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

They could have listened to him...

[Anonymous Coward]

... when he was working there. According to Forbes, his coworkers report that he would wear a Electronic Frontier Foundation hoodie to work and have a copy of the constitution on his desk to argue when he was asked to do something against the constitution.
They just had to emulate him and he would still be in Hawai with his girlfriend and working for the NSA.

Re:Of course not!

[AHuxley]

The GCHQ found time for Slashdot http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/uk-spies-continue-quantum-insert-attack-via-linkedin-slashdot-pages/

Re:Right On

[anagama]

I vote third party and if no third party candidate is available, for my cat. There is no other way to lodge a protest vote because we don't have a "none of the above" and not voting simply lumps you in with the apathetic.

I'm not so focused on picking a victor, because when the choice of Victor A (R) v. Victor B (D) results in exactly the same policies, I don't care which one wins and won't let my vote be seen as comprising some mandate for the asshole. Secondly, you simply cannot create change in a party by saying "I disagree with you, but I'll vote for you anyway." That's a sort of insanity. And as for creating some change within a party, look at how that worked out for the Kucinich people in the DNC or the Ron Paul people in the GOP. It simply doesn't work.

The deepest rot in American politics, is the voters' reluctance to vote their conscience and instead, feel like they need to be on a winning side. This is the sure fire way to lose in the end.