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NSA WhistleBlower Outs Himself
An anonymous reader writes "The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. 'I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,' he said."
This man may well be our Jesus. The government is going to crucify him in their fury.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I guess this will put the whole "If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" thing to rest, if there's any sense in the world. Mr. Snowden, thank you.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Wrong? No.
Illegal, Yes.
Be careful, Mr. Snowden, they're going to be after you...
The black helicopters will be heading to Hong Kong...
get ready to go to a FPMIA prison
Probably a smart choice, Ed. It's a pretty safe bet the gov't is going to figure out who you are eventually, so you might as well take a stand on principle. But I hope you realize that while you may or may not have done nothing wrong, you *definitely* did something illegal. Both the best and worst-case scenario put you in jail for a good long time.
Sooner or later, the NSA would have found this guy. I wonder if outing himself first gives him "media immunity." It's harder to take someone out quietly, if they're in the limelight.
This dude has balls of steel and I think deserves our help. If a fund is established, I'll gladly chip in a few bucks.
Taking bets now on when he has an "accident" or gets to say hello to Bradley Manning.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I mean, the NSA is monitoring all communications, right? So it was only a matter of time before they found him out anyway. At least this way, there is some publicity, and people know "his side" of the story before he is disappeared to some mysterious American prison. It's a shame that we are so willing to admit that is his fate, but I really so no other outcome.
Mr. America walk on by your schools that do not teach Mr. America walk on by the minds that won't be reached
So what now? And please don't tell me to just vote for the "right" party. That doesn't work. Most people will have forgotten Mr. Snowden when it comes to the next votes. Or their priorities have changed by then (jobs, terrorism, whatever might give an appropriate fear factor). How can I make my government stop bringing 1984 to reality?
Dude thanks, what you've done requires real courage and people like you change the world for the better. You will probably be dragged through the mud. That inteligence aparatus which you helped build and outed is working right now very hard to get dirt on you, and will probably succeed. If there is no dirt to be gotten it will be manufactured.
I think coming out into the public was the smartest thing you could of done, i doubt you will be rendered because the damage is already done. Discrediting you is about the most they can do in damage control ATM.
They've learned (i hope) from the Manning case that locking you up into the loney bin and psychologically torturing you just make it worst. You've just surendered your remaining expectation of privacy to save ours, and for that i thank you sir.
I guess the NSA already knew his name, and he figured that he'd be safer if the public knows it, too. If a person with a name nobody has ever heard of disappears somewhere in Hong Kong, nobody will care too much. If the person who is known to have leaked the NSA documents disappears, it might make the media notice.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Prison rape is not funny.
This isn't about political correctness or about getting "offended", by the way. I don't care if you want to joke about racial or gender stereotypes, for example. Those kinds of jokes can often be quite funny, without a doubt.
But where is the humor in a man, potentially one who hasn't even done anything seriously wrong, repeatedly getting his rectum painfully torn apart by one or more thick, erect penises while in prison?
Where is the humor in that man possibly getting AIDS, herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, or any number of STIs?
Where is the humor in the mental anguish that such a man will very well endure, not only during the attacks, but for the rest of his life?
Where is the humor in all of this physical and psychological harm?
There is no humor in it at all. That is why prison rape is something that should not be joked about. It's just not funny.
I have a fantasy in which 1 million well-armed patriots surround this guy and tell the NSA / CIA / FBI / federal marshals that they're on the wrong side of the Constitution and can't have him.
He wanted to go on the record to verify the authenticity of the leaked documents, that they were not altered in any way, and to confirm that what the documents state is actually happening. It was just a matter of time before the gov't figured out his identity, so at least now he has a chance to tell his side of the story in face of all the denials coming out of Washington.
Why are you not out there protesting? Why are you waiting for others to do it? Right there in the article is your call to arms: " I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act."
Grab your supplies, head out, start protesting. Don't wait for others to do it first. If our forefather's had, we'd not be here now.
Wow, holy moly! He articulated in his video interview better than the newspaper articles why this NSA stasi 2.0 is such a bad idea, they might have good intentions (to catch bad guys) but what they're creating is a MONSTROSITY. They are recording everything for later analysis, from everyone US and non-US. And from what I could tell from reading the articles and EFF untangling obtuse NSA terminology they dont call it "collected" until they come to sift through it later. So that maybe part of the PR spin of how they claim to not collect data. There is a lot of lying and careful PR spun wording about which law, terminology, whether the access is "direct" vs via a relay server, or an API, or done by a defense contractor and not NSA direct etc. You cant trust a word the NSA Clapper guy is saying. Trust Binney, this new leaker and hopefully the google, facebook etc who claim ignorance are not spinning and lying also and if so that they clean house - find the trojan hardware, remove it and fire those who installed it, and have a proper legal review of future requests. I'm thinking the leaker Edward Snowden coming forward makes it a lot harder for NSA Clapper to lie his way out of. Binney also (another recent leaker) deciphered and laid out whats really happening. Terrorism is bad, however they have to note some of it is blowback for interventionist foreign policy by US, UK and others in the middle east. As in physics actions have opposing reactions. Not all actions were particularly just in the first place. And well the world is still pretty safe, despite all that, still more Americans apparently die annually from furniture falling on them. Actions of a government should be proportional to the risk, and balances based on informed consent of the population. What we have here is repeated entrenched lying to US congress, oversight committees, secret (and blatantly incorrect and stretching) interpretations of law. Very very bad. This guy Edward Snowden is a US patriot and an international hero and will go down in history as such.
