Snowden Says His Mission Is Accomplished

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Edward Snowden met with reporters from the Washington Post for fourteen hours and in his first interview since June reflected at length about surveillance, democracy and the meaning of the documents he exposed. 'For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished. I already won,' says Snowden. 'All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed. That is a milestone we left a long time ago. Right now, all we are looking at are stretch goals.' Snowden says that the NSA's business is 'information dominance,' the use of other people's secrets to shape events. But Snowden upended the agency on its own turf. 'You recognize that you're going in blind, that there's no model,' says Snowden, acknowledging that he had no way to know whether the public would share his views. 'But when you weigh that against the alternative, which is not to act, you realize that some analysis is better than no analysis. Because even if your analysis proves to be wrong, the marketplace of ideas will bear that out.' Snowden succeeded because the NSA, accustomed to watching without being watched, faces scrutiny it has not endured since the 1970s, or perhaps ever, and says people who accuse him of disloyalty mistake his purpose. 'I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to improve the NSA. I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don't realize it.'"

Comments

Re:What he said in the interview

[anagama]

Actually, there aren't any ways to address government abuse of power, except whistleblowing.

Kiriakou: torture whistleblower, only person person to go to prison over torture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kiriakou

Binney: Going to the DOJ about waste in the NSA will fuck up your life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intelligence_official)

Drake: Going through the legal processes within the NSA got him prosecuted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake

Re:Right On

[anagama]

This drove me so crazy. The most perfect example of how rotten Democrats are, is Marty Lederman, who excoriated the Bush administration for using secret legal memos to authorize due process free detention, but who upon admittance to the Obama team, began writing the secret legal memos to justify due process free execution.

This is why I'm not a Democrat anymore --- evil is evil no matter who does it. The Democratic party's silence on the fact that Obama has embraced and extended every GWB policy they once complained about, has made me understand that GOP and DNC are purely tribal organizations with absolutely no basis in rationality, morality, or even a consistent kind of crazy. They're just teams working toward the same neo-con goals. I will never vote for anyone who is a member of either party.

Re:What he said in the interview

[anagama]

You are correct -- in Snowden's case, it is actually impossible for him to mount a defense at trial:

https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/12/if-snowden-returned-us-trial-all-whistleblower-evidence-would-likely-be-inadmissible

If Edward Snowden comes back to the US to face trial, he likely will not be able to tell a jury why he did what he did, and what happened because of his actions. Contrary to common sense, there is no public interest exception to the Espionage Act. Prosecutors in recent cases have convinced courts that the intent of the leaker, the value of leaks to the public, and the lack of harm caused by the leaks are irrelevant -- and are therefore inadmissible in court.

Whistle blower protection does not exist for IC

[Anonymous Coward]

People talk about whistle blower protection and legitimate whistle blower, etc. There is no whistle blower protection for the Intelligence Community (IC). The IC is specifically exempted by U.S. law from all whistle blower protection acts. Posted via TOR, for good reason!