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Snowden Says No One Listened To 10 Attempts To Raise Concerns At NSA
As reported by the Washington Post, Edward Snowden denies in no uncertain terms the idea that he failed to go through proper channels to expose what he thought were troubling privacy violations being committed by the NSA, and that he observed as a contractor employed by the agency. The article begins: "[Snowden] said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about government snooping programs but that his warnings fell on the deaf ears. In testimony to the European Parliament released Friday morning, Snowden wrote that he reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing." Further, "Elsewhere in his testimony, Snowden described the reaction he received when relating his concerns to co-workers and superiors. The responses, he said, fell into two camps. 'The first were well-meaning but hushed warnings not to "rock the boat," for fear of the sort of retaliation that befell former NSA whistleblowers like Wiebe, Binney, and Drake.' All three of those men, he notes, were subject to intense scrutiny and the threat of criminal prosecution."
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...the more star systems will slip through your fingers!
Seriously, if this is true, it's a pretty good illustration of why tin-pot dictators throwing the book and the kitchen sink at whistleblowers are a far more serious security threat than the whistleblowers themselves.
He exposed a situation that HAD TO BE ignored "for the good of the surveillance effort and thus, the country" - had they admitted it, it would have to be shut down.
Instead they've managed to kind of slide on the issue of legality, nobody is taking it up with the SCOTUS successfully because "nobody has grounds" to sue without being able to prove damages (due to the secrecy, catch 22 et al) so basically, the NSA strategy of "ignore it until the next war or administration" seems to be successful at least in keeping the sword of judicial damocles off their heads.
What use is whistleblowing if they're able to ignore the law and the 9 robed wizards don't wish to enforce the law? None. "Checks and balances" is now "blank checks"
He hasn't waited to tell anybody. He's been saying it all along. Don't confuse the manner in which the news is reported as a reflection of reality.
This was reported now because he put his comments in an easily citable letter to the European Parliament.
You know those filters used to remove American's data from surveillance? Those were there to PROTECT our privacy.
So what exactly is Snowden complaining about? Why would the US government have classified filters if their objective was privacy violations?
He really didn't think his cunning plan all the way through. That's the problem you get with mouth-breathing libertarians, like the kind that infest white-male nerd sites.
First of all, I may be a nerd but I ain't a "White Male".
Second of all, Slashdot never advertises itself as a "White Male Site".
Thirdly, I got a bridge to sell, wanna buy it ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Senator Wyden has already demonstrated his incompetence to address, if not his active support of, such illegal programs. And by reporting it in the USA, Snowden would have been easily dropped in a deep, deep pit with no hope of testifying.
From the article: "Both Obama and his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, have said that Snowden should return to the United States and face criminal sanctions for his actions."
Perhaps the Obama administration could set an example of following US law by appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the legality of the recent revelations? It's always good to practice what you preach!
And where's the justice for the people who ARE the problem?
Before we can get justice we need to look for the root of the problem ...
Who are the one keep electing those assholes into Washington D.C. ?
We, the people.
Who are the one letting the government destroying the liberty of the country ?
We, the people.
What kind of justice you are after ?
After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I think he might have had a few more people on his side if he would have said this from day one.
He would also have a lot more credibility if he named names instead of saying he warned "10 officials". Which ten? Why not name them? Does he think they deserve protection?
Perhaps the criticsm of the NSA should focus on the very poor use of resources. Billions of dollars are used to spy on US citizens with no benefits, while the administration appears to have been caught completely unprepared for the events in Crimea.
Perhaps a re-allocation of those resources would be beneficial to US interests.
Unless, of course, the real reason for the spying on US citizens has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with suppressing free speech and legal dissent.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
What is it with the constant disbelieving of Snowden?
Of the things that we now know the truth or falsity of, everything he has said so far has been true, while most of what the NSA has said has been a lie. Learn from experience, people.
Basically he says that he told his supervisors that, in his opinion, a spy agency shouldn't be spying.
So if a general decides to annex kansas and a soldier objects you are going to post that he "basically told his supervisors that in his opinion a military organization shouldn't be conducting military operations." and his opinion should be ignored.
Yeah, good grasp of the situation. The NSA is a spy agency, with specific objectives. Their activities were so far removed from those objects that they are completely unjustifiable, and a collossal waste of effort and money.
>After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
Only if there's a viable alternative. At present we have two parties that are both owned, for the most part, by the same people, and kept in power by gerrymandering and the systemic weakness of first-past-the-post elections. Given the realities on the ground it's no wonder that the third party candidates tend to be extremists and nutters that don't actually expect to get elected - no responsible individual would choose "third-party politician" as a career path unless they had a size large ace up their sleeve.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
If you don't vote Republican, those darned Libruhls are dun gonna make yer kids gay!
If you don't vote Democrat, you're a fucking bigoted idiot!
And if you vote Libertarian, you're some kind of anarchist lunatic!
After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
No, no, it's the fault of those people, don't you see? If only we didn't have to deal with that other party!
Ellsberg is on record saying that Snowden did the right thing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Who are the one keep electing those assholes into Washington D.C. ?
We, the people.
You're right, of course, but on the other hand any process that involves collective decision-making by 130 million people is bound to act more like a one-move-per-year version of Twitch Plays Pokemon than any kind of particularly rational decision-making.