Given that the NSA has a lot to hide, they must have done a lot wrong. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Hopefully we won't be asking ourselves "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" anytime soon. Good luck to him.
He says, "they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent." Maybe I'm just eating the bullshit media too much... but China doesn't seem like the best place for free speech and overall freedom really. He's only left his hotel room 3 times... well, good, because some "hotel worker" may try to read your harddrive or put a bug on it (source being /. articles). I hope he has that bad boy encrypted and is using the TOR network.
The G
Good luck indeed fella. You're gonna need it. And a shitton of lawyers too. Yes maybe more lawyers than luck. Can't have enough of them.
And if you need a roof to hide under you can count on me. You're a shining example of integrity.
Where can I contribute to his defense fund? (That is if the government doesn't block it.)
...it has to be stated:
This man is a hero.
holding your breath is not effective against waterboarding.
Come on, he is just gonna out himself and become target number 1 for the US government? I seriously doubt it...this is a plant.
I would assume that the real source has much more than just that one PPT deck...come on, if you have that you must have more...
look, the last thing we need is yet another whistleblower rotting in prison or blackballed from their profession.
People are all "oh, this is so noble". Uhm, yeah. Its noble, and thousands of other people have already done it, and they suffered immensly for it. Go read some books by actual whistleblowers. Imagine making $50,000 a year and then going down to minimum wage because its the only job you can get after you get blackballed. Imagine you lose your health insurance, your house, and you have to go into debt to pay lawyers to keep you out of prison.
Imagine your wife, family, friends, being raided by the FBI with guns. Imagine getting stopped at every airport checkpoint, train station, etc for the rest of your life.
Imagine never working in your field again.
Imagine a large number of your friends just drop you. No contact. No calls. No meetings. Nothing.
Thats what a lot of whistleblowers face.
Oh, how noble. But if this guy was makign your french fries or bagging your groceries, would you say "oh how noble" to him? or would you continue your day to day condescending attitude towards those who have to live outside the system for whatever reason?
This guy should have hid under a fucking rock and let the NSA and FBI go fuck itself for 10 years trying to track down the leak source. Just laugh at them from the shadows.
It reminds me of the story in Mandela's autobiography. There were a lot of anti-apartheid activitists who operated purely out of some messianic belief they were right. Well, the enemy used this, and decimated them. They went to prison. They disappeared. They got murdered. Most of all, they didnt contribute to the continuing battle. They are like Petya Rostov in War And Peace, all heart and no brains. They might have done something admirable, but they didnt actually help win the battle or the war because they were no longer around to fight anymore.
Now, the enemy, the NSA, or FBI, can just take this guy and swallow him into some prison.
Oh well.
Well, according to their own morality, yes I guess.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
surprise, there is no law making it illegal to give this type of information to a reporter.
why? this information has nothing whatsoever to do with "national defense information" which is the standard of the Espionage Act. not 'classified'. But National Defense Information. and its not illegal to leak classified information.
These programs have little to nothing to do with national defense. They are domestic spying which the NSA shouldnt be involved in at all.
Therefore they are not a violation of the espionage act.
What other law could we be dealing with? The CFAA? Hell, this guy may have had every right to access this information, therefore he didn't break the CFAA.
Not to mention that, the Whistleblower laws can in theory protect people when they are uncovering blatant illegal activity by government employees.
Fuck the government's lawyers, they have no case to stand on here.
Has it ever occurred to you that most people who are against this type of snooping do not doubt the program's effectiveness of stopping terrorists but are simply not willing to trade their liberty for safety? "Give me liberty or give me death" has turned into "Take my liberty for a little bit of safety".
thanks for convicting someone of breaking a law before having any trial or seeing the evidence.
Which law did he break, by the way?
Did you know its not actually illegal to leak classified information to a reporter?
That the Espionage Act doesnt even have the word 'classified' in it unless talking about specific stuff like encryption keys &c?
Have you even spent even a tiny amount of your day researching this on the internet?
Until you do, maybe you shouldnt be SLANDERING people with accusations. That, my friend, in an of itself is illegal. You could be liable for defaming his character by claiming he broke a law, when clearly you cant even name the law.
Not everything that is legal is right. Not everything that is illegal is wrong. The distinction will become apparant when you have matured some.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. This guy saw the direction that the NSA and other agencies are taking and, at considerable personal cost, took a stand. I applaud his actions and hope we can have a meaningful discussion about where we're heading as a species. Maybe you're comfortable with the government knowing so much about you, whom you talk to, what you do on the internet, where you spend money and so forth. I'm not. As for your "Islamist hordes" comment - you should probably lay off the colorful rhetoric for a while there. Makes you look both racist and stupid.
He's in the public eye now. If he suddenly disappears, it just makes his case that much more credible. He's just made himself martyr material. If he dies, it makes his cause that much more valid.
"The disclosure by a person, usually an employee in a government agency or private enterprise, to the public or to those in authority, of mismanagement, corruption, illegality, or some other wrongdoing.
Since the 1960s, the public value of whistle-blowing has been increasingly recognized. For example, federal and state statutes and regulations have been enacted to protect whistleblowers from various forms of retaliation. Even without a statute, numerous decisions encourage and protect whistleblowing on grounds of public policy. In addition, the federal False Claims Act (31 U.S.C.A. 3729) will reward a whistleblower who brings a lawsuit against a company that makes a false claim or commits Fraud against the government.
