Slashdot Mirror
Did Russia Trick Snowden Into Going To Moscow?
An anonymous reader writes "Ex-KGB Major Boris Karpichko says that spies from Russia's SVR intelligence service, posing as diplomats in Hong Kong, convinced Snowden to fly to Moscow last June. 'It was a trick and he fell for it,' Karpichko, who reached the rank of Major as a member of the KGB's prestigious Second Directorate while specializing in counter-intelligence, told Nelson. 'Now the Russians are extracting all the intelligence he possesses.'"
His statement conflicts with Snowdwn's statement in his last interview.
Didn't he release all of his information? What more use would be interrogating him?
I see some possibilities here:
1. He did not actually release everything he had.
2. Why would Russia release this information? What do they have to gain from saying this?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
If the Americans had any intelligence and sincerity, Snowden would not have had any reason to flee in the first place.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Is there any evidence at all that he had contact with Russia prior to ending up there? As far as I know, there isn't.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Here's where the plot twist falls into play: Snowden is still working for the NSA but is feeding Russia misinformation. It's all a very elaborate scheme to trick our old adversaries. While the price to pull it off was high with releasing top secret information, it wasn't exactly anything that everyone didn't know or think was happening.
Just more propaganda and doubt to bring into the mix
The only fly in the ointment of this possiblity, is that it was the Obama Administration that suspended Snowden's passport on his flight to South America that connected through Moscow (while in flight from Hong Kong to Moscow), stranding him in Russia (obviously with intent to politically smear him - which has worked with alot of not informed people).
The shortsighted political decisions of the Obama Administration to do this (locking someone like Snowden in the home of the former KGB) for political gain seems like one of the premier examples of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Obviously the Obama Administration made the political calculation (up at the executive level) that it was worth stranding someone with all his knowledge there. Seems ridiculously shortsighted.
> This now comes down to whether Snowden was a "useful idiot" or was he working for the Russians all along
If he had been working for them all along he:
(1) Would have gone directly to Russia
(2) Would not have given the information to reporters
FTA, this is coming from an Ex-KGB man who "fled" Moscow.
I'm too lazy to go to my kitchen and create myself a nice tinfoil hat, but I'd throw these possibilities out there:
- Guy with little current knowledge is looking for fifteen minutes of fame.
- Guy who "fled" Moscow found an opportunity to increase visibility and thus safety. You generally don't want to polonium up people who are being discussed in the media.
One more reason why whistle-blowers like Snowden should be protected, rather than demonized. If this is true, then his fear of repercussions is the key factor that allowed Russia this opportunity in the first place. Even if it isn't true, it's a scenario Americans should be concerned about, because it's highly plausible.
'Now the Russians are extracting all the intelligence he possesses.'
Sounds like a good reason to not criminalize whistleblowers. If he had felt safe in the US, he wouldn't have been tricked into going to Moscow.
I'm not sure it's possible to "trick" somebody who fled the U.S. to hang out with the Peace and Freedom Loving Peoples of the PRC. Unless Snowden is a completely gullible idiot, it's beyond ludicrous to think he didn't know that months of intelligence extraction awaited him after a flight to Russia.
Frankly, I don't understand the guy. There are plenty of better options that would have been available to him; I still can't figure why he chose the PRC as a first stop. Once he got stuck there, his options were between slim and none.
If Snowden hadn't been treated like a traitor by his country, he wouldn't've had to flee in the first place. Uncle Sam only have himself to blame if snowden is spilling the beans in Russia.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The intelligence revealed in the media has done more to drive wedges between the Americans and their allies at a time when both China and Russia have taken on a more aggressive foreign policy.
So then maybe the US government shouldn't have been doing things that would piss off their allies? Being a rapist, murderer, etc. also tends to drive wedges between the criminal and their friends. But that's squarely on their own head not the person who told the world they were a criminal.
He is a "useful idiot" with a lot of information in his pocket. When they are finished with him, he is either going to be returned to the U.S or he is just going to "disappear" into the abyss.
I just can't believe a Russian military officer would just come out and say that they're milking Snowden. I don't doubt they are; just that Russia would want to brag about it.
There are plenty of better options that would have been available to him
Erm... it's like people didn't pay attention at all. Governments forced planes to land on the mere suspicion that Snowden might've been riding on them. Multiple countries denied his requests for asylum. Flying around a lot would have endangered him even further.
What do you expect with people like this in charge?
“More importantly, much more importantly, what he’s done is hurt his country,” he said. “What he’s done is expose, for terrorists, a lot of mechanisms which now affect operational security of those terrorists and make it harder for the United States to break up plots, harder to protect our nation.”
- Sen. John Kerry on Edward Snowden
“I just think that’s a lot of baloney because, to whatever degree it may be true, they will wind up putting themselves at the mercy of those people who are very effective (at) who are there, who will deal with those guys,”
- Sen. John Kerry on dangerousness of Taliban detainees
Let's get this straight: direct release of enemy combatants...ok, release of documents related to collecting phone records of every american...not ok. Political astroturfing...priceless.
""The American people want to trust in our government again – we just need a government that will trust in us. And making government accountable to the people isn't just a cause of this campaign – it's been a cause of my life for two decades."
- President Obama on protecting whistleblowers
Remember this quote, remember what he promised? I guess we missed the footnote: "except in cases where I lose political powers...".
Why do we forget so easily?
Saying it was a trick flagrantly ignores the fact that the vast majority of more than 75 nations would openly and gladly transfer snowden to the United States. As a nation all we'd have to do is threaten to withhold/offer to increase aid to the target nation and in turn theyd cough him up post-haste. this doesnt account for the numerous countries with dictatorial governments favorable to our interests in which we could simply just ask.
