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."

Comments

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Try living somewhere with no government and report back to us. That is if you get out alive.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Try living somewhere free and tell me you want to go back to the "freedom" in the USA.

Re:Good

[Gadget_Guy]

Try living somewhere with no government and report back to us. That is if you get out alive.

So you think the only alternative to a government that tramples over the rights of the citizens is no government at all? Did it not even occur to you that it might be nice to have a law-abiding, privacy-respecting government?

Just because "it could be worse" does not give the government permission to do whatever they want.

Re:Good

[JaredOfEuropa]

That's the same false "choice" being suggested in Europe: we are offered a choice between *this* EU, with lack of democratic oversight, officials that are appointed rather than elected, and drunken would-be despots like Juncker in charge... or no EU, which means war (which was the thread made during several EU related referenda: vote against, and "the lights will go out")

This is the same thing: suggesting that a government with sweeping powers to spy on and control its citizens is the only alternative to anarchy and chaos, and that Snowden's actions threatened the stability brought about by the Panopticon.

Re:Good

[silentcoder]

Mogadishu has not government to speak off. There's a group who claim to be the government but since they have no more power than any of the other corporations^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwarlords around this claim is fairly meaningless. There's no official taxation or law enforcement to speak off anyway.
What there is, is everything the world has always had before there was taxes and police and will always have where those are absent - warlords, slavers and absolute-rule-by-the-richest - the only thing making things slightly bearable to the average person being the amount of time the rich spend fighting each other - which would be even more useful if the bullet-fodder in their wars were not you.

That said there is actually an entire continent with no government at all - not even one that only exists on paper. It's called Antarctica. Not a lot of resources, terrible farming conditions... oh and there's that international treaty to ban anybody from claiming ownership of it or try to rule it but if you can get there, it's isolated enough nobody's going to bother to come take you away by force. At least if you stay far from the few research stations in the are. You'll pretty much have to hunt penguins and seals for food and how you're going to avoid scurvy I have no idea.

So year, places without government do exist. If you can't handle them - then what makes you think everybody^H^H^H^H^H^Hanybody else wants that ?

Re:Good

[silentcoder]

Yet another American who doesn't know the difference between the EU, EC and Eurozone.

He seems to think the EU came to be when the Eurozone was instituted with a common currency.

So to help him out:
The EU as an idea was born in 1948 after World War 2 and the long, slow diplomatic process of establishing it began then.
The precursor of the EU were the European Coal and Steel Community which was form in 1951.
In 1957 the Treaty of Rome was signed which in 1958 became the European Economic Community, which consisted of the 6 original members including Germany and France.
In 1965 the 3 market communities that made up the EEC was merged together to use a single set of institutions (courts and such) and this became known as the European Communities.
By 1973 this had enlarged significantly and in 1979 the first direct elections to the European Parliament happened.
The EU effectively reached it's current form in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union when East-Germany and other East-block nations started joining.

But in effect the EU dates back to 1948. And you may have noticed the absence of any major European landwars after world war 2 - the EU was created to avoid that, and in that regard at least, it has succeeded.

It's also weird that me, an African, seem to understand EU structures better than the parent poster - in fact the EU is one of the most democratic systems on earth. The European Parliament members are elected by voters in member nations. The EU holds referendums on any major issues allowing voters to override their representatives (in this regard it's more democratic than America where referendums are extremely rare events). Essentially the EU is much like the US Federal government with memberstate governments no unlike US state governments - but significantly more powerful and with a very direct say in EU governance, which state governments in the US don't get.
The parent poster, like so many others, confuses the EC for the EU and calls the EU undemocratic, which it decidedly is not. The EC is not democratic, but the EC is also not a government - it's an economic management commission that reports to the parliament. It's powers are strictly limited to purely economic matters: the currency, trade regulations and common standards.
In effect, the EC's closest US counterpart would be the Federal Reserve Bank and the Treasury, neither of which is democratic THERE either - because it makes no sense for such institutions to be democratic. They need appointed experts who know what they are doing, not people good at winning elections and importantly they must be run by people who don't worry about winning re-election because such institutions *have* to be able to make unpopular choices at times.

Currently the EC is pushing austerity measures very hard - all the economics say this is a terrible idea but the current set of commissioners are sold on it. There is huge public unhappiness about this. But they are able to do this, which they believe is required to keep the economy functioning, despite the opposition. Now of course, the problem with experts being able to do unpopular things is that sometimes they do things which are unpopular because they are wrong. But that's still better than doing what's popular because it's popular - a great way to destroy an economy rapidly. It's not ideal, but it's also the best system we have for these things and until somebody invents something better - every other idea is even worse.