Persons who act as whistleblowers are often the subject of retaliation by their employers. Typically the employer will discharge the whistleblower, who is often an at-will employee. An at-will employee is a person without a specific term of employment. The employee may quit at any time and the employer has the right to fire the employee without having to cite a reason. However, courts and legislatures have created exceptions for whistleblowers who are at-will employees.
Whistleblowing statutes protect from discharge or discrimination an employee who has initiated an investigation of an employer's activities or who has otherwise cooperated with a regulatory agency in carrying out an inquiry or the enforcement of regulations. Federal whistle-blower legislation includes a statute protecting all government employees, 5 U.S.C.A. 2302(b)(8), 2302(b)(9). In the federal civil service, the government is prohibited from taking, or threatening to take, any personnel action against an employee because the employee disclosed information that he or she reasonably believed showed a violation of law, gross mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public safety or health. In order to prevail on a claim, a federal employee must show that a protected disclosure was made, that the accused official knew of the disclosure, that retaliation resulted, and that there was a genuine connection between the retaliation and the employee's action.
Many states have enacted whistleblower statutes, but these statutes vary widely in coverage. Some statutes apply only to public employees, some apply to both public and private employees, and others apply to public employees and employees of public contractors...."
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Whistleblowing
...with a big red bow on his head, for you see, China and the US need each other. And accepting defecting spies is a faux pas among world powers.
I didn't know the US legal system worked that way. Does that mean Bradley Manning could have avoided all that hassle by simply finding himself not guilty on all charges?
You can't even understand what he says. But you still post your 'thoughts'.
Amusing.
hint: he's not talking about laws and prosecution, there is something much more important than that
Has it ever occurred to any of the fourteen-year-olds who comment on this site, that this individual has committed treason, has limited our governments' ability to challenge people who wish us ill and fight our corner for us? What will happen when we're all measurably poorer when the Chinese make off with all our most valuable IP, or we are attacked and weakened from within from the Islamist hordes who threaten us?
Or will there just be 2000 paranoid and clueless comments about black helicopters and Bilderburgers as usual?
Serious question.
Are you out of your mind?
So, on the balance we have individual privacy (with huge implications) and FBI's investigating ability (let's face it – that's very important for our society too).
What about this scheme: NSA collects everything they can put their paws on, but people's records get encrypted right away (separate public key for each individual); keys for decryption go to escrow of some kind. So when FBI wants the data on a particular individual, they present the case to a judge who unseals the data if he sees it fit.
So, no fishing expeditions, no witch hunts (everything court related is on the record), and safe against leaks.
Enuf said.
He is a far better (and more effective) patriot than Bradley Manning; definitely more like Daniel Ellsberg.
Manning (and Wikileaks) dumped a huge pile of classified information on the internet with little regard to the consequences of their actions. Material that any thinking observer would regard as quite sensibly classified, and discussing no sort of malfeasance or wrongdoing, was revealed. This gave the government ample cover to prosecute Manning with little fear of popular outrage. Real (and innocent) people had their lives hurt (and probably ended) by Manning's leaks. He's essentially getting tried for treason, and the government has ample reason to do so. The fact that he was motivated by moral outrage isn't really relevant, as much of the information he revealed had nothing whatsoever to do with the things he was unhappy about. (And Assange going on an ego trip didn't help.)
This man, on the other hand, copied a very specific and small set of documents revealing something that every thinking citizen does indeed have a right to be angry about. He put nobody in danger (unless you subscribe to the "If the all-seeing-eye doesn't know everything, the terrorists win." school of thought.) The documents he revealed are all directly associated with what he's unhappy with. No actual investigation details (current or past) have been revealed, no names are mentioned, and he's neither hiding nor chasing the spotlight.
He appears to be a principled and thoughtful patriot, and I think despite their best efforts, they'll have a tough time demonizing him for the public, although it won't be for lack of trying. If they do capture him and put on trial, and he will almost certainly lose. Despite him doing the right thing for the right reasons, this is not a strange or ambiguous application of the Espionage Act. His only hope would be for a successful court challenge to the programs he has disclosed, but given the current proclivities of the Supreme Court, that is unlikely, to say the least.
While it will be little comfort, I believe history will vindicate him.
Yes, it has occurred to Slashdot that this "[limits] our government's ability to challenge people who wish us ill".
We've traded that ability in return for trying to limit the actions of a government that, in this case, wishes its citizens ill.
A government that thinks nothing of stripping liberties in the name of security is a far greater threat to our freedom than "Islamist hordes".
If the government wanted somebody to publicly demonize, don't you think they'd plant somebody who gave the appearance of being a mentally unstable loon? Or maybe somebody talking about what a noble cause Al-Qaeda is fighting for?
In any case, RTFA. As the original source, the Guardian interviewed him BEFORE the leaks were public, not after. They weren't just anonymously stuck under the Guardian's door, and now he's come out of the woodwork to confess.
blew himself. How very timely !
(gotta go finish season 4)
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I doubt the US government is going to be happy to let it slide.
Questions for you. What do you think those agencies are for? What do you think they've been doing since they were inaugurated?
Do you believe they should exist at all?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Read this, and ask yourselves what your country has become
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
You know who else committed treason? George Washington.
you don't fuck with the sysadmin.
The enemy of my enemy is quite possibly also my enemy. I've made a lot of enemies.
...well, not the money in this case.
Why did he do it? My guess is this: He's worked in the industry long enough to figure out that they would get him, sooner or later. And that they don't forget.
