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Snowden Queries Putin On Live TV Regarding Russian Internet Surveillance
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Edward Snowden appeared on a Russian television call-in show to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin about policies of mass surveillance. The exchange has a canned quality which will likely lead to questions regarding the integrity of Snowden's actions, in the query of his host in asylum."
These propaganda sessions for Putin are pre-staged so Snowden has allowed himself to be used as a "propaganda tool". Considering how freedoms are curtailed in Russia, it seriously deminishes Snowden's reputation.
It loses a bit in the translation but essentially it says "When you're living with wolves, you better learn fast how to howl, lest they might think you're a sheep".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"We will hear and they will be punished!!!"
I wouldn't put it past the Russians to stage such an appearance by threatening Snowden. In fact, that's the most likely scenario; Putin could hand him over to the US at any time.
But you have to read the statement carefully to understand what he says. It is true that Russia doesn't have the money to put everyone under surveillance like the US does.
So they might not do a mass surveillance like the US, instead they just put everyone interesting under direct surveillance: every Duma representative, every Oligarch, and especially everyone who is in public politicial opposition to President Putin. The NSA can't do that even when they would want to, so they simply target everyone: it's wasteful but now they can't be accused of any bias or that they target anyone they don't like.
When did Slashdot become infested with NSA apologists?
Putin does this show annually. I am sure that the callers are vetted, but the questions tend to be wide-ranging, and don't really seem scripted to me. (I liked the one about buying Alaska back.) After all, it's a 4 hour show.
Now, as for Snowden, I see this as positive. State security is not talked about that much in Russia, and he brought it up. While Putin said pretty much what Obama might have said in 2010 (in other words, it's fair to doubt whether he was being truthful), it gets it out in the open, and all in all I think that is a good thing.
...know about surveillance?
Even the questions you can ask are provided by the state..
OF COURSE it was scripted and likely highly edited. This is 100% propaganda aimed squarely at the west by Putin. Snowden is just being used to attract attention and shape the message. He's just a pawn in a much larger game.
Reading between the lines though, I wonder what Putin is up to. Why bother with this?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
To anyone who ever says that Snowden told the terrorists about bugging. The 2010 film Four Lions has a scene with the terrorist plotters using a spoof on Disney's "Club Penguin", making it the only safe method to chat to each other (it's a black comedy). Interception was so widely known, it was a joke (see Bin Laden's lack of house-hold comms).
The people who didn't suspect that electronic comms were all thoroughly bugged were the other 99.999999% of the population. They thought the 'goodies' were targeting the 'baddies'.
But the way forward is clear. Make internet surveillance legal, and a free and open society will blossom, untroubled by questions of legality
Congratulations. Your post wins the "who can represent the worst stereotypes about Americans" prize for this thread.
Let's recap. Snowden revealed gross abuses and illegality in your government. Doing this results in the same sort of punishments as it does in many other countries with overly authoritarian leadership: lifetime in jail, as you request. So to do the big reveal you admit is something you "really needed", he had to run. His first choice was Hong Kong, but when it appeared the Chinese might hand him over or keep him jailed for years in diplomatic limbo he decided to go to Latin America, probably Ecuador. He was en-route there when the US Govt revoked his passport, leaving him stranded in Russia which happened to be on the way.
Your post and general mentality have multiple failures, but don't worry, they are correctable.
There's a simple fix for your predicament - never use the word "traitor" ever again. It describes a state of fevered flag-waving tribalism which allows your own government to blind you and switch off your critical thinking. The people in power are not better than you or anyone else, they are just ..... the people in power. Your country is not better than other countries, it's just .... the place where you were born. Your rulers deserve no loyalty, no special breaks. They are corrupt and untrustworthy to the core, they need to be watched constantly lest they abuse the powers they were temporarily granted for some purpose or another. You cannot be a traitor to such people, the concept simply has no meaning.
Once you get into this mentality, your recollection of historical events will probably improve.
As someone into the business, there's only two prerequisites (concerning surveillance) to operate as an ISP in Russia. The first one is that you must (by the law) to store your ISP's netflow for 2 years, and to provide information for a) specific user (given by First + Last name) or b) by the IP address involved, to a) police, b) FSB or c) court, when they wanted to. And the second one, is that ISP required (by the law) to install surveillance equipment, sufficent enough to capture all the traffic of ISP's very own local clients (not the transit ones). That equipment is called "SORM" which means something like "support of investigation operations". That equipment is a bulk storage that is filled with data from selected customer IP when configured to. Equipment is controlled from local FSB office, using only E1 (smth like DS1) control channel. There's no bulk channel between ISP and FSB office because there's no bulk money at local government to pay to ISP for that. When they think they had gathered enough data. for specific subject, they can use this captured data from the SORM storage in the court. With the current ISP traffic plans, that storage can only held smth like 2hrs of all client's traffic captured simultaneously. Could you consider this as a "massive surveillance"?
I don't understand the hatred towards Snowden for asking an important question regarding surveillance. From the linked article his question:
"So I'd like to ask you, does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals? And do you believe that simply increasing the effectiveness of intelligence or law enforcement investigations can justify placing societies, rather than subjects, under surveillance?"
It is a perfectly valid question which needs to be asked to all world leaders. While Putin's answer can certainly be seen as pure political spin, the question itself is a legitimate and forceful question to be posed. And by asking it, it forced Putin to provide an answer through which he can be measured against. He has basically said in nationwide tv that if they did have a mass surveillance system, the state would be breaking the law. This public statement can now be used to hold him accountable should evidence surface proving him as lying.
I would also argue that the question is a far more direct one regarding surveillance than any that has been posed to Obama. And unlike Putin, Obama insists such a surveillance program is legal and necessary. One cannot reform the system without admitting the problem first. Were Obama to give the same answer as Putin to that question, the repercussions would be enormous, as it places a moral and legal standard on the role of surveillance in our society from the chief executive of the nation itself.