Russia is one of a handful of successful foreign nations with the power, both economically and militarily to resist whatever the US asks for. Sending cia agents to him for rendition is a suicide mission, both militarily and politically. We are beholden to 5% of our oil supply from Russia, and the last time we offered an economic incentive was when we bought up a few hundred nuclear missiles from them and converted the payload to nuclear fuel in the 80's so we arent exactly an economic juggernaut in their world.
snowden was smart to take the Russian offer. He was going to expose clandestine secrets about the United States government that fly in the face of the constitution and our rule of law, and Russia saw nothing but gain from his efforts. finally, after 50 years of chest thumping freedom and swinging-dick foreign policy, a piping hot dish of humble pie had been prepared to which America would reluctantly have to at least take a bite and say, "Politically we're no less reprehensible than any other nation. we just have better propaganda."
Good people go to bed earlier.
I don't think "trick" applies here. Snowden went to Russia only after pretty much all other options had been closed off by the Obama administration. If instead of going batshit insane on Snowden, the administration had quietly tolerated (or even encouraged) asylum in some small South American nation, the Russians wouldn't have him and the US secret service could keep an eye on him.
..they promised him something then refused to provide that something.
They may have convinced him to go there with nefarious motives, but that's not necessarily a 'trick'
Agreed. People should just stop caring about whether the government does anything illegal or violates people's individual liberties. Who needs freedom and privacy, anyway?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Before we start discussing whether Mr. Snowden has been tricked by KGB or not, we need to look at what kind of fella that Boris Karpichko is
Boris Karpichko fled to Britain from Russia and sought political asylum in the 1998 - and as a "living asset" of the UK government he has to do something in return for the protection the UK government has given him
Hence, the same Boris Karpichko has made extraordinary claims throughout the years. I'll list only 2 below (and there are more but to save space I'll just list two)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/former-kgb-agent-boris-karpichkov-2800352
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297444/KGB-agent-Boris-Karpichkovs-claim-David-Kelly-exterminated-faces-probe.html
As you guys can see, this fella simply can't live a normal life. He just HAS TO make extraordinary claims from time to time, just to satisfy his own urge to have his name appearing on the news
Therefore, this "revelation" of Snowden being marked by KGB for 6 years and "tricked" to go to Russia is nothing more than one-more-fairy-tale from Mr. Karpichko
That is all to it - no matter how you look at it, this Karpichko fella had to get his name in the media - and he just "hitch a hike" on the "Edward Snowden bus"
So which US government agency fabricated this theory in order to bolster anti Snowden sentiments?
I didn't know opinion passed for news these days....
He was in Hong Kong, not in the "PRC". Document yourself instead of spouting nonsense.
And he knew the FSB was going to be interested in him, he was just hoping to leave Russia ASAP to go to South America. The Obama administration revoked his passport, stranding him in Russia. Furthermore, I believe that most of what Snowden gave to Greenwald, the FSB/Russian intelligence knew already: NSA, like many other US agencies have had its share of moles.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Boris Karpichkov worked as a KGB agent in the 1980s before fleeing to Britain as a place of safety. He talks about his career, why Russian spies are again targeting Britain – and why he'll never stop looking over his shoulder ...
Karpichkov, it turns out, knows a huge amount: about Russia's murky arms sales abroad, for example. He is intelligent, and a first-class analyst – but, of course, he has no one to report to.
Karpichkov says he is "no way scared". But he confesses he is now "dead tired" of the exhausting world of espionage, and concerned for the safety of his wife and grownup children.
Oleg Kalugin:
With the return to power of elements of the KGB, most notably Vladimir Putin, Kalugin was again accused of treason. In 2002 he was put on trial in absentia in Moscow and found guilty of spying for the West.[3] He was sentenced to fifteen years in jail,[6] in a verdict he described as "Soviet justice, which is really triumphant today".[7] The US and Russia have no extradition treaty.[7] Kalugin currently works for the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (CI CENTRE) is a member of the advisory board for the International Spy Museum.[8] He remains a critic of Vladimir Putin, a former subordinate, whom he called a "war criminal" over his conduct of the Second Chechen War.[3][9]
If Snowden hadn't been treated like a traitor by his country, he wouldn't've had to flee in the first place. Uncle Sam only have himself to blame if snowden is spilling the beans in Russia.
You don't understand the event sequence, so you are wrong. It went like this.
1) Snowden steals a bunch of documents in secret. He flies to Hong Kong. At this point, nobody knows anything about him or what he has done except Snowden himself.
2) While in Hong Kong, Snowden gives a bunch of documents to various members of the press and holds a press conference to announce what he has done and to point out that he "had" to do it because it was the only way to let the American people know the truth.
3) The US government wakes up and realizes it has a really big problem on its hands. It's only now that the "traitor" charges begin and the US leans on China to send him back, instead prompting China to turn a blind eye as Russia agrees to make this its problem and headache to deal with. This gets China off the hook, although the Chinese have surely previously copied Snowden's stuff and possibly reached a deal with the USSR, cough cough, I mean Russia to share with each other what they find out.
I'm sure the US government is astroturfing anti Snowden propaganda like mad. No sane citizen would actually think Snowden is a traitor or even managed to harm US interests, where "US interests" is defined as the interests of the American people and not the interests of the kleptocratic psychos who make up the ruling class.
Snowden asserts that he brought no classified files with him when he left the US.
And Russian intelligence has good reasons for spreading a story like this, even if it's false. It makes Russia look smart and the US look stupid. And it will likely the US to abandon a variety of intelligence assets for fear that they are compromised.
I don't think we have any way of knowing who to believe.
A three letter one, of course.
A story like this is the U.S. government's wet dream. This is highly suspicious.
s/XOR/OR/.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
If he was working for the Russians all along, he would have simply stayed put and kept stealing secrets.
No need to flee anywhere. He also wouldn't give a fuck about the domestic spying aspect, if he wanted to drive a wedge he could have released that part anonymously while giving all the other juicy secrets to the Russians.
under his control to disseminate, he would have been dead by now.
