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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.'"
Snowden is a real hero. I am sorry he can't be home for the holidays this year because of his sacrifice.
If nothing has changed, it's not his fault.
It's ours.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's pretty obvious from what he says in the interview that he was well coached ahead of time on what message to get out. But despite that, he comes across as essentially saying that he's smarter and more moral than anyone in the executive, judicial, or legislative branches of government.
There are ways to address concerns about abuses of government power, he chose the nuclear route. Whether exposing the abuses of power that were happening is worth the side effects remains to be seen.
And nothing has changed. What a waste of time. Enjoy your stay, comrade.
It took years for this shit to become entrenched, it is going to take at least as long to unwind it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
> he comes across as essentially saying that he's smarter and more moral than anyone in the executive, judicial, or legislative branches of government ... which seems not to be a very high bar, alas.
> he chose the nuclear route [...]
which other routes, pray tell, were open to him?
> Whether exposing the abuses of power that were happening is worth the side effects [...]
It is worth the side effects. It can be seen already.
No! We need real change away from both what Bush did AND what Obama is doing.
Every time people make the "but Bush" argument they're giving Obama more power to abuse the system.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Do you really think the NSA has time to waste on Slashdot? We have much more pressing issues to take care of.
Like trolling WoW.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Sad part is, there is nothing they "could have done" to prevent the 9/11 attacks that was prevented by the legal actions available at the time. There was absolutely no need for any additional powers or surveillance. Since they found zip with all the new surveillance after 10 years, I think it is safe to conclude the threat is greatly exaggerated. Where were they when the Boston Marathon attacks were being planned? They were snooping on Brazilian oil companies.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
He's not wearing an orange jumpsuit in a stress position with razor wire in front of him either.
Avoiding this indefinitely is probably one of the 'stretch goals' he mentions.
I disagree because your statement is blatantly false. The NSA can not serve a useful purpose. Simple application of the mathematics of information disparity proves you can't prove your statement to the contrary. As a scientist, I don't believe things without evidence, especially not statements lacking disprovability.
You're aware Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, and PRISM's room 641A existed before 9/11. They failed to prevent 9/11, and every terrorist attack since the 70's. The NIST helps secure our encryption systems. By what amazing feat of mental gymnastics do you arrive at the conclusion that a secret research group can be proven to be helping secure our communications? No, that's asinine. I require evidence. The government secrecy is directly opposed to both freedom and security.
Especially since we've got an army of hubble-esque telescopes zipping around the earth providing total global situation awareness. You don't need warrantless wiretaps with that kind of spy power.
Bonus, the NRO helps with natural disasters, weather, and space sciences. Defund, NSA, DHS, etc., spit the funding between NASA and the NRO. The folks benefiting from domestic spying could instead make their money selling space wares... Ah, but then they wouldn't be able to do insider trading quite so well at all.
You can't be serious, right? By what logical misstep do you propose we trust again a spy who has proven to be a double agent? The same goes for an OS compromised by malware, there is no "removal" of malware, you nuke it from orbit, because it's the only way to be sure.
They want to have their cake and eat it too. We should either have no privacy indoors & in our communication between indoor areas while having expectation to not be spied on outdoors, or have zero protection of privacy outdoors & assurances that our communications are not compromised. Look, if you want to spy on my conversations you can just stand next to me, or aim a laser microphone at my windows or glasses. You don't need to tap the coms lines because folks can buy a burner phone and install their own encrypted voice and text applications. It'll be to late to do anything by the time it's deciphered. The domestic spying and wiretaps only prevent legitimate use of the technology.
Unfortunately, information theory tells us we can not have assurances that our communications are not spied on unless we eliminate the secret spying operation. We have a chance to eliminate secrets and stand brave among the most powerful nations who have mutually assured nuclear peace, and against which no terrorist can pose a threat. Scaremongers would have you believe the terrorists are nothing to sneeze at, yet every year the flu claims SIX TIMES the lives as a 9/11 scale attack. Cars and Cheeseburgers are 400 times more deadly every year than 9/11. Even the most devastating of terrorist threats is not even a flesh wound. We need proportional protection: If you're so scared of 1/400th the threat a Happy Meal poses, then allocate 1/400th of the taxes we spend on heart disease and accident prevention to the NSA and DHS. We need no secrets. Without secrets no spy can harm us.