Going public might be his life insurance. At least it'll make it more difficult to make him vanish.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The Whistleblower Act will be no protection whatsoever. For that to work, the program he disclosed would have to be found illegal. Given that the Supreme Court won't even summon the balls to agree to hear a case about far-more-egregrious warrantless wiretapping, the likelihood of the program he disclosed being found unconstitutional is approx. zero.
Without a ruling that the program was illegal, he puts himself firmly under the jurisdiction of the Espionage Act, and his confession makes a chance of conviction approx. 100%.
Okay Einstein. Since I'm so stupid, explain to me how Islamic extremism is a race.
Why is it that *nobody* is outraged over the fact that the phone companies and ISPs already collect this information? The only scandal I see is that the gov't forced them to give it up for free, cuz the US is too broke to just buy it like everybody else.
I did wonder if you'd be dumb enough to fall for that one. See if you can figure it out for yourself. Here's a hint: "brown people"
1) The Inspector General would have done nothing. This was not a tiny program by some rogue field office. This was a widespread program that was approved by the (toothless) Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. It had the backing of pretty much the entire DoD, and I'm sure all the appropriate BS memos were on file at the DoJ.
2) Congress knew about it already, and did nothing.
3) Why does it matter which country the media organization was based in? Why was calling up the Guardian and having them publish it somehow different than the New York Times doing so?
4) If he's a spy, he's really shitty at it. He's a whistleblower in every sense of the word.
5) He didn't have a huge number of choices in places to flee to. Most of the countries that would ordinarily protect someone making such a disclosure are US allies with bigger diplomatic fish to fry than protecting him, making an asylum application problematic. (Of note is that the program he disclosed would not have been illegal in most "free" countries.) He could have fled to some 3rd-world $hithole, but in those countries it'd be easier to simply snatch him off the street. Hong Kong is not the worst choice out of a whole pile of bad options.
That said, if the PRC government gets a hold of him, they will indeed pump him for all he's worth and then publicly shame him as a defector. Here's to hoping going public before that happens insulates him somewhat from that.
First, the US govt. almost certainly knew it was him already. He's an employee with access to all those documents that suddenly abandoned his job. It would have taken a couple hours, tops, to call Homeland Security and ask for a quick search of airplane passenger manifests. Given that all citizens with security clearance are supposed to clear all international travel in advance, an unannounced trip to the PRC is going to be kind of a gigantic red flag. Even the most addle-brained FBI Counter-Intelligence agent could have figured out it was him.
In any case, please note that he's not making it about him at all. He's not just another citizen complaining. He's a whistleblower, and with the cat out of the bag, there's little point in making him simply disappear.
The thing that galls me the most isn't that they spend my tax dollars on listening to me, it's that they ignore what I say.
Gandhi.
As a side-note, here's the tactic I suspect they'll use to publicly disgrace him and distract the public from the documents: They'll argue that he was not, in fact, motivated out of a noble desire to advance our civil liberties, but rather tried, and failed, to sell secrets to the PRC. (No sense in claiming the PRC actually bought them... that'd pointlessly shame them for something they didn't actually do. (for once.)) They'll claim he has a lot more secrets in his possession than the ones he's revealed, and that those other secrets contained stuff that should have stayed secret. (Of course you can't know what those are, because it's too dangerous to tell you...)
This will be effective, because they don't actually have to reveal their evidence (or lack thereof) for such a tale during trial. His confession is already more than enough to convict him under the Espionage Act.
(All this said, the PRC was an odd choice... I'm not sure he had any good choices, as the program he revealed would have been legal in most of the countries he otherwise could have fled to, but he's going to be called on to elaborate a little further beyond waxing poetic about the peace-and-freedom loving people of Hong Kong. Personally, I would have picked Sweden or Finland; they're neither an enemies of the US nor members of NATO or reliant on the US for anything in particular. They are, however, harder to hide in.)
This man is a true American hero. He found an injustice, and he is taking a stand - even despite potentially horrible consequences to himself and his family. Regardless of how you view his actions, he is a shining example of the American spirit -- strong and deeply committed to democracy. We should all be proud to have men and women like this in our country. Home of the free. Land of the brave. Let no one forget how long and hard we have fought for these ideals.
It's pretty amazing, and here's hoping the sacrifice isn't completely wasted
When I read statement like the above, I cringe
I cringe because of that "I can't do nothing" feeling that is being felt by so many people today
So, we are just going around and sit in front of our compute screen (or look on our mobile devices) and let Mr. Snowden become the next sacrificial lamb ?
If the Arabs are so brave as to stand up against their tyrannical leaders, if the Turks are so brave to tell their "elected dictator" to fuck off, why can't we, the Americans, the supposed "Braves" who live in the "land of the Free" ?
Have we, the Americans, become pussies ?
As an American, I am damn proud of what Mr. Snowden has done
He has given back to me, the hope for my country
I left my country, America, a decade and a half ago, because I could see no hope no more, but now, Mr. Snowden has given me the hope, that my country is worth fighting for
No more shall I be scared by fuckers in Washington
No matter they are Democrats or Republicans, no matter if that guy in the White House is Obama or any other person, if they fuck my Constitution, I am going to fuck them back
And I have the duty to do so, yes, not only the right to do so, but the DUTY, as an American citizen, to take back my government from those motherfucking tyrants !!!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It's pretty simple. He will be found guilty of treason, and an international warrant issued...dead or alive. It's too bad that this matter will be forgotten in about 1 month. I wish him well, but being a martyr simply means that your concern for others simply outweighs your own personal well-being...that's not a bad thing. However, this story ends it will surely be dramatic.