How can anybody be so naive as to think that NSA isn't already crawling with Russian spies? Everything NSA knows, its Russian counterpart knows nearly at the same time. It doesn't take a Snowden to achieve that. Remember: Russians have a long tradition of building up sleeper and secret agents in foreign targets, and they are renowned for their patience and the time they take in placing those agents in high positions.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
According to Snowden, he didn't have "stuff" to copy. So unless China has developed brain download technology, there's no copy to discuss. I guess Snowdon could have been lying about that, but what would be the point?
If he was really working with Russia he wouldn't have left at all. The whole point of being a double agent is to not out yourself. Since the NSA seemed to be so incompetent to allow him to download massive amounts of classified data he could have easily passed it on the Russia without detection or needing to leave the country. He left because he did not want to be silenced and rot in prison while the NSA kept chugging along with no one else the wiser.
Does it matter? One nation wants to lock him in prison until he dies, one nation will grant him freedom. Is that such a hard decision?
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
"Hello Edward, I am a Russian diplomat, come to Moscow and we won't extradite you to the Americans"
"Hello Edward, I am a Russian spy, come to Moscow and we won't extradite you to the Americans"
I can't imagine Snowden was under any illusions about the job title of the "diplomats" he was talking to, so it wasn't much of a trick. It might not have been a particularly good long term deal, but there wasn't a whole lot else on the table.
Yeah, but usually they reserve the spying for other governments and their secrets. Not the privacy of their own people.
Say, wasn't that what we said the Russians are doing?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm not sure it's possible to "trick" somebody who fled the U.S. to hang out with the Peace and Freedom Loving Peoples of the PRC. Unless Snowden is a completely gullible idiot, it's beyond ludicrous to think he didn't know that months of intelligence extraction awaited him after a flight to Russia.
Frankly, I don't understand the guy. There are plenty of better options that would have been available to him; I still can't figure why he chose the PRC as a first stop. Once he got stuck there, his options were between slim and none.
Plenty of options? Like going to congress where the hard liners were calling for his execution? The truth is that it was hard line bullshitters like that which drove Snowden to Russia. The US political class shot it self in the foot with its come-down-on-him-like-a-ton-of-bricks attitude and now Russia is benefitting. It's basically a reverse of the situation faced during the Cold War by people who had legitimate reason to criticises the Soviet system had no way of doing so except by defecting to the west to avoid being locked away. Perhaps you should ask yourself why the only place from which the NSA and the US govt. can be safely criticisesd these days on certain issues without having to fear being disappeared into some CIA run solitary confinement unit, is a shark tank like Putin's Russia?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
yep, pretty much. He claimed that Mi6 killed David Kelly because he would have undermined the case for the iraq war. This guy is a clown. Slashdot should be embarrassed to post this nonsense.
The press already have it so there's no reason for governments to make deals - a few bucks or a cheap favor to a paper and they've got the lot.
He was in Hong Kong, not in the "PRC". Document yourself instead of spouting nonsense.
Your differentiation is about 17 years obsolete.
As opposed to being blinded by fear and the hatred of individual liberties? I can't understand why else people would be angry that someone leaked information that showed the government was violating people's liberties and the highest law of the land. I'm not sure what it has to do with suicide bombers, either.
The Agency for Slandering Snowden?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Sorry, it's more like, "one nation's government wants to lock him up for what he did to them, another nation's government wants to lock him up for what he can do for them, and other nations don't want him at all, but will probably hand him over to one or the other in due course."
People like to prattle on about the tree of liberty and refreshing it with the blood of patriots and tyrants; they always forget the part about the consequences of getting the short end of the stick being rather severe. Mr. Snowden's only real mistake was thinking that he was individually smart enough to take on these world powers and personally win, when in reality he's never going to be free from the machine.
If he wanted to be free and to have done this, he'd have had to move some place isolated, remote, and where he could be somewhat anonymous, and to have released his documentation through several intermediaries. Some place like rural west-central Australia, for example. Unfortunately for him he chose to be known in his releases, and he'll end up paying for that choice for the rest of his life, and possibly with his life.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
or it could be spin by our media to turn the americans who support snowden against him. That seems more logical
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
We know that whenever a headline asks a question, the answer is typically, "No."
In this case, you could go so far as to say, "Obviously not."
Yes, but Congressman Mike Rogers said he was a Russian spy. Surely a US Congressman wouldn't lie about important stuff like that?
Log in or piss off.
Acting on faulty inteligence by paid informants has not been an obstacle in the recent past.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
What's next!?!
First, he's a nobody who didn't get away with anything...
Then, he's a script kiddie who got away with a few things...
Then, he's an average IT person who probably got help...
Then, he's a mastermind terrorist trying to topple the U.S. government...
Now... he's a dupe of the Russian spy agencies.
Next month, he'll be a long-term deep-cover Russian mole sent to steal all the U.S. secrets... ;)
Month after that, he'll be the next Bond villain, sitting is his swivel chair and stroking his white cat
What *will* they think of next!!!
The No Snodens Agency.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
He gave all the information he had away. What else does he have, expired passwords?
If you have to claim national security as a reason for doing it, it's probably unconstitutional, otherwise you could do it through normal legal channels. Snowden exposed what seems to be a clearly unconstitutional action by the government, he put himself at great peril to do so, that is the reason he is viewed as a hero. The US government is doing everything it can to make him a martyr.
I also consider myself to be a sane citizen. While I am grateful that the NSA's metadata collection activities were exposed, Snowden did much more than that. If he'd been some low-level NSA worker who stumbled on the NSA's meta-data collection operations in the US in the normal course of duty and felt compelled to blow the whistle and stand up to take the consequences...well, that'd be one thing. As it looks now, he's not much more than a deliberate spy who knowingly committed espionage with a "good reason" who lied, stole data, and fled prosecution, much like Jonathon Pollard (q.v. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J..., Pollard sold classified data to Israel because he didn't think it was right to withhold intelligence information from our ally).