As a rational human being: If you, Snowden or anyone would say that the NSA can serve a useful purpose then the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence to support your unproven claim. Don't forget to prove your hypothesis you will need to more significantly disprove the null hypo
The NSA's policies have remained constant through "liberal" and "conservative" administrations. This is not a liberal/conservative or right wing/left wing issue. You don't need to decide which side you are on before you decide where you stand on the issue of the NSA's bulk surveillance of American citizens. Maybe you actually ought to think for yourself on this issue!!!
The NSA is a HUGE waste of money. I defy anyone to prove otherwise.
I like the idea of the NSA spying on the rest of the world. But when the NSA starts spying on Americans, bad people--very bad people--have taken over the NSA. These people are acting just like Stasi functionaries and it is scary.
This is awful and it needs to stop.
Hmm,
I think a few things are or will be changing. Now as an amateur democracy activist I think more things would change if U.S. citizens realized how much political power they actually have.
Read and understand the Constitution: the only powers the government has are specifically listed in that document; to that end, it even states that any power or right not specifically delegated to the government in the Constitution (and Amendments) is a right and power of the people.
The people running the government have been very successful at convincing regular folks that we don't actually have as many rights as the Constitution allows us. Not sure what to do about that one...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You're aware Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, and PRISM's room 641A existed before 9/11. [wikipedia.org] They failed to prevent 9/11, and every terrorist attack since the 70's.
Failure to stop terrorist attacks doesn't indicate lack of utility, it just indicates lack of utility against terrorists. The utility of the NSA is primarily against other nation states; the NSA was very useful during the Cold War, and its predecessor was astoundingly useful during WWII. You can argue that there is no current threat against which the NSA is a valuable tool, but that's a separate argument, which you didn't try to make.
The NIST helps secure our encryption systems.
Actually, it doesn't. NIST is a standards organization. It has run the selection processes for standard cryptographic algorithms lately, but it has always relied heavily on the NSA for technical expertise in the process. This was more visible during the DES standardization process, but you can be sure the NSA was advising for AES and SHA3.
By what amazing feat of mental gymnastics do you arrive at the conclusion that a secret research group can be proven to be helping secure our communications? No, that's asinine. I require evidence.
There is ample evidence in the development of many security technologies. I experienced it personally when I was building a key management system for smart card credit card issuance. The NSA exercised oversight over the design and implementation process, and made some really excellent suggestions that substantially improved the system.
I find it very, very disturbing that in recent years the NSA has apparently abandoned that part of their mission, and has been actively working to subvert strong security. I stop short of saying this means the NSA should be destroyed, but it definitely means it needs new management with the right mandate and proper oversight. And it should probably be pared down to a fraction of its current size.
Unfortunately, information theory tells us we can not have assurances that our communications are not spied on unless we eliminate the secret spying operation.
Actually, we cannot have any such assurances at all, because we can never know that we've eliminated all of the secret spying operations... because they're secret. By definition we can only eliminate the non-secret spying operations.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
There are ways to address concerns about abuses of government power, he chose the nuclear route
They leave you no choice. For decades now they've been saying "we'll protect the whistle blowers" and doing the exact opposite.
I've heard some people say that this is the same mentality that put Hugo Chavez in office. Why? Because whenever a moderate left-leaning person got in office, the CIA toppled them. Thus, the only way to go was full-bore hard Left militant. It's the same logic you get when all crimes are capital. You don't steal bread when all crimes are capital. You steal a gun and a jeep, rob the bank, and bust through the border blazing away.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
How quickly we forget things like this right?
To claim that it does not happen, when we have evidence that it does happen is beyond idiotic. It is complete and utter bullshit (either intentional or from ignorance.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.