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House Committee: Edward Snowden's Leaks Did 'Tremendous Damage' (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The U.S. House intelligence committee on Thursday unanimously approved a blistering report on the activities of Edward Snowden, saying his disclosures of top-secret documents and programs did "tremendous damage" to national security. "The public narrative popularized by Snowden and his allies is rife with falsehoods, exaggerations, and crucial omissions," said the report by staff members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Contrary to Snowden's statements that he intended to reveal programs that intruded on the privacy of Americans, the House report concluded that the vast majority of the 1.5 million documents he stole "have nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests. They instead pertain to military, defense, and intelligence programs of great interest to America's adversaries." The report said Snowden did not, as he claimed, try to express his concerns about potentially illegal intelligence gathering in a way that would qualify him as a whistleblower. The report was disputed by Snowden's ACLU-provided attorney. "This is a dishonest report that attempts to discredit a genuine American hero," said Wizner. "But after years of 'investigation,' the committee still can't point to any remotely credible evidence that Snowden's disclosures caused harm. The truth is that Edward Snowden and the journalists with whom he worked did the job that the House Intelligence Committee was supposed to do: bring meaningful oversight to the U.S. Intelligence community. They did so responsibly and carefully, and their efforts have led to historic reforms."
Anything that ass fucks the government is right as rain for me.
the government doesn't hesitate to ass fuck you every chance it gets.
too bad those that we trusted to uphold the constitution failed us SO MISERABLY.
even their lies are transparent and shameless.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Provided a vital service to all people of the world and deserves a presidential pardon, post haste.
The US government is the villain and Snowden is the hero. Nothing but a full presidential pardon will be acceptable. Heck, I'll sleep on my couch and he can move into my bedroom, for free.
Naw, that's just ridiculous. Snowden is not stupid and he did not keep the stuff with him. Nor can he possibly recall everything he saw, though he would make up some great stuff with a bit of torture.
Putin likes Snowden on the loose because that embarrasses the heck out of America. (Well, more like a leash than the loose.) His intelligence value is negligible, but the political embarrassment is priceless.
If Snowden became a nuisance to Putin, then he would be disposed of instantly, and without any regard to possible gratitude for any information he had brought with him. You can bet Snowden is smart enough to know that and is not going to do anything to piss off Putin. He may still get thrown back to the States if Putin decides it is politically expedient.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Snowden did do our government a disservice when he posted those documents online. What the report didn't state was that our government did the US people a HUGE disservice when they acted as they did to force his hand. Torture of POW's ? The violation of US laws to support US interests. The means does not justify the end and just because they chose to take the acts out of the US doesn't absolve them of the guilt.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I'll save you the time - the article is devoid of any reference to what "tremendous damage" was done.
Bullfucking shit. Snowden's leaks did no such thing. It was you god damn bastards illegally spying on American citizens and foreign citizens that did the damage. If I had my way I would fly Snowden back here and pin a medal on his ass.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
If the NSA does not want the hassle of whistleblowers, then it should simply follow the law.
Contractors reputations as they design, build and service vast illegal domestic spying systems?
The well educated staff at US computer brands that allowed the US gov and mil to get plain text from their best encryption efforts globally? PRISM
The top academics that hid the junk quality encryption systems and educated generations into thinking decades of US junk standards was best practice?
The political leadership that never kept up with the findings of the Church Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... on the domestic actions of the NSA, GCHQ and CIA?
The fourth estate, the media, the press, the profession mentioned in the US Constitution that could not like reporting on junk encryption, total domestic collection?
Lawyers who never bothered to uncover the true origins of their cases based on illegal domestic spying and parallel construction over the decades?
The US hardware manufactures than shipped junk hardware with weak encryption over generations of product lines?
The weaknesses in wifi that allow OVERHEAD to capture all and exposed all wifi users to more poor quality networking standards?
Not seeing a lot of harm, just generations of people who designed and shipped junk globally or never bothered to publish any findings or solutions.
Decades of junk hardware and software has now left networks around the world wide open.
The damage was in the practice of collect it all. Now academics, the private sector and smarter staff working for real brands can start fixing decades of plain text access to networks than anyone could enjoy thanks to decades of policy and global exports.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
...the House report concluded that the vast majority of the 1.5 million documents he stole "have nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests. They instead pertain to military, defense, and intelligence programs of great interest to America's adversaries."
Since when did they know what Snowden copied? The NSA publicly stated they don't know what he got and had no way of knowing. Their systems were wide open to administrators, and they said as much. So... were they lying then or are they lying now?
Considering who was speaking then and now, I say they're lying now. They don't know what or how much he got. They're just making shit up. The 1.5 million is at best a probability, but is most likely a wild-ass guess. Anybody who has worked in any human enterprise for a few years knows that the whole system runs on WAGs, and where engineers and mathematicians refuse to guess, outright lies. There is a lot less certainty in the world than anyone in power wants to admit.
And this report? Pure gamemanship, waiting in the wings for precisely this moment when Congress knew that the ACLU would be pushing for a pardon. Now the talking heads have something to babble about, to drown out the ACLU. There doesn't have to be a true word in it for it to serve its purpose. House Intelligence Committee? There isn't a true word in it. Even the bylines are lies. It was written by spooks for spooks, not by Congress or congressional aids.
I think there is a very high likelihood that Snowden just leaked everything he stole (i.e. Russia doesn't have access to anything from Snowden that isn't already public). Why would Russia help Snowden? Let's look at some pros and cons for Russia helping Snowden even if they didn't get any additional information.
Pros:
Russia can troll the USA by...
1. claiming to be more transparent and free than the USA
2. by obstructing our justice system.
3. by giving a platform to a famous person critical of the USA.
4. Russia can make our intelligence agencies unsure of what if any additional information (even if it's nothing).
5. Russia can have a bargaining chip with the USA if they ever want something from us.
Just to name a few things I just thought of.
Cons:
1. Russia needs to pay for Snowden's food and lodging.
He did give it to the enemy, as you stated:
For this service, the government has charged Snowden under the World War I-era Espionage Act [freedom.press]. Yet Snowden did not sell information secretly to any enemy of America. Instead, he shared it openly through the press with the American people.
If you haven’t already noticed, the American people are the enemy
one way or the other. Claiming their was "tremendous damage" doesn't mean there was any, or that it was indeed "tremendous". It just means you slapped an adjective onto your claim. By the same token calling someone a "hero" doesn't change anything about his actions; nor does calling him a "traitor". You shouldn't get a different set of rules based on whether your nametag has a smiley face on it or a frowny face.
Be especially wary of statements like this:
The Committee found no evidence that Snowden took any official effort to express concerns about U.S. intelligence activities — legal, moral, or otherwise — to any oversight officials within the U.S. government, despite numerous avenues for him to do so.
It sounds damning, but it really depends among other things on where those "official" channels lead to. If they lead to the people who are responsible for the situation he was blowing the whistle on, it's a meaningless condemnation.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
They claim that it caused damage, but they didn't clarify what the damage was specifically.
It looks like too many were figuratively caught with their pants down when on the loo and then they got embarrassed by that.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Unfortunately, the US gov't now considers and treats the American people as "the enemy".
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
1. Russia needs to pay for Snowden's food and lodging.
[citation needed], Russia doesn't pay him anything. They merely allow him to live in Russia.