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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

#201

Post by zipfle »

I'm really interested in how this plays out. I notice a couple of things:

1) From my vantage point as Not A Lawyer, it doesn't look to me like this guy is subject to military law like Manning is. That should be interesting.

2) Manning was a private in the army. It seems to me that the purpose of what they are doing to him is intended as a deterrent to his peers. I suspect there is a difference between the way Army privates might react to one of theirs being made an example and how Snowden's peers might react to whatever comes of this.

3) I have no idea if the NSA is a fun place to work, but I bet it's about to get a lot less fun, especially for anyone who's voiced support of the EFF.

4) Remember when Bruce Schneier said you should come forward if you know something? That.

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

#202

Post by voidlogic »

LoganCale wrote: post #197
voidlogic wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to see this get lots of votes, just so the White House has to write a response. Even though I know what they will say...

They never responded to the Aaron Swartz petition and it reached twice the required signatures to "guarantee" a response.

I looked up a few and it looks like they have no problem ignoring petitions that pass the response threshold :(

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

#203

Post by cromwellian »

varjag wrote: post #168
dude3 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll come get him in Hong Kong. I meant the Chinese.

His public disclosure makes that exceedingly unlikely. At this point, China would rather let Obama reap the shitstorm alone.

What China could hope to get in intelligence far outweighs PR. They laugh through PR controversies.

China has been engaged in massive cyber espionage themselves. Everyone knows it, but no one can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, so they keep denying it, and nothing of consequence happens.

They could whisk Snowden off to a secret interrogation site, and then blame the CIA and say the US government snatched him. Who is the media going to believe and who can prove otherwise?

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

#204

Post by khuey »

tome wrote: post #173
krisroadruck wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who's going to have root access to the machines but the sysadmins?

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

#205

Post by sigzero »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #163
Perceval wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly better than Bradley Manning's approach of indiscriminate mass disclosure.

Indeed. I was amazed that The Guardian would characterize Manning as a "whistleblower". Manning broke OPSEC and fed a lot of good people into the meat grinder, rather than show why the policies might be a bad idea.

I agree. Manning's case is totally different.

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

#206

Post by mpyne »

tome wrote: post #26

"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is." This seems commendable.

Indeed, this was exactly why I tipped my hat to him when the leak was first made public here, as it was almost the polar opposite of what Manning did. Perhaps Snowden's "careful evaluation" will finally drive the point home here on HN (one can hope) that such leaks should themselves be carefully evaluated.

But I'm even more impressed he's unveiled himself, which takes incredible bravery even if you assume every protection of due process is available to you.

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

#207

Post by themgt »

quackerhacker wrote: post #200
themgt wrote: post #126

White House Petition to Pardon Edward Snowden: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...

Just as I was about to sign the petition (I've only signed 1 other one before to revoke the Westboro Baptist Church, lol)....I plan to run a "successful," startup someday soon, do you think it's safe to sign a petition (esp when I don't believe Aaron Swartz's demise was self-inflicted).

I plan to run a startup too, and frankly having to wonder whether some types of pro-civil-liberties speech are "safe" is a good indicator of how far off the track the USA has gone.

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

#208

Post by jlgreco »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #193
jlgreco wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Car…

Gandhi's approach is guaranteed to work for those who turn to it because the core values are, "I don't want to live in a violent world nor inflict violence on others." If it turns out the world is immutably violent, you will probably die at the hands of somebody else, but at least you were consistent with your values - you no longer live in a violent world, and you didn't hurt anyone to get there. Of course it is all…

Right... Gandhi's approach is 'guaranteed' to work in limited circumstances. It does not work if your numbers are too few, if the opposition has a greater capacity for violence than you anticipate (this isn't about the world being violent, only the subset that oppose you need to be sufficiently violent. Relying on somebody else using violence against your murderers in the outraged aftermath of your slaughter is just shifting the responsibility to those other people.)

Gandhi's methods have been tested outside of India, perhaps most famously during the civil rights era in the US (if we write off the influence of those who were not wed to nonviolence and noncompliance). In that case they had the benefit of an interested party that consisted of a double-digit percentage of the population (and a far greater percentage in areas with particularly egregious issues.)

The problem with advocating noncompliance and nonviolence is that if you miscalculate the breadth of your support or your oppositions capacity for violence, then not only will you have accomplished nothing but you will have actually damaged your cause by removing yourself from it.

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

#209

Post by laumars »

acqq wrote: post #181
laumars wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. He went out of his way to obtain that information because there's no point being a whistle blower without having some evidence to back up your claims. 2. He's a college drop out, not a high school drop out (or at least that how it reads to me - a non-US citizen. I may have misunderstood how your education system works). Also, his family also works for government agencies, so that probably added weight to his appli…

Re 2 read again: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-n... "His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma. " High school.

Indeed, but he later gained that diploma via extra credits from community college - which he latter dropped out of. Which is why I stated him being a college drop out rather than a high school drop out.

Or does your education system not work this way? ie once you've dropped out of high school, you're permanently branded a "drop out" even if you later complete your high school diploma?

My country's high schools operate very differently, so the confusion here might be cultural. But in higher education you can leave college / university and later return to complete the course and not be considered a "drop out"

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

#210

Post by shmerl »

Very brave and honest act. What's sad about is that he's probably right in his concerns. Most will just ignore this issue and move along as if nothing wrong is going on. After all if people got so insensitive with giving up their privacy on Facebook and etc., why would they worry about global surveillance?

Anyway, let's hope what Edward Snowden did can still shake some people up and make them realize the extent of this problem.

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