted and declassified Congressional report should be considered a primary source and contradicts many common beliefs about Mr. Snowden: https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pd... The Executive Summary provides a good overview. In contrast to the Amazon book page that claims he helped "build" the system, it appe…

I think system administrators would take exception to your claim they don't help build anything. Also, Congressional report prepared by whom? Can't take a report by the fox guarding the hen house seriously.

I was a system administrator with similar responsibilities for several years, and it was quite clear who the system architects were and who the maintainers were. It's a minor point, but speaks to Mr. Snowden's reportedly inflated self-importance.

It's up to all of us to take this report, and news reports and autobiographies, as seriously as you think they deserve. This provides background information not commonly known and is a valuable counter balance to Mr. Snowden's account. How seriously should we take an autobiography written by the person who perpetrated such (in)famous actions?

There is "selective reporting" on all sides, it's up to us to take it all in and form our own opinions. For example: read the report, note Mr. Snowden's length of service at each job, his age and experience, and consider how likely it was that he was a "senior advisor" or a more junior system administrator.

I understand this may be a lost cause, but I'm simply advocating for balance on this issue.

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