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Snowden to Critics: Questioning Putin Has Opened Conversation About Surveillance
The Guardian carries Edward Snowden's detailed rebuttal to critics who say that his recent live-TV interaction with Vladimir Putin, in which Snowden asked whether the Russian government was engaged in spying on Russian citizens' communications, was a scripted moment intended to curry or maintain favor with Putin. After all, Snowden is currently living in Russia, where he has been granted only temporary harbor, goes this argument, so he is at the mercy of the Russian government, and has just gamely thrown Putin a softball. (Slashdot reader Rambo Tribble said the exchange had a "canned quality," a sentiment widely echoed.) Snowden writes that, far from being a whitewash of actual policies by the Russian government, his question ("Does [your country] intercept, analyse or store millions of individuals' communications?") "was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion"; he decribes Putin's answer as a combination of inconsistent denial and evasion. Snowden writes:
"I blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance practices not because I believed that the United States was uniquely at fault, but because I believe that mass surveillance of innocents – the construction of enormous, state-run surveillance time machines that can turn back the clock on the most intimate details of our lives – is a threat to all people, everywhere, no matter who runs them. Last year, I risked family, life, and freedom to help initiate a global debate that even Obama himself conceded 'will make our nation stronger.' I am no more willing to trade my principles for privilege today than I was then. I understand the concerns of critics, but there is a more obvious explanation for my question than a secret desire to defend the kind of policies I sacrificed a comfortable life to challenge: if we are to test the truth of officials' claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims."
It's Russia, you twit! How can there be a Russian conversation about domestic surveillance when they have trouble having political opposition, let alone a free press! The Russian Federation is 148th in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders World free press index, and here you are, talking about how you asked a tough question to a leader who doesn't give a shit about looking hypocritical or lying, and has been using you for the last 10 months to discredit the West while he goes forward with his project of grand russian unification.
After watching a man sacrifice his chances of living a normal life, fleeing the country he grew up in after doing what he felt was right, why did so many readily believe he was willing to give up his principals so easily? Obviously Putin wasn't going to give a straight answer, whether in the US or Russia or anywhere else politicians lie when it suits them. How often do we go after reporters, attacking them for asking questions they don't receive truthful answers to? The entire incident seemed a clear attempt at discrediting Snowden, something that should have been exceedingly obvious to everyone. I applaud him for having the courage to put his own safety on the line and ask Putin about mass surveillance. I'm sure he fully expected the dodgy answer he got, he may have even expected further consequences from Putin and his lackeys, but I doubt he expected people to turn around and say he shouldn't have asked the question to begin with. He shows more courage still coming out and challenging Putin's answer in this article. We owe him our gratitude, respect, and an apology.
Snowden to Critics: Questioning Putin Has Opened Conversation About Surveillance
If he really wanted to ask questions about freedoms, he should have asked about the LGBT rights in Russia or Chechens' right for self-determination. In the US, asking about surveillance violations is the right question to ask because, by and large, it is one of the most pressing issues. In Russia, that ain't.
The proper question to ask when it comes to freedom is always the one concerning the greatest, most infamous violations.
He was an idealistic young programmer who, some would say, naively did what he thought was right in the U.S. He knew or at least suspected there would be a downside, but he is under no illusion what would happen if he attempts to publicly upset Putin's apple cart.
The first thing that comes to mind is we wouldn't have even heard of this video if it didn't go according to script.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
For some time one has questioned if Snowden is a naive whistle blower with good intentions or is a sophisticated Russian intelligence operator. Recent events especially Russian phone and intelligence in the Ukraine support a definite leaning to the latter, intelligence operator. All that Snowden appearance has done to intelligence types is to push that leaning into the realm of a possible certainty proving almost conclusive proof that the NSA is completely and thoroughly penetrated and compromised. One way to view his appearance is that the Russians are talking to the Americans and saying covertly with out actually saying it overtly is that "We know every thing you are doing in the Ukraine and every where else in the world". Assuming, to those of us outside the intelligence community, that our community organizer just got cough with his pants down in what our State Department would call a major Woopsie in attempting to install a more western oriented government in the Ukraine it could be that what the Russians are attempting to do is stop western revolution attempts before this elapses into a more final judgement with mushroom shaped clouds.
Yet Putin didn't outright admit to Russia performing the same sort of mass surveillance. You see, most people have a certain bias about people. When you support a person, they can be evasion and give inconsistent denial and people accept it as a form of "pleasing the 5th" or just general politics. When you're against a person, then anything short of a clear denial with evidence is seen as proof to the affirmative. In between, you have most people who realize that the person asking questions has a bias, the "experts" have a bias, there's often not clear evidence, and often the whole subject is subjective with cultural norms deciding just what is acceptable--Russians seem to have been brainwashed into believing that spying on the people is such a norm that even if they're per se against it, they're not willing to fight and die over it.