You do realize that impeachment must occur as a result of a violation of a specific law on the books, not some general "he has over stepped his bounds". Not only hasn't he broken a law, he has the force of a current law behind him. Not that "he" has actually done anything personally. And conspiracy to over step some arbitrary trust line through a third party intermediary without direction is even less of a crime than actually overstepping it.
Clinton got impeached for perjury. Not for doing something actually wrong, but for his personal infidelity and his trying to cover up his mistress(es). Reagan wasn't impeached for anything related to Iran Contra. This president isn't going to be impeached because *somebody else* lied to congress to prevent the public dissemination of classified material.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
No one should miss the irony that this guy's got the same name as an important character in Catch 22. In the novel Snowden dies horribly from anti-aircraft fire in WW2. He also is responsible for the transformation of the main character (Yosarian) against the military.
So as you pretty much concede, if at least part of Congress knew about, and the NSA Inspector General, other major parts of the government, and apparently the FISA court, it was apparently both legal and constitutional as things stand. That would seem to imply that they were doing things in a responsible manner, wouldn't it?
Given how little regard the DoJ, Congress, the NSA, and the FISA court have shown for our civil liberties, I would say it implies no such thing. It only implies that if the program is ever ruled unconstitutional, which I doubt, nobody will go to prison (or even get fired) over it. Remember, this is the same government that decided torture was A-OK, and that the indefinite detention of people we don't like without charge or trial is a good idea, as long as we don't detain them here.
What difference does it make going to the Guardian? The Guardian is ideologically unfriendly to the United States. It can be expected to show little restraint in publishing material that is damaging but sheds little light. I think the more important question is, why didn't he do to one of the major American papers like the New York times? They have been part of other major leaks. It would seem his choice of publishers provides insight into his motives.
Again, what does it matter what country the paper was based in? (or it's ideological leanings?) If, as you say, the NYT would have published the material without hesitation, why does it make any difference who did the publishing? The end result is the documents are public, full-stop. Or, perhaps, he didn't have any confidence in the "the Iraq war is a good idea" NYT or "dependent on insiders for every story" WashPo to not crush the story. And the recent revelations on the record pulls from the AP make a foreign (but still respectable) newspaper a pretty decent choice.
You're joking, right? Shame him? They will praise him to the heavens. After all, they wouldn't want to discourage any similarly "civic minded" people from fleeing into the arms of Chinese intelligence while carrying laptops full of Top Secret data now, would they?
The PRC praising him to the heavens would shame him. The "average American", who is naturally suspicious of the Chinese are instantly going to doubt every word somebody the Chinese are promoting.
plottwist: the man secretly works for the NSA and this is all really part of the plan as per psychological and historical applications of strategies to further come close in achieving primary objectives.
Duverger's law: It's not so much a fallacy as it is a close cousin to the prisoner's dilemma. With enough prisoners--...ahem, voters, it becomes a near mathematical certainty.
Yes, vote for third party candidates when the Rs and Ds aren't very good. This doesn't solve much, because good third party candidates frequently don't run at all, knowing they can't win. What we really need is a different voting system that doesn't have as many problems. While I like Condorcet systems, Approval voting is a much easier sell.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I guess the NSA already knew his name, and he figured that he'd be safer if the public knows it, too. If a person with a name nobody has ever heard of disappears somewhere in Hong Kong, nobody will care too much. If the person who is known to have leaked the NSA documents disappears, it might make the media notice.
I don't see why he'd get disappeared, it doesn't matter how ruthless the NSA is killing him has no upside. If anyone ever found out it would be a major black eye for the NSA, and it can't be a deterrent since nobody knows they got him! It would be brutal optics since all the outside world would see is that the leaker got away!
Best case for them is to catch him, discredit him, and put him in jail for a long time as a warning to anyone else.
If they got close Edward Snowden outting himself is a brilliant more, he has the first chance to write the narrative and take the moral highground.
He's just gone from a hidden figure being hunted by law enforcement to a concerned citizen giving public interviews and ready to face the music, he's framing the discussion as a political one instead of a criminal one. He's made it a lot harder politically for the Feds to throw the book at him.
I stole this Sig
..."He broke the law"...
Society use your Sciences
Because (1) they have to collect it as part of their normal operations, and (2) whether a bunch of phone companies know that Ahmad-the-terrorist accidentally misdialed your number doesn't matter, but it matters a great deal whether you become tagged as a potential terrorist by the government.
Hong Kong, being a Special Administrative Region of China, has its own government and political system, except defense, which is handled by the China's People Liberation Army. With the leftover stuff from the colony days, the extradition agreement between U.S. and Hong Kong still stands today.
He needs to head north to the mainland NOW!!!
New Economic Perspectives
I call upon the governments of China and Russia to preemptively launch thermo nuclear strikes on the Political, Military and Information Technology Centers in the U.S.A.
The Government of the U.S.A. is the greatest threat to the Earth and must be removed.
Has it ever occurred to you that most people who are against this type of snooping do not doubt the program's effectiveness of stopping terrorists ...
Speak for yourself. I agree that even if it was effective, trashing the Bill of Rights is not a good tradeoff. However, I question whether the data overload you get from a program like this is even helpful, and may even be harmful. 9/11 could have been prevented by FBI headquarters just reading the emails from their field offices.
Impeachment isn't just for criminal acts, it also includes other broader categories, including violating his oath of office, betraying the public trust, and failure to supervise the executive branch properly.