Saw this in Slate magazine of all places, not exactly a right-wing publication:
It is true that Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance of American citizens—far vaster than any outsider had suspected, in some cases vaster than the agency’s overseers on the secret FISA court had permitted—have triggered a valuable debate, leading possibly to much-needed reforms.
If that were all that Snowden had done, if his stolen trove of beyond-top-secret documents had dealt only with the NSA’s domestic surveillance, then some form of leniency might be worth discussing.
But Snowden did much more than that. The documents that he gave the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman and the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald have, so far, furnished stories about the NSA’s interception of email traffic, mobile phone calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s northwest territories; about an operation to gauge the loyalties of CIA recruits in Pakistan; about NSA email intercepts to assist intelligence assessments of what’s going on inside Iran; about NSA surveillance of cellphone calls “worldwide,” an effort that (in the Post’s words) “allows it to look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect.” In his first interview with the South China Morning Post, Snowden revealed that the NSA routinely hacks into hundreds of computers in China and Hong Kong.
*Correction, Jan. 6, 2013: This article originally stated that Edward Snowden had not released any documents detailing the cyber-operations of any other countries. In fact, he leaked documents that detail the cyber-operations of Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand.
These operations have nothing to do with domestic surveillance or even spying on allies. They are not illegal, improper, or (in the context of 21st-century international politics) immoral. Exposing such operations has nothing to do with “whistle-blowing.”
Among other things, Snowden signed an oath, as a condition of his employment as an NSA contractor, not to disclose classified information, and knew the penalties for violating the oath.
In fact, as Snowden himself told the South China Morning Post, he took his job as an NSA contractor, with Booz Allen Hamilton, because he knew that his position would grant him “access to lists of machines all over the world [that] the NSA hacked.” He stayed there for just three months, enough to do what he came to do.
Mark Hosenball and Warren Strobel of Reuters later reported, in an eye-opening scoop, that Snowden gained access to his cache of documents by persuading 20 to 25 of his fellow employees to give him their logins and passwords, saying he needed the information to help him do his job as systems administrator. (Most of these former colleagues were subsequently fired.)
[Snowden] gets himself placed at the NSA’s signals intelligence center in Hawaii for the sole purpose of pilfering extremely classified documents. (How many is unclear: I’ve heard estimates ranging from “tens of thousands”
And how about the countries he admires, those stalwarts of freedom and liberty?
He thanked the nations that had offered him support. “These nations, including Russia [communist/socialist], Venezuela [socialist dictatorship], Bolivia [socialist], Nicaragua ["social democrat"] and Ecuador [socialist], have my gratitude and respect,” he proclaimed, “for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful.” Earlier, Snowden had said that he sought refuge in Hong Kong [China, communist] because of its “spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.”
China has a “spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent?” Bwahahaha.
Imagine a hypothetical situation:
You are cheating on your wife, and have been doing so for some time now. A good friend of hers finds out about what you're doing and tells your her. At this point, people are going to be pissed off at one of two people. People loyal to you are going to be pissed off at your wife's friend for ratting you out. People loyal to her are going to be pissed off at you, and see your wife's friend as a hero. That's just the way things work. So you can always tell where someone's loyalties really lie by determining whom they are pissed off at.
In this situation, the secret police/military complex/power elite/establishment is effectively screwing over the general public and the Constitution (the highest law of that land, for those that are unfamiliar), and has been doing so for some time now. Someone finds out about what they're really doing and tells us. At this point, people are pissed off at one of two people (or groups of people). People who are loyal to the secret police/military complex/power elite/establishment are pissed off at Snowden for ratting them out. People loyal to the general public and Constitution are pissed off at the people screwing them, and see him as a hero.
I'm not trying to scream "shill" to every person who wants Snowden's head on a pike, but you'd better believe that any prominent figure who is crying traitor day in and day out in the public media, well, you know where their loyalties lie is all I'm saying. It's not too hard to figure it out.
And what, exactly, were his options...
... joining Bradley Manning (aka Chelsea Manning) in Extreme Solitary Confinement that has been described as cruel, inhuman and degrading by the United Nations and many others such as this very detailed report on The Torture Of Bradley Manning by Andrew Blake, or this article by Jesselyn Radack that catalogues exactly How the US Military Tortured Bradley Manning
Russia is the last place that I would have thought of seeking refuge... but I think that we must all trust that Snowden probably knew better than all of us which countries would have succumbed to US pressure to hand him back and which would have taken great pleasure in not doing so.
Now, if Snowden is a true patriot, he will fight for the right to come back home and have a fair hearing before a jury of his peers... and seek to be recognised and judged as a whistleblower.
It doesn't really matter why he did it. He's effectively confessed to a number of espionage crimes.
It doesn't matter to me whether or not he broke unjust laws.
If he was a *just* a whistelblower about NSA's metadata collections, there were ways he could have done that
"And for what it's worth, I would have preferred he *had not* gone through the 'proper channels'. The People have a right to know when the government is violating the highest law of the land or people's liberties; not only do they have a right to know, but they should be the *first* to know. By going through the 'proper channels', you risk getting taken out of a position where leaking the information is possible, and then the whole issue would be swept under a rug."
The only 'proper channel' is through The People.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A young cocky and very intelligent man who thinks he's way smarter than he is. The way he got conned into that Putin interview should be exhibit A that he's not that insightful. The fact that his exit plan was so cobbled together is also proof.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
From the sounds of his interviews, I think he believed that the information would carry more weight if the source was know. If these were just anonymous leaks, they would be easier to discredit. It seems like he was fully aware of the dangers, and what he would be giving up, and decided it was worth it.
I think he was right, the leaks carry more weight with a name behind them, and further, its clear to the public that he wouldn't put himself in this position just for the "fun" of releasing false information.
Spencer Ogden
If Snowden hadn't been treated like a traitor by his country, he wouldn't've had to flee in the first place. Uncle Sam only have himself to blame if snowden is spilling the beans in Russia.
