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Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

guardian.co.uk

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Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#171

Post by reeses »

msvan wrote: post #139
[deleted] wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I guess, about the salary, that there's a multiplying factor when your job involves high-clearance national secrets. If the threat of persecution is not enough to dissuade you from leaking, then maybe a sweet $200k job on Hawaii is.

It's pretty easy to figure the salary:

1) He's not on the GS schedule because he's a contractor 2) His clearance level 3) He works for one of the big 5 consulting firms that is considerably higher on the list if you rank by government/CIA/NSA engagements.

As a federal employee, you don't get a multiplying factor for having higher clearance. You merely get to have the job. You actually get a higher boost from living in an area with a locality adjustment due to cost of living adjustments.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#172

Post by 1morepassword »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #90
spodek wrote: post #9

" Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said. " Thoughtful people brave enough to blow whistles seem to be the greatest check on what looks like a secret, unaccountable, illegal centralization of power based on lies from the top of the gov…

>I'm seriously concerned about the consequences... Well, at the very least, don't bother sending your CV to Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir, etc. Also, fuck these assholes. Seriously, is there anything worse than this?

Yes. Violating peoples privacy for greed and profit alone.

But that would exclude a lot more companies, many of which employ a lot of regular HN-users. Anything can be rationalized for a paycheck.

And although I've managed to steer clear so far, I'm not claiming to be any better.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#173

Post by tome »

krisroadruck wrote: post #169
tome wrote: post #45

"I sitting at my desk certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email" "I had access to the full rosters of everyone working in the NSA, the entire intelligence community and undercover assets all around the world, the locations of every station, we have what their missions are" Wow, is this guy for real? It sounds crazy.

erm he pointed out his level of access to illustrate that what he did wasn't to harm the US but to inform the people. He is saying look I could have done anything with the access I had, literally anything, but what I choose to do was take some specific info I felt would be relevant to the public and disclose it in a way that didnt put operatives at risk or put people in harms way. Its the whistle blower equivelant of…

But how could a 29-year-old sysadmin have access to all this. Isn't it crazy? It sounds crazy to me.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#174

Post by mindcrime »

youngerdryas wrote: post #144
mindcrime wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, I don't know about anybody else, but for the first time I can think of, I'm seriously concerned about the consequences of posting support for somebody like this online. I don't know how things will play out years down the road and who will do what with this information. I don't know about you, but that's a chance I'm willing to take. As far as I'm concerned, Edward Snowden is an American hero and deserves…

This is how we achieve real change, by real heroes like mindcrime standing up and saying blow me. They are sure to fall.

We all do what we can.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#175

Post by mortehu »

jdp23 wrote: post #119
mortehu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When will we finally get to the bottom of what PRISM actually is? Is there any particular reason why you don't believe the fact sheet from the Director of National Intelligence[1] or Marc Ambinder[2]? According to these sources (selected excerpts): > PRISM is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program. > PRISM is a kick-ass GUI that allows an analyst to look at, collate, monitor, and cross-check different…

I don't believe the DNI because of his testimony to Congress in February claiming that the National Security Agency does not “wittingly” collect data on millions of Americans. We now know they've been collecting data for tens of millions of Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint/Nextel customers since 2006. More recently he also claimed that PRISM wasn't a previous-disclosed data collection program. It hadn't been previously disc…

> More recently he also claimed that PRISM wasn't a previous-disclosed data collection program. It hadn't been previously disclosed before; and it is collecting data.

The grammar here is slightly confusing. Do you believe PRISM is collecting data in a previously undisclosed way? If so, why?

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#176

Post by jlgreco »

[deleted] wrote: post #166
jlgreco wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gandhi's tactics, while plainly effective in his time and place, against his aggressors, should not be accepted as universalizable. It is not the only way to realize change, nor it is necessarily the most effective way to realize change in any particular situation, nor is it even necessarily a way that works in the slightest in any situation. Noncompliance and noncooperation have a time and a place. We must avoid the…

[deleted]

Whether or not we can effectively realize change while restricting ourselves as Gandhi advocated remains to be seen. I think it is premature to assume that it is sufficient (and certainly premature to chastise those who feel strongly about this recent news).

Just one example of something that goes beyond Gandhi's approval (which may or may not be necessary in this particular case) is targeted industrial sabotage. Carefully calculated and restrained violence against property and information systems, not against people. Gandhi thought that sabotage put his effort back; perhaps he is correct. However it is hard to deny the valuable role sabotage has played in other conflicts.

This recent comment resonated with me:

"I'm French. France was occupied by Nazi Germany (as every American I ever speak to likes to remind me). Resistants were ordinary French people who blew up trains in order to make the life of Germans in France as difficult as possible -- and of course German propaganda called them terrorists. I'm not putting this word in quotes, because of course that's what they were. They were trying to terrify the occupiers. It was a good thing." -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846266

Now plainly I am not advocating that we should start blowing up bridges, or that blowing up bridges might become necessary in some foreseeable immediate future. We are not occupied by a foreign force that is sending our neighbors to death camps. I reference this merely to make the point that the reach of Gandhi's tactics do have a limit.

Edit: Not sure why you deleted your comment. It was a very fair question.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#177

Post by legutierr »

sdoowpilihp wrote: post #143
grey-area wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the present will certainly condamn you I think that's really down to us, don't you? The US Government will certainly condemn his actions, but I doubt many of the public will.

I would be shocked if information didn't come out about him that will "discredit" him. More over, I am sure there are laws that if don't flat out make leaks like this a crime, there are laws that can be interpreted in a way as to make a credible enough case against him. That would tie him up in court for years.

What would they discover that wouldn't have disqualified him from holding the security clearance he did? They would have to assert that their screening procedures are deeply flawed.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#178

Post by wildmXranat »

I'll be honest, I got a little teary-eyed while watching the video and feel sense of immediate call-to-action driven by responsibility to not let his actions go to waste. I'm thinking about what can be done by a Canadian like myself. Other than support for the EFF and such, there must be a more local way for us, the citizens of our respective countries to not let his actions to have been done in vain.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#179

Post by adventured »

Spearchucker wrote: post #79
mindcrime wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, I don't know about anybody else, but for the first time I can think of, I'm seriously concerned about the consequences of posting support for somebody like this online. I don't know how things will play out years down the road and who will do what with this information. I don't know about you, but that's a chance I'm willing to take. As far as I'm concerned, Edward Snowden is an American hero and deserves…

As far as I'm concerned, Edward Snowden is an American hero... He's a hero. Putting the word American in there is very, well, American. The NSA has done a lot worse by foreigners than Americans.

I think it's clear he meant that he is a hero to/for Americans, without anything further being implied in the positive or negative.

There's absolutely nothing unique about inserting the nationality of a hero that relates to Americans. I see it done regularly by citizens of other countries. In my observation, national pride is nearly universal.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#180

Post by 6d0debc071 »

It's very brave of him to give up anonymity, but I think he's effectively committed suicide. I will not be surprised if someone comes forward to accuse him of rape, or he's bundled into the back of a plane and taken somewhere unpleasant, or gets killed in a convenient accident.

I don't get why he did it either. Gave it up that is. Depending on how many people had access to that cross section of docs - and considering how ineffective companies and govs usually are at segmenting info I imagine that's quite broad - he could reasonably have hoped to avoid retaliation.

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