In the end, Snowden is there to let the "horse" speak and instead of simply letting the people go off of ZouPrime's person opinion about the situation, Snowden can use Putin's own direct words to prove ZouPrime's or Snowden's or others opinions as more likely to be true. Until, though, you give the person who supposedly doesn't give a shit about lying to lie, then you're just screaming into the dark about how much your "opponent" is a liar.
Now, if you want to argue that Russia is a de facto dicatorship and Putin *will* lie and engage in subterfuge and hypocracy to create the illusion of a democracy to maintain control, that'd be an actually more believable opinion. And that's more or less what Snowden took a step towards proving.
Snowden's point is that it's worth getting Putin on record lying so that later if something comes out, the damage will be amplified based on the fact that he lied. This seems reasonable in a situation where lying itself is punished. However, we're less than a month out from Putin lying to claim his troops did not invade Crimea and then admitting "well, the ends justify the means" and there's no clear evidence that he's being punished for lying. To the extent that there's international pressure, it's about the act and not the lie. I suspect if it did come out that Russia was engaging in widespread, NSA-style surveillance, the brunt of the criticism would be directed towards the surveillance, and not a gotcha moment where Putin denied surveilling in the past.
As a result, I find it difficult to believe that the future value of having Putin on the record on this question exceeds the propaganda value of having him deliver a polished answer that makes himself look good now.
As will the ensuing debate be. The world is a rigged game.
Mr. Snowden asked Putin a question and they crawled out from under the rocks and singled out on Snowden for asking "soft question" and/or "canned performance", et cetera, et cetera, et cetera ....
Even if Snowden didn't ask any question (didn't participate on the call-in program at all) they would still find a way to attack Snowden
NSA has a long memory - and they will never stop harassing Snowden, period.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
From Eli Lake at The Daily Beast: Sorry, Snowden: Putin Lied to You About His Surveillance State—And Made You a Pawn of It
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It had the word 'patriot' in it. It would've passed if it was a law banning fucking.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Snowden is clearly a spook, simply trying to convince the world that the United States NSA has much more capabilities than they actually have. The Nazi's used similar tactics.
All the other whistleblowers have been kept quiet, and mostly out of the mainstream media, but not Snowden, he is ALL OVER IT, constantly.
If I upload a Youtube video with copyrighted work, it will be taken down very quickly. But when Snowden has top secret information vital to national security, those videos stay up for months at a time.
Trust the math, there is no way the NSA can crack some of the encryption they claim.
You seem to assume that democracy automatically precludes tyranny. I see zero evidence from history of this being the case. In fact, I see quite the opposite: tyrants seem to reach their heights when people feel like they were given a choice to put him into power and he's on their side.
Anyway, people didn't vote FOR the NSA spying on them, and most americans don't vote in elections anyway. You could make a reasonable argument that they got what they asked for, that they should have seen the NSA spying coming based on their reactions to 9/11 and that not voting is saying "whatever." I'd agree with you on that, though I would disagree that being politically stupid means you DESERVE to have your rights eroded. But bottom line, no, the NSA programs were not democratically supported by the people in any meaningful sense of the phrase.
This blogger about all things Russia thinks the entire Snowden/Putin exchange, including the follow-up Guardian article, was orchestrated: http://3dblogger.typepad.com/m...
and then to shop those secrets around to such bastions of freedom as Venezuela, Cuba, China, and Russia.
The documents went to the Guardian and the Washington Post. Makes the rest of what you said look foolish, doesn't it.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Except the people did directly support politicians who changed the law retroactively to make warrantless wiretapping OK in 2006. When faced with "your intelligence agencies did illegal things so we changed the law to retroactively make them legal" the American people basically yawned. Just because you're too ignorant to remember recent history doesn't change a thing. The American people have had many opportunities to scale back domestic intelligence gathering. Pretty much without exception they have chosen to keep the politicians who push surveillance in power.
Here's a hint -- all of these things were problems long before 9/11. The PATRIOT ACT basically codified a number of existing practices and allowed the government to use them at greater scale. Pretending "privacy" is some thing you had and just recently lost is nothing but ignorance. If you want privacy you have to take affirmative steps to protect your privacy. Anything else is just blaming others for your own laziness.
You believe this so strongly you refuse to put your name to it!
here you are, talking about how you asked a tough question to a leader who doesn't give a shit about looking hypocritical or lying
I like said it last time (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5047921&cid=46783413) and Snowden just confirmed here (better worded though).
......
"If we are to test the truth of officials' claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims"
In slashdot profit style:
1) Ask a question about which an official will lie,
2) Expose the truth,
3)
4) Profit
Do you have a better plan?
The fourth amendment covers "unreasonable" search and seizure. What's reasonable is decided by the courts, not traitors like Snowden.
What kind of drivel are you spouting? It's not like you know anything about history. 250 years ago the'd have hung the bastard for sure. No one likes a traitor who runs off to another country to spread animosity for his homeland. If he'd gone to the Times or something I'd call him a whistleblower. Going to China and then Putin? We need to hang his sorry ass.