You don't understand the event sequence, so you are wrong. It went like this.
1) Snowden steals a bunch of documents in secret. He flies to Hong Kong. At this point, nobody knows anything about him or what he has done except Snowden himself.
2) While in Hong Kong, Snowden gives a bunch of documents to various members of the press and holds a press conference to announce what he has done and to point out that he "had" to do it because it was the only way to let the American people know the truth.
3) The US government wakes up and realizes it has a really big problem on its hands. It's only now that the "traitor" charges begin and the US leans on China to send him back, instead prompting China to turn a blind eye as Russia agrees to make this its problem and headache to deal with. This gets China off the hook, although the Chinese have surely previously copied Snowden's stuff and possibly reached a deal with the USSR, cough cough, I mean Russia to share with each other what they find out.
Sorry, you're off by quite a bit there.
Snowden knew what the NSA Was doing.
He didn't want to release it because Obama was going to win and promised to end the secret programs.
Obama took office and not only did the program continue, it was ramped up. Snowden saw whistleblowers getting nailed all over the place.
The NSA actually FRAMED one guy. Litterally framed him. When the documents were found to be fake the feds dropped the case.
Snowden then realized that there would be no fair trail inside the US. He would be framed as well.
He also saw how other leakers had released information to a single news source and that news source had spiked the story at the whitehouses request.
He contacted 3 journalists over a period of months and setup a meeting in Hong Kong
With multiple media sources, no single org could stop the story. If one covered it up, the others could release it.
The journalists met him in a hotel room there where they interviewed him over a period of a week or two. He gave them all the data.
They sent some of their documents back to the US for stories and then watched the whitehouses reaction.
They hoped there would be an immediate turn around in policy as the public realized what was going on and the NSA realized what snowden had stolen.
Instead President Obama came out and flatly lied to the public. Not just a little, not just speaking out of context, he told bold faced lies and members of the justice department and congress went along with him.
Snowden realized this meant it was an institutional conspiracy. There would be change without releasing all of the data.
So Snowden went public because he wanted to counter what was so obviously a lie. Without an "inside man" to explain how things really worked the president could spin the story any way he wanted to. By being the face to the story, he made it very real to most Americans.
Have no doubt, he sacrificed himself for us. I don't know what else he does or his political views. I'm sure there are things about him I'd dislike or even hate. But if more of us could have a moment of clarity like he did, if we could do the right but painful thing that needed to be done more often, we'd all be better off.
People like to prattle on about the tree of liberty and refreshing it with the blood of patriots and tyrants; they always forget the part about the consequences of getting the short end of the stick being rather severe.
Do they forget? I've seen plenty of people recognize that Snowden could have done things to protect himself, but commend him for willing to make the sacrifice to put his own name and life on the line to back his message.
[slaps forehead smartly] Do you have any idea how blindingly obvious ALL of that crap is? No one with a functioning brainstem, and that includes Iran, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Russia, China, the King of Siam and the boogey man, is the least bit surprised that the NSA has been doing all that. The only red flag is the part about "tracking people whose movements [happen to] intersect", which, with the fact of an all-seeing eye scrutinizing every single person's life, is the whole point of Snowden's revelation of blatant unconstitutional overreaches.
Furthermore, mere revelation that the NSA has been engaged in those processes conveys no useful information whatsoever to any enemy of the US.
Jesus wept to think that so many people are getting hoodwinked by this crap.
Clearly any information that contradicts your preexisting conclusions must have been fabricated by the evil US government.
"Among other things, Snowden signed an oath, as a condition of his employment as an NSA contractor, not to disclose classified information, and knew the penalties for violating the oath."
The entire Wehrmacht swore an oath too. Breaking a pact with evil is no evil. I suppose you think Colonel von Stauffenburg was a traitor as well?
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
In a story as touchy as Snowden's, nothing is as simple as you make it out to be. Not your theory, not the GP's theory. There are probably thousands of strings being pulled as we converse on the subject, and we have no idea.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Do you need a reminder, what that "freedom-granting" nation does to its own defectors? It involves polonium poisoning. Rings a bell?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If I close my eyes, I can actually see pink bunnies running in a field of lily flowers. So peaceul. If only I could keep them shut.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
It's very simple. You have absolutely no evidence to back up your theory that the US government fabricated this story. You believe that's the case because it fits your existing worldview.
Is there any evidence at all that he had contact with Russia prior to ending up there? As far as I know, there isn't.
Yeah. I'll admit my memory of the topic isn't perfect, but I thought it was the folks at wikileaks that that were trying to help him and suggested Russia was the safest stopover point.
You are correct it was Wikileaks that bought him his plane tickets out of Hong Kong when China was looking like they were about to give him up to the US. Russia was supposed to just be a stop where he was supposed to get on a plane bound for Cuba then Ecuador. But the US state department revoked his passport preventing him from leaving the airport in Russia after sitting in the international lobby for weeks unable to leave, Russia gave him a one year grant of asylum. This is just a bunch of political propaganda to discredit Snowden.
Also remember the US forced a landing of the jet carrying the President of Bolivia because we thought that Snowden might be on board.
The only reason Snowden is in Russia is Because the US government has trapped him there.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
he set a personal example and proved this is something worth sacrificing yourself for.
i respect that. complete lunacy, but we do live in a crazy world.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
A government agent secretly posed as a government agent and promised that should he come to Russia he would come to no harm and be treated well.
And then he arrived and learned that the government agent that told him those things was allowed to lie about it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It is illegal to obey an illegal order and that includes orders to break the constitution, regardless of whether or not it is illegally written into law. It is already a matter of record that the ways of doing it properly were completely and utterly broken, especially when the NSA representatives including the head of the NSA publicly lied under oath. For which they have as yet failed to be charged for the crime committed on public record!!! Also note not, not one single individual has as yet to be charged for the huge level of criminal activity within the NSA. So pointing to laws in this case is to point to empty twaddle, completely and utterly meaningless where the administration, the agencies they command, and private for profit contractors all routinely broke laws and have all have been failed to be held accountable. Which of course also means the US Department of in-Justice is also now just as culpable.
