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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.'"
He's not wearing a jumpsuit and standing on an aircraft carrier with a banner behind him.
Snowden is a real hero. I am sorry he can't be home for the holidays this year because of his sacrifice.
The NSA should be dismantled....
Hang on, someone's at the door.
... 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.
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.
There is no open court "route" left in the US for cleared staff. You face the people you work for with your cleared lawyer selected from a short list of lawyers in a sealed court. He's smarter as in he saw the many who have tried before him and saw the color of law results - even with political support in sealed courts - nothing gets done or out to the tame US press. The rest is history, for academics, the press, lawyers and courts to work out in the US and around the world over time. :)
Better crypto for all the internet and less junk software is always a good thing
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Do you really think the NSA has time to waste on Slashdot? We have much more pressing issues to take care of.
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.
I think there are a lot of smart people in the executive, judicial, legislative, and even in the intelligence branches of government. The problem is, they are in opposition (e.g., the executive preventing consideration of these issues by blocking court cases for years), the judiciary can only interpret the law as it is, the legislature has signed "blank checks" and been told only a limited amount of information about what is actually going on, and the intelligence agencies have regularly downplayed or outright lied about what they are actually doing.
At no point have the public been properly informed or consulted on this. Everything that was done to this point was a token, bogus effort. In the government it's a lot of smart people with (I believe) largely good intentions, but none of them have been allowed to see all of the pieces of the puzzle at once, or alternatively been able to share it with the public to get the public's views. That's a fundamental failure that defies the entire point of democracy and representative government. Yes, Snowden "chose the nuclear route" to get information out there, but considering the couple of decades of opportunity for any of those branches of government to do the right (inform and consult the public), it was justified. There was ample time for smart people in government to say "Wait, no, we shouldn't be doing this. At least, not without the public *really* knowing about it and giving their okay." Fail.
While I agree exposing these abuses of power has come at a high cost, there are two reasons why my concerns are tempered: 1) government had their chance to do it right, and didn't; 2) if nothing else, this episode should demonstrate yet again what most people should already know: you can't keep a secret forever, and it's better to get in front of it than to deal with the aftermath of an uncontrolled release to the public that isn't on your terms.
The public probably would be willing to grant the NSA and other intelligence agencies a lot of leeway to do their job, if properly monitored. Now? Not so much, because public trust has been violated.
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.
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
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
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
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good