A lot of tough talk, but what can everyday Americans do to change their government?
Join a militia to do some group violence? Hear that--that's a drone coming, you've got about 10 seconds...
Go solo against the government? Enjoy your one-way ticket to a secret prison somewhere.
Civil disobedience? How does spending the rest of your life in prison sound?
March in protest? Worked in the 60s, not anymore, unless you like a mouthful of pepper spray and a tear gas canister shot into your skull.
Vote? LOL
For staying true to the founding principles of this country, despite the corruption around him.
Those who would demonize him and prosecute him, have lost their way, and are the epitome of anti-Americanism, regardless of how that term is abused in the political arena.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
5th amendment. With PRISM, the 5th amendment becomes obsolete.
it has to feed off it's target at certain access points. these can be located and identified. they will also be protected. but each will have a weakness, no matter how many such access points, they can be hurt
let's kill it
it will be a box in a server room, a conduit under street, a transmitter on a roof
let's sabotage these fucking assholes
in the name of the founding principles of this country, fuck these goons
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and your clients fire you and suddenly theres child porn on your machine.
nice job.
going to the IG is the worst mistake a whistleblower can make. the people who submitted the IG complaint for trailblazer got raided by the FBI
Revolt against the government is an act of desperation. The people of the USA are not desperate, they still have too much to lose by fighting. So long as the US government ensures most of the people have something to lose they won't revolt, regardless of what happens.
his friends and family are probably being raided while i write this.
this is not 'national defense information', this is power point slides about domestic spying. that has little or nothing to do with national defense.
the word 'classified' doesnt make something automatically count under the Espionage Act.
it says 'national defense information', and the stuff he leaked is not IMHO national defense information, its crap about domestic spying which is illegal.
the jury can agree.
until those tapes were found, it was all just speculation.
im guessing obama has some tape-like-entities somewhere.
Same here, man. I'm going to give our government such a stern posting on the Internet the likes of which they've never experienced before!
In this case, legality of the program (for now) is whatever the DoJ/DoD say it is. The FISA court, and the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees, which ostensibly exist to provide checks on this kind of behavior, have all signed off on this program.
That doesn't mean it's right, or is, in fact, constitutional, just that at the current time, it's certainly going to be treated as if it is legal.
The NSA is a DoD agency; ergo any programs it undertakes are "defense" programs, and any classified information it produces is "national defense information".
This is so meta.
~theCzar
I understand the danger of Islamic terrorism, first hand
I can't tell you where I am, suffice to say that I am posting this comment from outside of the United States of America, and my primary task is to penetrate some of the more virulent Islamic circles to obtain info on the global jihadist movement
However, the danger of the Islamic terrorism can not, and should never, be used to justify the destruction of the Constitution of the United States of America
Two wrongs can never make a right, sir !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
You do realize that impeachment must occur as a result of a violation of a specific law on the books, not some general "he has over stepped his bounds".
How about falsely swearing to an Oath?
Swearing to protect the constitution, and then intentionally taking actions which can be seen to be violations or infringements of it clear as day.
Such as infringements on the prohibition against restricting free speech, and infringements on the 4th amendment.
Our support of Israel is irrelevant. Few of the attacks are actually about Israel. The only people who care about that are the Jew-hating Americans. The rest mainly want our military out of their country.
Learn to love Alaska
If he's brave or brave and stupid.
I hope he survives this... but there are a lot of knives being sharpened.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Do you think it is because they talked to the IG, or because there were talking to the media?
As the IRS case has shown, the IG office can be an imperfect institution, but If it is always a mistake to talk to the IG, why have them?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I'm afraid that without the unpleasant consequences of martyrdom the standard social inertia cannot be overcome. It is the brutality of the oppression of the martyr that incites the rebellion, not his call for social change. The martyr accepts that he's going to be oppressed and acts for change anyway. That is what makes martyrs special. We had this need long before the time of Jesus and I don't expect an end to it in my lifetime.
The law is wrong and needs to be changed. He did, in fact, break the law: he divulged state secrets entrusted to him under threat of severe penalty for disclosure. I believe he did the right thing, but it was still illegal. If you have strong moral convictions but not the will to expose yourself to punishment you should avoid this situation because the internal conflict between your will to do the right thing and your fear of punishment can drive you insane. In that case you are not martyr material.
Since this is the NSA he had to know they would find him - that's what they do. By outing himself he probably avoids some extrajudicial retirement. Nobody from here out is going to believe he locked himself in a duffel bag, or died of autoerotic asphyxiation, or overdosed on bath salts.
I'm not saying that he should be punished - only that he will. They'll get Julian Assange one day too, even if his punishment is to be hunted to the end of his days. By dragging it out so long that the defiant act becomes disassociated in the public mind with the tyrannical punishment the authorities may be doing themselves a favor and blunting the rebellion. But eventually Caesar gets what is Caesars until Caesar is no more.
Anyway, what do you care? By your own account you fled. You should probably fix or prevent the problems in your new home wherever it is. All politics are local. If things get too tough in your new home you can always find another one more to your liking. People who flee tyranny also do not martyrs make. Fleeing tyranny is for most the wisest course until there is no place to turn. If you've go the wit and will to make it anywhere and lack anchors like family and tradition, going to where the field is ripe with berries and the wolves are more like dachsunds is just smart. Win wherever you are! If things are going like you think our generation's version of the underground railroad is going to need another end. By building up resources to shelter refugees you can be that end. That seems to be a role you're more suited to than taking up arms against the tyrant.