Did a Russian agent trick Snowden, well based upon repeated demands the Snowden be murdered out of hand with out trial by many US politicians, not really, Snowden was destined to go there or remain in China or possibly South America. Would a Russia agent claim extra credit for Snowden, depends upon whether it is promotion time or not, if a promotion is in the offing you can pretty much guarantee it, just like any other spy vs spy type any where in the world (publicly bragging about it is rather questionable unless it was an act of misinformation). As for getting a copy of the data, if Snowden didn't have it, then Russia would simply buy a loose copy direct off one of the many private contractors, who has access to it. Don't forget that copy nabbed at the airport in the UK.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"Mr. Snowden's only real mistake was thinking that he was individually smart enough to take on these world powers and personally win, when in reality he's never going to be free from the machine."
Nothing I've read from Snowden indicates that he thought he would beat this. He knew the consequences and chose them anyway.
You're right. Evidence is for suckers.
I have a question for all you software developers, IT staffing and security experts. Has Snowden action changed anything in your work road maps or personal lives?
I can tell you that Snowden revealing all these secrets has changed nothing in my work or personal life and I can tell you that it is the case for most people. When I mention Snowden and what he did, most people are completely unaware of him and his actions. Why? I can only speculate that they can't be bothered to change their day to day or they just don't care that NSA knows everything about everything.
Please do not take this as a sign of disrespect towards Snowden as I believe the man is a modern day hero but I feel very little will change even after his huge sacrifice.
I don't see any need to invent anything beyond what's in the public domain:
Snowden reckons as Hong Kong as the most developed/politically-stable/safe place to be when the shitstorm blows up, from which extradition will be the least likely. Seems like a reasonable guess. If he'd been working with Russia, it'd be easier to go to Russia - they've extracted agents from the US before.
Say what you want about Russia (economy/industry/military) but they have a large, competent spy agency in the FSB. As soon as this blows up, they are certain to try and get some of their agents as close to Snowden as they can, just in case. I mean, they aren't going to sit back and watch CNN with an asset this big: they don't know what he has, but it's clear he's valuable given the noise the US is making.
Things unfold and it becomes clear China are not as resilient to US pressure as Snowden hoped, and he needs an exit. Cue FSB/SVR offering him a way out. They aren't going to announce themselves as "Hi! We're spys" but as diplomats, the time-honored cover for spying. But unless Snowdenn is naive (he's not) he would have been pretty clear that a spy agency was behind it: it's what they are for.
Now the FSB/SVR really want to rub it in to the US and there's few enough success stories they can bring to the Russian public these days. Spying tends to be secret. So spin the story this way. It's pretty close to the truth, except you make Snowden sound a dumber than he is. What do they care?
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
Snowden is a Russian spy! Listen to Darth Cheney!
"Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race." -Albert Einstein
So your a long since retired double agent KGB goon and "spy friends" are still spoon feeding you sensitive information 16 years after "fleeing Moscow" and subsequently making a living selling information to the west? Sure I can believe that...
Suppose I can also believe CIA had credible information on "yellow cake from Africa", aluminum tubes, Iraq working with Al Qaeda and NSA not "wittingly" collecting call records of everyone in the US.
There seems to be a concerted effort to smear Snowden in absence of any objective credible evidence. News media never pays a price for engaging in propagation of hearsay or propaganda.
Breaking News: Peter King is an FSB agent and a secret friend of the DPRK.
This is why I find this discussion so absurd.
If the US really was concerned about Snowden giving US secrets to Russia, why not reinstate his passport so he can leave? They're the reason he's stranded in Russia, not because Snowden wanted to go there.
Well, mostly because pretty much everything he has announced has been admitted to be true. I don't think I've seen any stories with Snowden-released information where it was disproven, although I could be wrong on that.
That is normal in deception campaigns. Release accurate information to build credibility so that the eventual strategic deception will be more likely to be believed. Don't read too much into past info being true, remain skeptical of each and every new piece of info when dealing intelligence agencies and people involved in that world.
For example in WW2 the British double agent Joan Pujol Garcia, "Garbo", had sent real info to the Germans for a while. This culminated with actually sending the Germans real info about the Normandy invasion immediately before the invasion, about 3am - as paratroopers were landing but several hours before the 6am beach invasion, too late for the German's to decode, process and use the info. However this solidified his credibility with the Germans with respect to having high level access to information, it was confirmed that he transmitted hours before the invasion. Then a couple of days later he sent info that the Normandy landing was a diversion and that the main forces were still in England getting ready to land at the Pas de Calais. Mr Garcia is credited with keeping 2 armored divisions and over 12 infantry divisions out of the battle at Normandy. Sending true information was key to the eventual big deception.
The US government is doing everything it can to make him a martyr.
Actually, they're doing everything they can try to NOT make him a martyr. If he's a martyr, it's makes the PR issue even worse, and can lead to others taking up his cause. They want to discredit him, turn public opinion against him, and then destroy him. (See: Julien Asagne)
They're the good guys, he's the bad guy, mission accomplished.
So we're allowed to have one?
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
How about directly linking to the article instead of the commentary?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Given that the Russian government is protecting him as much as they are, he handed some intelligence over to buy himself some time. That's the most likely manner in which they'd offer him protection.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
"I think he was right, the leaks carry more weight with a name behind them"
I think he should have used a cool-sounding pseudonym, like Deep Throat
The only people that should be protected is the people that end up catching, prosecuting, convicting, and carrying out the sentence on Snowden.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
There's no logical explanation, so it MUST be aliens.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/...
Snowden asserts that he brought no classified files with him when he left the US.
