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Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

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Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#31

Post by 93po »

ok_dad wrote: post #17
93po wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the secrets Snowden was releasing were revealing to our adversaries and international terrorist groups how to avoid or thwart our surveillance. Good, maybe this will incentivize intelligence agencies to not abuse their power knowing people will whistle-blow and reveal secrets. When you remove all other methods of accountability, this is what happens. Intelligence agencies did this to themselves.

Exactly. They talk about how he ruined their ability to spy on bad guys, but never mention how they were missing that ability to spy on citizens and friendly foreign governments. Maybe if they had stuck to spying on bad guys, Snowden would still be using his intellect today to help them.

Agreed. They're not sorry for their actions, they're sorry they got caught. If they're sorry at all.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#32

Post by 93po »

CrazyStat wrote: post #11
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I suppose this is supposed to make Snowden look bad. It doesn't. The author is James Clapper, who Snowden's revelations proved lied in Congressional testimony about whether the NSA was collecting information on millions of Americans. So when he says that "multiple executive branch agencies, Congress, and federal courts [...] were all aware of and conducted oversight of the very programs that concerned [Snowden]," he'…

> when they read or listen to the intelligence community's criticisms of Snowden.

Or anyone who has reason to toe the same line, which is all of corporate news and most any politician.

One can also include Assange as a target of this biased criticism.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#34

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

hgsgm wrote: post #29
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Serious question, why are the Snowden leaks so revered and not the reporting of James Risen several years earlier? Because, historically, the US Press is compulsively deferential to the NatSec state. It's the same reason the press twistered themselves to report the Mark Klein revelations as a warrantless wiretapping issue - instead of the NSA live cloning internet backbone traffic in a room custom built by AT&T for…

The US major media reported on this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

> The US major media reported on this.

There were some one-off stories but

by the time we got to the point where PotUS candidates were pausing their campaigns so they could return to DC to vote in favor of amnesty for AT&T,

99% of the coverage was about the ancillary warrantless wiretapping issue; NSA's bulk collection of US citizen's data was soundly ignored. Every bit of this process was stunning to witness.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#35

Post by EA-3167 »

CrazyStat wrote: post #11
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I suppose this is supposed to make Snowden look bad. It doesn't. The author is James Clapper, who Snowden's revelations proved lied in Congressional testimony about whether the NSA was collecting information on millions of Americans. So when he says that "multiple executive branch agencies, Congress, and federal courts [...] were all aware of and conducted oversight of the very programs that concerned [Snowden]," he'…

[flagged]

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#36

Post by dijit »

CrazyStat wrote: post #11
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I suppose this is supposed to make Snowden look bad. It doesn't. The author is James Clapper, who Snowden's revelations proved lied in Congressional testimony about whether the NSA was collecting information on millions of Americans. So when he says that "multiple executive branch agencies, Congress, and federal courts [...] were all aware of and conducted oversight of the very programs that concerned [Snowden]," he'…

I haven't heard many criticisms of Snowden that fall outside of:

A) He's a Russian plant, HE IS IN RUSSIA!one!11

Which is easily disproven because he could have done a lot more damage from the inside and it's the US that forced him to stay in Russia, Snowden was provably en route to Ecuador when his passport was revoked.

"But he doesn't criticise Russia"; well, he can't leave and it's not his fight, his fight was for the soul of the western world (primarily America, though as a Brit I am glad he revealed what he did); Russia is very well known to be corrupt, there's nothing more to be said on that.

B) He put lives at risk!!two!2

Also very easily disproven as he only gave uncensored data to two Journalists whom had a track record for ethical disclosure (even to their own detriment).

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#37

Post by 93po »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #22
iJohnDoe wrote: post #14

I think people would be surprised and sickened to know just how cooperative the big tech companies are with the intelligence agencies. Microsoft is especially cooperative, even as going so far to make sure their systems are compatible with surveillance systems. Yes, Telcos have had to this as well, but I don’t think many people know that Microsoft has proactively done this.

Azure and AWS have so much money coming in from the government that I doubt either company is going to find anything but jelly in their backbones when it comes to government demands for data.

Amount of courage doesn't even matter, NSLs are handed out like candy and force companies to comply without saying anything.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#38

Post by dijit »

EA-3167 wrote: post #35
CrazyStat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose this is supposed to make Snowden look bad. It doesn't. The author is James Clapper, who Snowden's revelations proved lied in Congressional testimony about whether the NSA was collecting information on millions of Americans. So when he says that "multiple executive branch agencies, Congress, and federal courts [...] were all aware of and conducted oversight of the very programs that concerned [Snowden]," he'…

[flagged]

I literally just posted a dismissal of your claims in a sibling comment.

You owe it to yourself to think critically about what you think you want out of intelligence services, being secretive is one thing, not permitting any oversight is not ok and being in direct violation of the law is also not ok.

It's not a hypothetical situation, people were using these tools to stalk women for crying out loud, you can't defend that. Those tools shouldn't have even existed in the first place, it was a flagrant violation of authority.

The reason in the UK police are charged with harsher sentences than ordinary criminals is because they have authority and an enormous capacity to do harm. So do these agencies.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#39

Post by 93po »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #33
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

The fact that James Clapper is not currently behind bars is appalling. He lied to Congress and lied to the American people.

The list of people who should be behind bars and aren't is extremely long and probably includes most any household name politician.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#40

Post by EA-3167 »

dijit wrote: post #38
EA-3167 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I literally just posted a dismissal of your claims in a sibling comment. You owe it to yourself to think critically about what you think you want out of intelligence services, being secretive is one thing, not permitting any oversight is not ok and being in direct violation of the law is also not ok. It's not a hypothetical situation, people were using these tools to stalk women for crying out loud, you can't defend…

There isn't a system in the world which isn't subject to abuse, every police force in the world for example suffers from it. Some people such as yourself take that to mean they need to be torn down, the rest of us just think it means there needs to be more controls to minimize those abuses.

It's not as though MOST of the activity of these agencies is stalking women, and it's profoundly disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

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