Certainly if you intend to act, this is not the place to say so.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
And his former employer will be MORE than happy to help hang the guy. From the Booz website statement: "News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter."
as well the Bill of Rights. Turns out this guy is a Ron Paul supporter. If you are too, don't bother sending in that resume to the NSA.
As I said, promote him for the Nobel Peace prize.
Bikers.....The only people that understand why a dog hangs his head out a car window.
Americans don't care. Democracy requires intelligence. The increased breeding among fat, smug, anti-intellectual, racist, TV-junk-food-and-monster-truck-engorged white trash is lowering the intelligence of our country.
TFTFY.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
before accosting me with your ignorance?
not only were these people reprimanded before the media stories,
only one of them, Drake, ever contacted the media.
please take some time to read about the case. you are just wrong.
if they hadnt complained to the IG, none of them would have been raided.
You're proud because someone else did something? Eh?
"Most significant leaks?" For NSA asking Verizon to provide call logs to which SCOTUS have said Fourth doesn't apply? Almost everyone agrees there's nothing criminal!
So while this could cause interesting discussion how to handle national security, I really don't see how this changes anything.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
RTMFA And I am perplexed as to why he chose not to go to Iceland and claim asylum straight away as opposed to going to HK first?
Agreed.
And it is not just failure to vote for third parties.
Voting for third parties is actively discouraged. Their positions are ridiculed, they are not invited to debates, and if the media let a supporter talk, they either cut it to the point where it doesn't make sense anymore or they pick a very colorful loony to begin with. If all of that doesn't help, there's always the voting system. One could have 30% nation wide and not get a single seat. The districts are drawn by the ruling party, and who wins that district is basically decided in the primaries.
But voting is not so you can get your candidate in, voting is so people can make a decision and feel like they participated.
If you want to go somewhere with a little child, you don't say "Let's get your shoes on so we can go." You say: "We are going now. Do you want to wear the pink shoes or the black shoes?" And instead of protesting, the kid is busy thinking about this decision.
Last time people voted for the black guy, because the alternative they got presented with was that pink guy.
The problem is that the media has managed to alter the perception of formal democratic protest to be little more than a hobby for jobless extreme left liberals, making it something to be ashamed of and even arrested for.
And you're just a retarded leftist.
Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Wonder how many federal government trolls get paid to spew BS on internet forums?
Several years ago, Obama cohort Cass Sunstein wrote a paper suggesting that government employees should do this in order to counter so-called "conspiracy theories".
"The United States of America" is NOT the federal government, it's We, The People. We empowered the federal government to do a job and put rules in place for them to follow. When they violate those rules, THEY are the ones guilty of treason. They betrayed their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
This guy is a hero for bringing this criminal behavior to the attention of The People.
The President, all members of the FISA court who approved of this, all members of Congress and the Senate who were briefed on it, and all government employees who knew about it and/or participated should face penalties.
Edward Snowdon is a hero. I live in Bangkok. He can sleep on my floor any time.
It is debatable whether the PRISM program is good or bad. What is intolerable is that it is secret. The argument that is going on this week should have happened ten years ago. Democracy is not about elected dictators. Democracy is about public debate.
If it would be legal to send a guy in a plane or helicopter after someone why wouldnt it be legal to send a drone???
Likewise if it would be illegal to send a guy in a helicopter to fly over my house , it should be illegal to send a drone.
Wow. A high school drop out who can make $200k and live in Hawaii!? What a sweet, sweet gig!! Snowden really has screwed himself. Nothing with privacy on this level is going to change since most people don't mind a little snooping if it's going to catch terrorists or fight violent drug cartels. So all he'll get is a bit of Julian Assange style attention amongst nerds for the moment. Besides, the USA has never been good keeping secrets anyways, dating back to leaks from the Manhattan project. The only pleasure coming out of this will be watching Booz Allen squirm over how they're overpriced services are completely ineffective.
I totally disagree.
Are you trying to argue that this information does not count as your personal information? How is it different from them searching through the phone bills in your desk?
If they have seized the data about every call to and from everyone's cell phones, the duration of the calls and location of the phones at the time of the call, they have done so without probable cause and without a warrant "particularly describing ... the things to be seized"
I would contend that my call records are my personal information and clearly subject to Fourth Amendment protections.
"Treason" is betraying The People and The Constitution. That's what the government is doing. This individual is just making us aware of the treason. He may be in breach of contract with his employer, but there is no "treason" here.
If this is just black helicopter paranoia, then this is a non-story. You admit the element of truth by claiming that harm has been done.
The people that really wish us ill, and do the most to inflict ill upon us, are the scumbags in the federal government.
An unintentional pleasure coming out of this will be watching Booz Allen squirm over how they're overpriced services are completely ineffective and worthless. Any one who's ever been force to work with management consultancy or swallow their gruesome hogwash about "core values" and "best practices" will experience heartfelt bliss in watching Booz Allen suffer.
Into a profession,so every stupid thing gets protested making protests less useful and attractive and less compelling stories to the media.
If you really want to make a difference write a letter...not an email or phone to your congressman or senator and identify yourself as a constituent.
Make your protests local , 500 people protesting at a congressmans office is way more effective than 50,000 in DC.
Schadenfreude!!!
He is a brave man and a true hero, just like Manning.
Signature intentionally left blank.
I thought the phone companies were collecting it for billing purposes.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
The Equadorian embasy over there is nicer than the one in the UK....