All he has is assumptions that are taken up by the pro-Snowden (and anti-America) choir.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Yes, but Congressman Mike Rogers said he was a Russian spy. Surely a US Congressman wouldn't lie about important stuff like that?
Well he is a spy, and he is in and talking to the Russians, so that's pretty much the definition. Snowden pretty much knows it's either co-operate or get your ass shot full of peanut oil before getting the dunk in ice water; so I doubt there will be anything that the Russians would want to know, that Snowden would be able to keep from them.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I did not express that opinion at all.
He is a "useful idiot" with a lot of information in his pocket. When they are finished with him, he is either going to be returned to the U.S or he is just going to "disappear" into the abyss.
Snowden's principal value to the Russians is for propaganda purposes, and this was the case all along. Making one's opponents look very bad is quite thoroughly valuable from a diplomacy perspective, since it persuades third parties (e.g., most of Latin America and Africa) to be more receptive to your message.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Never mind that he would have a price on his head no matter where he walked.
He's effectively open season for anyone that wants him gone.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Because as far as the general public, rather than pro-Snowden minority is concerned, he gave us concrete evidence that he betrayed his country and that's all that matters is that we are getting fucked as long as he's not prosecuted or otherwise handled.
Fixing that for you.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Oh look, the Chewbacca defense.
Good-bye
Also, I don't see any reason for Russia to have any interests in Snowden's intelligence.
On the contrary, I see 2 reasons NOT to:
- Russia probably knows most of this already. That's the country with FSB/KGB/etc.: They've been at this spying game for a long time and have a lot of experience. If a lone guy like Edward can pull such an operation without much help, imagin what Russia could do with way more ressources. (Ditto for China).
- Because he's known, it would be a diplomatic problem to openly use snowden as an intelligence source. better not touch him even with a 10-foot-pole and rely on their own (better funded, better trained) spy force.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You realize I'm not the GGP and that I didn't take sides, right? I don't have a theory.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Funny, I must have missed the part where Hong Kong is an independent country. (Hint: It isn't.)
While Hong Kong does have a high degree of autonomy, they have no control over the political policy regarding foreign affairs, while they have as much control as the mainland feels like allowing over economic affairs. I guarantee the PRC took direct control of the "Snowden Situation".
Instead of flying from Honolulu to Hong Kong, there are any number of Western European states he could have flown to prior to going public. Once there, he could have happily Schengen'd himself nearly anywhere in Western Europe at will, as there are precisely zero border checks within the Schengen agreement. It would be fairly easy to hide for months.
I expect the NSA figured out the source of the leaks within 24 hours, as a simple check of passenger manifests showing an unauthorized trip by an NSA clearance-holder to Hong Kong would have been pretty damning. If, on the other hand, he had merely told his boss he was going on a long vacation to Europe, it would have been a while before they were able to pin it on him.
I can't say Western Europe would have been safe indefinitely, but he would have had much more time and more options than HK and Russia.
another nation's government wants to lock him up for what he can do for them
I haven't seen any evidence of that. He's been in Russia for some time now, living a fairly normal life by all accounts. Him just being alive, and free (within Russia's borders; obviously they have no control over how other countries treat him), and popping up in the media now and then serves them quite well since it's a thorn in the side of the US and makes the US government look bad.
But the US state department revoked his passport preventing him from leaving the airport in Russia after sitting in the international lobby for weeks unable to leave, Russia gave him a one year grant of asylum.
Lack of a passport wouldn't stop him from traveling. Just like Russia granted him travel papers to go from the international lobby into Russia proper, any other country could have done the same, but the US made it clear there was nowhere he could go. They did the equivalent of grounding Air Force One to search it for Snowden. Had that happened to the US done by Ecuador, it would have been considered an act of war. But the US violates international law with impunity.
There doesn't look to be any direct flights from Hong Kong to South America (they land in Australia, Mexico, or the USA). So he had to fly west to avoid a US controlled destination.
Learn to love Alaska
The US government's actions have not been consistent with their statements. They wanted Snowden out of Russia, but revoked his travel papers, making that increasingly difficult. The US lied about the content of what Snowden was revealing. The US government has been caught in numerous lies. What proof do you have that the proven liar is telling the truth this time?
Learn to love Alaska
No, you carefully worded your words to say nothing while attacking others. What, do you work for the government? You sound like you should.
Learn to love Alaska
Jesus wept to think that so many people are getting hoodwinked by this crap.
mpercy wasn't hoodwinked by anything. That account is astroturfing and the original owner may or may not even be involved. That post was packed from one end to the other with the Party Line, in every detail. It's meant to affect the thinking of people reading it. I should say, it's meant to damage the thinking of people reading it. It's disinformation/spin/propaganda. Call it what you like. I call it bullshit.
Instead of flying from Honolulu to Hong Kong, there are any number of Western European states he could have flown to prior to going public.
You forget over whose airspace the Bolivian president's plane was forced down. He knew damn well any western European nation would have fallen all over itself to rush him into US custody, preferably secretly.
Flying to a nominal US adversary and ending up in an actual US adversary was his only option. US allies are obviously eager to break their own laws and their own human rights treaties if the US government says so.
I grew up in the cold war believing that the "bad guys" were all communists and the Russians were baddest of the bad.
After the Berlin Wall collapsed and East/West made up a new enemy was announced and Islam and the Taliban became the new fashion in Western media's world evil.
Now we see negotiations with the Taliban, prisoners exchanged, troop withdrawals, etc.
Look who's the bad guy again.
Just today I was reading an interesting BBC article on medieval armed combat (trying to get away from the usual media junk food politics).
Yet even in that article the journalist managed to turn it into negative piece on Russia.
Ex-KGB Major Boris Karpichko and current mouthpiece for MI5 attempts to discredit Edward Snowden .. and the name should be 'Karpichkov'
--
PROTHERO: Do you believe this crap, Dascombe?
