This reads like NSA Public Relations. Snowden was no whistleblower, NSA did some overcollection but anyway their mission is great and yeah some safeguards had to be improved. And Keith Alexander is a reliable source.
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On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
21–30 of 242 posts
Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> His behavior isn't what a whistleblower does. You need to explain this. Why should a whistleblower have to go to prison? Don't deflect with whataboutisms.
What does whistleblowers going to prison have to do with the Snowden case? The article we're commenting on makes it clear that whistleblowing and Snowden have nothing to do with each other.
Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
He gave that data to american citizens in Hong Kong and retained no copy. Obama's people trapped him in transit in russia on his way to south america so that they could claim "russia! russia!" They openly bragged about this. It worked on both levels. He's stuck and people amazingly still claim he's in with the russians. It always surprises me how many people still come out with this totally discredited line that he g…
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached-c... How is this whistleblowing? He also participated in Putin's call in propaganda show, I don't believe for a second that he's said anything that upsets Putin or the FSB particularly if mild criticism is useful for them in maintaining the fiction that he is not under the control of the Russian security services. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia…
First one was not published by the journalists Snowden chose, whom he directed as to the kinds of things he wanted published and not. The NYT got the archive from the guardian against Snowden's wishes and knew better. Your criticism is of the NYT.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/29/edward-snowd...
And plenty more.
How are your criticisms of the CIA, NSA and Dept of homeland security coming along? Or you are unable to criticise clapper, the cnn paid expert at this time.
Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#24I still haven't gotten my head around the valorization of Bill Binney, who does not appear to have been an opponent of dragnet surveillance, as he's so often portrayed, but rather of inefficient and poorly managed dragnet surveillance. ThinThread, the system he designed and left NSA over when they didn't pursue it, still left it up to NSA to determine which data to make available, and still presumed NSA would collect…
Whatever system there is in place doesn't seem to do much to address:
+ lone wolfs such as Uvalde, Las Vegas, Nashville, Waukesha...
+ Cross border drug operations
+ Transnational incidents like Nord Stream, spy balloons, COVID.
+ Military operations in Ukraine, Russia, Afghanistan
We are asked to relinquish so many freedoms and spend so much money on what, exactly?
The 'we can't tell you because it'll jeopardize all those important things we can't tell you about' argument simply doesn't hold water. There are too many intelligence fumbles to assume that there is intelligence.
Now if there was a mechanism in place to ensure that no one would rock the military political industrial complex... well that lines up with a lot of observable outcomes.
Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
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You mean the most sensitive government secrets that are about warrantless total surveillance of everyone on earth? The proof that the US government has lost all control over their spying apparatus? Where would be a sensitive place to take them instead in your opinion?
No I mean things like this which he leaked which revealed NSA spying on the Chinese government. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached-c...
Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#26Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#2710 years on, Snowden remains arguably the most important whistleblower in the US after Daniel Ellsberg. The fact that the government pursued Snowden and effectively drove him into exile in an unfriendly country shows how serious the revelations were, and exposes the dangers of an unchecked government. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that Snowden single-handedly changed public perception against the NSA and the do…
The article makes the case that Snowden was NOT a whistleblower:
“ "I want to emphasize this: my active searching out of NSA abuses began not with the copying of documents, but with the reading of them. My initial intention was just to confirm the suspicions that I'd first had back in 2009 in Tokyo. Three years later I was determined to find out if an American system of mass surveillance existed and, if it did, how it functioned."
With this, Snowden basically admits that he isn't a whistleblower: he wasn't confronted with illegal activities or significant abuses and subsequently secured evidence of that, but acted the other way around, by first gathering as much information he could get and then look whether there was something incriminating in it.
In his memoir, Snowden doesn't come up with concrete misconducts or other things that could have triggered his decision to hand the files over to journalists. He even omits almost all the disclosures made by the press, which makes that Permanent Record contains hardly anything that justifies his unprecedented data theft.”
Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#28I still haven't gotten my head around the valorization of Bill Binney, who does not appear to have been an opponent of dragnet surveillance, as he's so often portrayed, but rather of inefficient and poorly managed dragnet surveillance. ThinThread, the system he designed and left NSA over when they didn't pursue it, still left it up to NSA to determine which data to make available, and still presumed NSA would collect…
Whatever system there is in place doesn't seem to do much to address: + lone wolfs such as Uvalde, Las Vegas, Nashville, Waukesha... + Cross border drug operations + Transnational incidents like Nord Stream, spy balloons, COVID. + Military operations in Ukraine, Russia, Afghanistan We are asked to relinquish so many freedoms and spend so much money on what, exactly? The 'we can't tell you because it'll jeopardize all…
I agree with your post, but can you elaborate on the observable outcomes you mention?
Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
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This is a rather strange take. In 2013, Hong Kong was a very different place than today, with none of the China stigma. Additionally, you neglect to mention that is was the US actions in cancelling his passport that stranded Snowden in the Moscow airport that he was transiting through on the way to Ecuador.
If you believe Russia cares about Snowden's travel documents, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Snowden should consider himself lucky that he got detained in Russia because Moreno would have given him up before Assange.
Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations
#3010 years on, Snowden remains arguably the most important whistleblower in the US after Daniel Ellsberg. The fact that the government pursued Snowden and effectively drove him into exile in an unfriendly country shows how serious the revelations were, and exposes the dangers of an unchecked government. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that Snowden single-handedly changed public perception against the NSA and the do…
> The fact that the government pursued Snowden
They had to. He broke the law. He would have had the chance to go to trial and defend himself and seek whistleblower protection status. Given the politically charged nature and public opinion at the time, he might have had a pretty fair shake and could have been living comfortably in the US working for the ACLU or something.
Instead he plotted an escape to an openly hostile country (not even a quasi-neutral country or a non-extradition country) and allowed all of his stolen material to fall into the hands of a foreign intelligence service.