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
'I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,' he said
Because *clearly* the only people who ever get "disappeared" are people who have done something wrong? What kind of bizarro world is he living in? You'd think a professional whistle-blower would be exactly the sort of person who *would* know how the world actually works, wouldn't you?
I'm going to need to more closely research the LiquidFeedback system. Their page isn't very clear, but they seem to be claiming to do something novel.
My current preference is a system I'm calling Smith-Approval. As with the Liquid system above, you don't just place candidates in order, but also separate them into approved and disproved groups. The approval ratings are then stored on the Condorcet matrix diagonal, and are used for breaking cycles within Smith groups. It's about as simple as a Condorcet system can get while still having a sane way to break cycles. (This was written for terseness. It really is an easy concept if spelled out.)
But in our age today, I don't think we'll be able to get any Condorcet method in place. It's just "to complicated for people to understand".
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I hate to say that. Ed Snowden just threw his life for nothing becauze most Americans don't mind being spied by their government. In this circumstances your fucked up, murderous government is just what you deserve. It makes me so sad ... and I wonder what would it take american people to stop being sheeple let alone become vigilant in defending their constitutional rights. You need thousands of Ed Snowdens ! You need people being more persistent than (most of) folks from Occupy Movement. You see, it took decades for Poles to fight off communism. And it happened almost a decade after anti-communist opposition took the biggest blow. Be prepared for MUCH harder fight because your corporate and bankster overlords have so much more to lose than those pesky polish communists (they've just stopped accepting orders from Moscow and started accepting orders from Washington and actually improved their standards of life). You HAVE to become active and you have to fight off this disease! If you don't do that, your fucked up government and your fucked up corporate mafia will lead you (and the rest of the world) the way Hitler led his III Reich - way of deception, violence and death.
Regards from Poland,
boorack
I'm an old Marine. I don't do anything on the internet that is illegal or even worth a second look. So, I've got nothing to hide. Everyday, people put their lives up for inspection on the internet. Corporations are monitoring all your data as you live and breathe. But, when the government goes fishing for traffic that may be linked to terrorist activity, everyone goes berserk! Get a life people! Everything you say and do in the internet is subject to interception. Be it corporations, the government, or criminals looking for your critical assets. The sooner you realize that anything you say or do on the internet is, basically, public knowledge, the better off you will be. I know a lot of you are totally pizzed off about this. Because that's what Fux News told you to be, even though, it was Bushies who started this program. I've seen recent news broadcasts showing that this program has stopped some terrorist plots and even led to the capture of one of the ragheads who was out to "wipe out America". So, the next beautiful morning that you leave the house to go to work, the park, or any other activity in safety, ask yourself; "is it PRISIM that has allowed me to move about freely in a free nation"? Finally, to Mr. Snowden, He had privileged knowledge to a very secret government program. He, I'm sure, signed the various non-disclosure papers to ensure that the program remained a secret. However, he decided for some reason that America was doing BAD! Instead of stopping what he was doing, he continued until his job was done. Then, he squealed. By doing so he; 1 violated the non-disclosure agreements he had signed, 2 committed treason, and 3 became the a-hole who could lead to the deaths of many innocent Americans. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I'm an old Marine. If it were up to me, I would just stand him up against a wall and put 20 or 30 rounds through his treasonous brain pan!!!!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
Yes, this is plausible now that you raise it. Now that this social network surveillance is acknowledged, and the public is not protesting much, it become acceptable and part of US society. This prepares the ground to move to the next level of surveillance which probably may be already happening. This could be the automated analysis of all phone calls using speech recognition, when calls are then only listened to by a human analyst after being flagged by a machine due to using some key word or phrase. A system could be put in place to rubber stamp warrants for these flagged calls. Thus, the government can plausibly say it does not listen in on hone calls without valid suspicion. Then in five years, this can be leaked. Then the public begins prepared for the next phase, etc.. Recall that immediately after 9/11/01 it was discussed that all cell phone calls were recorded and the recordings kept for some length of time. Haven't heard much about that lately.
However, it is also possible this leak was the plan and Snowden is not aware of it, but just he was the first systems admin to take the bait (probably expected based on his psych profile and internal monitoring). We will probably never know, because it is hard to see what is real and what is illusion when living in a maze of mirrors.
But, if we are living in a computer simulation, the last laugh is that everything the NSA or any other government agency anywhere does is recorded down to the level of thoughts and farts. :-)
http://www.simulation-argument.com/
See also my: ...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing.
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."
Another Mirror Maze, btw:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/book.php?titleID=18
"When a new political party espousing traditional, constitutional values sweeps into power, institutions of the current Establishment close ranks in an attempt to destroy it."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Said something....
While I don't disagree, the law does. The congress makes laws, the president signs then and (through the executive branch) implements them, and the courts decide if they are constitutional. Until you get to step three AND the courts rule it unconstitutional AND the president directly authorizes the circumvention of the court's ruling without new congressional action, it's neither an illegal act nor falsely swearing an oath to uphold the constitution. That's the thing about our government - you can't just decide what is and isn't against the constitution and prosecute someone - it has to go through the Supreme Court.
I am actually not sure if falsely swearing an oath is a criminal offense. It may be perjury, but I doubt it. And "clear as day" depends on your point of view. They all lie at some point. Reagan and Iran/Contra (right...he was asleep), Clinton shredding documents at Rose and (flip a coin) ignoring calls for security in Benghazi, Powell claiming that chemical weapons were found in Iraq.They all swore an oath of office. None are in prison.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?