DASCOMBE: It's not our job to believe it, Lewis. Our job is to tell the people --
--
V for Vendetta (2005)
By your same logic, you also have no evidence to back up your theory that the US did not fabricate this story. Besides, the whole article is based in speculation and when it comes to Snowden the facts quickly go down the drain.
Like something out of a bad spy novel, take one disgruntled security worker who has managed to end up alone and with a lot of people out to get him, and you send somebody to be his buddy. Sometimes a girl with boobs too big and a skirt too short. Sometimes it's friendly uncle Boris, you know, how loves the foote-ball like you do, heh heh heh, on big screens of tele the vision, heh heh heh.
Oh honey, I completely understand, you just want to do the right thing for all people. And those bad old Americans just don't understand you like I do. Must be so sad being alone. Awwwww. But I know some friends who have a place you can stay, hide out, relax, have a little ffffuuunnnn, giggle, look at my spectacular rack (and I don't mean server rack) so why don't you come to Moscow with me, huh honey?
Of course the friends turn out to be really quite nice, and Boris really does have a big TV and the girl agent really wants to be his girlfriend forever. And they all live happily ever after in lives of completely moral, monetary, and sexual fulfilment.
Sure they do.
Everybody in life is trying to use you for something. Nothing is free. Some offer money in exchange for work. If you do it at desk or on your back in a bed, it's still just a trade: they use you in exchange for something. And the more they offer, the more strings are attached. When they promise exactly what you happen to want, there's going to be a very big price attached even if you refuse to believe it. Nothing is free, not even information. Nothing.
Sig for hire.
If this happened the way Boris Karpichko tells us, what is Russia's interest to brag about it?
Those whistleblower channels? He did know about them - and what had happened to those who tried to utilize them (Drake, Binney, et al). Don't sit back and wait for "reports" to be handed to you, do your own research (unless you enjoy the smell of soap-scented paper).
As for the GP's suggestion that he should just suck it up and serve some prison time - what? Really, what? The US government tortured Manning with solitary for almost a year - before Manning was even convicted - and Manning had less on their dirty laundry compared to Snowden:
When constitutional violations are known to be institutional, when the known reactions of your government are to persecute those who follow channels and torture those who don't, what would you do?
So you shouldn't be protected.
I'll drink to that.
Probably GCHQ in the UK, although given how closely they work with the NSA I'm not sure there's a substantive difference.
Yes. I secretly work for the CIA.
I am not a citizen of the U.S. Never have been and I don't plan to be one at any time in the future. What you don't realize is that Russia most likely are paying Snowden for his trouble. There is no such thing as free meal in the spy world. That rule clearly applies in this case.
Russia did go into great length into housing Snowden. They do want there investment returned in some form.
Snowden - 1
CIA . . . . - 0
KGB . . . - ~0.7
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
And *quotation marks* are for words used as ironically/sarcastically as the word "evidence" was, by you, sir, in that pre I previous post. Good day!
-- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
So, it was you all the time, eh?
-- 29A the number of the Beast
Is there any evidence at all that he had contact with Russia prior to ending up there? As far as I know, there isn't.
Yeah. I'll admit my memory of the topic isn't perfect, but I thought it was the folks at wikileaks that that were trying to help him and suggested Russia was the safest stopover point.
You are correct it was Wikileaks that bought him his plane tickets out of Hong Kong when China was looking like they were about to give him up to the US. Russia was supposed to just be a stop where he was supposed to get on a plane bound for Cuba then Ecuador. But the US state department revoked his passport preventing him from leaving the airport in Russia after sitting in the international lobby for weeks unable to leave, Russia gave him a one year grant of asylum. This is just a bunch of political propaganda to discredit Snowden.
Also remember the US forced a landing of the jet carrying the President of Bolivia because we thought that Snowden might be on board.
The only reason Snowden is in Russia is Because the US government has trapped him there.
You guys should realize that live in Russia is not at all bad. Particularly for an educated person. My son worked 10yrs in USA, moved to Latvia (marriage), and after learning Russian, applied to several international companies there. Job prospects were great. He accepted an offer for Moscow, but his wife refused to relocate there, and that kaboshed that opportunity. Salaries, when you factor in Free quality medicare, is comparable to that earned by an MBA with 15 years management experience.
Good food, one month vacations, great vacation areas. Negative -- cost of housing, if you want an independent house, like a cottage or bungalow.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
This is why I find this discussion so absurd.
If the US really was concerned about Snowden giving US secrets to Russia, why not reinstate his passport so he can leave? They're the reason he's stranded in Russia, not because Snowden wanted to go there.
Can this happen? Russia allows Snowdon as a landed immigrant. After the probationary period, he receives citizenship and a new passport. He will then be able legally to change his name. And by that time, he may also be married and living a happy married life.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Not to mention that it's SUPER STUPID.
The Russians don't need Snowden's data to learn that the NSA is spying on Americans. There is likely nothing useful in his data for Russia. They want to steal technology and wealth for their corporations, perhaps in the same way that might be going on behind the scenes here; picking the winners and losers and people in power scratching each other's back -- we have no way of knowing how this information is abused.
What we DO KNOW from Wikileaks document dumps, is that any spying agency can just buy all the info they need about Americans from the contractors -- they can just buy huge databases of information.
Spying isn't for the interests of the nations anymore -- this is a quaint old story. It's corporations trying to get advantages over other corporations and paying off government to do it. The only "secret" they worry about is that the various people of these countries figure out it's just the haves verses the have nots and Russia really isn't worried about destabilizing our government or we theirs. These militaries are only to procure resources and get cheap labor -- not much else.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Well the smart people were on Snowden's side because they suspected that the NSA was doing these things and they understand how it can ruin a Democracy.
And the dumb people were against Snowden because he popped their little bubble of plausible deniability.
The world used to be a lot of shades of gray for me, but it's thoughtful that all the morons, evil doers twiddling their mustaches and douche bags are lining up to get on the same team. I'm waiting for one of these guys to do a villain laugh on TV and scream; "Fools!"
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"