Add to that the amount of money and effort that is regularly channeled towards manipulating the voting public towards the ends desired by those with resources to do so, and it's impressive that the system works even as well as it does.
But I wouldn't blame the system's deficiencies on individual voters -- the fact is that any individual or like-minded community of voters could in fact do a better job for their particular needs, but at the national level, at least, coherent communities of voters tend to largely cancel each other out, leading to unpredictable results. Which I suppose leads us to the argument that more power should be delegated to lower levels of government rather than the Federal level...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I would say those that dreamed up the spy program, implemented it, got it sanctioned and enshrined in law and defend it made our nation look bad in the eyes of the world. All Snowden did was leak it's existence. If you don't want the US made to look bad, then maybe the US shouldn't be doing things that make them look bad.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
At present we have two parties that are both owned, for the most part, by the same people, and kept in power by gerrymandering and the systemic weakness of first-past-the-post elections.
Further, the people in control of the major parties themselves cheat when someone not of their faction tries to go the primary/caucus root. They change rules in midstream, miscount, break meeting rules, physically attack supporters of opponents, pass out bogus delegate slates, and a host of other dirty tricks.
For a list of the things the Republican have done to just one challenger in the last two cycles, check out the archives of any of the several sites where Ron Paul supporters congregate. (For example, The Daily Paul.)
The Democrats do this as well. (The riots in Chicago in 1968 were largely a public reaction to the party machine repelling a primary effort by Gene McCarthy, popular with the antiwar movement, in favor of Hubert Humphrey. The Paul/Romney nomination battle was eeriely similar.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Maybe he anticipated how they would try to play the game?
... ...
Snowden: I have docs showing
NSA: no you don't
Snowden: here they are
NSA: ok, but you should've worked within the system
Snowden: I told 10 people in the system
<--- where we are today
NSA: no you didn't
Snowden: here's who I told and when
NSA: ok, but <another attempt to change the focus to Snowden...>
I am not a sig.
People who don't dig more deeply into the issues than "that's what we were told" deserve the worst of all governments. We are very lucky, presuming your assertion is correct.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What is it with the constant disbelieving of Snowden?
One of the things Snowden exposed was systematic disinformation campaigns by the spooks to achieve various political goals, including the discrediting of their own critics.
Perhaps these comments are examples of such a program in action?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...are those connected directly to /dev/null. There was no "right way" (in the eyes of the US Government) for Snowden to do anything about these programs, because (again in the eyes of the US Government) these programs are perfectly fine.
To object to the way Snowden did things, suggesting there was a better, effective, way of doing it that he somehow overlooked, is pure disingenuousness on the part of President Obama.
Not entirely - a great deal of the problem is our parents, and their parents (,and ..., but you get the idea). Once duopoly seizes control of a first past the post system it becomes increasingly difficult to oust them. Especially when the lizards are busy demonizing each other as hard as they can and adopting positions so extreme that their "opponent" need not worry about losing votes to a non-lizard.
The one ray of hope I see is that over half the population doesn't vote at all in any given election, properly leveraged even half of them could throw an election to a dark horse, the question is how to do so. I have a couple ideas -
- Organize festivals near polling places to encourage non-voters to come out for the food/music/etc, then encourage them to "Vote out the Sock Puppets" as long as they're in the right place anyway.
- Start a truly new party, something different enough to actually catch people's imagination. Perhaps a direct-democracy party with serious penalties for candidates that don't do as their constituency tells them. After all we've got plenty of different "proof of concept" direct democracies in the world - there's no reason we have to overthrow the government to institute them for real, we could instead implement it as a new faction within the existing system.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Snowden's not the one short on credibility. That honor goes to the NSA.
Quit blaming the victim and look in to that problem.
Dear Sir,
If those asshole has fooled us, the People, once , yes, I agree with you, that We the People are the victims.
But how many times the assholes have fooled us, and how many times We, the People keep on electing them back into Washington, D.C. ?
Already how many times, Sir ? And how many ***MORE*** times are We, the People, willingly to be fooled ?
Does this come to mind, Sir?
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Start a truly new party, something different enough to actually catch people's imagination. Perhaps a direct-democracy party with serious penalties for candidates that don't do as their constituency tells them.
I gave this some thought a few years ago. I could build a simple application that would allow constituents to vote on any random congressional bill. I would then use this as my primary campaign strategy. "Don't vote for me, vote for you." I would vow to vote the way my constituents wanted me to. Pretty damn simple, really.
I started to think further, and that it's kind of a problem I don't have the perfect political background. People would dig up dirt on me and that's not too fun. Then I thought, why would it matter? They're not voting for me, they're voting for themselves!
I think there are definitely some congressional districts that would like this type of approach, but probably not many. I think it would be an interesting thing to do, though, simply for the potential advancements to democracy thanks to the digital age. Hell, the number of signatures needed to run is not really that many. Maybe I'll do it, but probably better for someone with more financial freedom than myself to give it a shot.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Lay off the boot licking, sunshine. The heavy metals aren't good for your central nervous system.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
and the whistleblower candidate will be properly flagged, monitored, caught in action, and silently jailed before he/she manages to release anything to the public.
In my 15 years of Federal experience ... I find there are two types of people: Psychos who lead and Cowards who follow. Everyone else either quits or gets fired.
I guess he is the only person they weren't listening to.