So no, calling the EU undemocratic is fundamentally ignorant. Confusing the EC with it's extremely limited powers undemocratic would be true - but meaningless.

Re:Good

[Z80a]

The government is an service elected by the population to perform tasks that neither the population nor corporations can't do well or in a fair way, and is indeed a necessary piece of the system.

But if the population disagrees with the actions of the goverment, they should have the right to change it, radically and even rewrite the system if needed as easy as for example you should be able to fire your gardener for spying on you and selling your data to google.

Re:Good

[umghhh]

Two things.:
Assuming that GP was born in US means that asking them to live because they think their gov is dishonest and not interested in their well being is at least as dishonest as the US gov is.
The other thing is this. Complaining about own government does not mean that all government is bad and has to be abandoned. I do not read that in GP post either. So how the fuck did you arrive on that conclusion is beyond me. MOst of governments do evil things either because of incompetence or negligence or because of bd will. It seems to me that the amount of bad will in US gov. is quite overwhelming. More they say they support democracy, more I get afraid this shit will hurt me in some way.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately I never obtained a Slashdot ID, so I have to post as an AC, but this post is full of factual inaccuracies and outright errors.
Let's start:

Yet another American who doesn't know the difference between the EU, EC and Eurozone.

He seems to think the EU came to be when the Eurozone was instituted with a common currency.

So to help him out:

Well, you could start by toning down the arrogant attitude: it isn't an American's job to understand the EU or the Euro zone and you yourself haven't really understood it either.

The EU as an idea was born in 1948 after World War 2 and the long, slow diplomatic process of establishing it began then.
The precursor of the EU were the European Coal and Steel Community which was form in 1951.
In 1957 the Treaty of Rome was signed which in 1958 became the European Economic Community, which consisted of the 6 original members including Germany and France.
In 1965 the 3 market communities that made up the EEC was merged together to use a single set of institutions (courts and such) and this became known as the European Communities.
By 1973 this had enlarged significantly and in 1979 the first direct elections to the European Parliament happened.
The EU effectively reached it's current form in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union when East-Germany and other East-block nations started joining.

But in effect the EU dates back to 1948.

The EU (European Union) took shape after the treaty of Maastricht in 1992. Before that, there was the EEC, which was the European Economic Community, a rather different, substantially less political beast. Note the bold face: the EEC was a primarily economic idea.

And you may have noticed the absence of any major European landwars after world war 2 - the EU was created to avoid that, and in that regard at least, it has succeeded.

Wrong. The EU was not created to end European wars. That was NATO's job; that's why NATO was created. The reason why we haven't had a major war in Europe is due in major part to American military presence to counter Soviet aggression after World War II and of course to the creation of NATO.
The EEC was a side-note here: it made a major war between European countries less likely by promoting the integration of their economies and raising the bar to wanting to start a war. The EEC did not prevent any war in Europe.

It's also weird that me, an African, seem to understand EU structures better than the parent poster - in fact the EU is one of the most democratic systems on earth.

While the EU is democratic, it does have very significant democratic deficits. Calling it 'one of the most democratic' systems is quite a stretch.

The European Parliament members are elected by voters in member nations.

Correct, but the European Parliament has very little actual powers. The real power is wielded by the European Commission, which is appointed. This is what bothers so many people.

The EU holds referendums on any major issues allowing voters to override their representatives (in this regard it's more democratic than America where referendums are extremely rare events).

The EU does no such thing. National governments can call referendums, the EU cannot.

Essentially the EU is much like the US Federal government with memberstate governments no unlike US state governments - but significantly more powerful and with a very direct say in EU governance, which state governments in the US don't get.
The parent poster, like so many others, confuses the EC for the EU and calls the EU undemocratic, which it decidedly is not. The EC is not democratic, but the EC is also not a government - it's an economic management commission that reports to the parliament. It's powers are strictly limited to purely economic matters

Re:Good

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That might be the theory, but things don't always work that way in practice.

The reality is that most of the real power still lies in the EU infrastructure outside the Parliament. When you see news about a big business being chased for a fortune in taxes or investigated for their behaviour, it's not an MEP announcing it. When yet more expansion of copyright is being introduced or VAT changes that will hurt small businesses across the EU are being made, it's not an MEP driving through these measures. Negotiations on major trade deals are carried out behind closed doors, and even MEPs have had extreme restrictions put on them so they can't scrutinize the process effectively. It wasn't an MEP giving a big speech this week calling for a European military force. It isn't MEPs who are going to be negotiating on the terms of any post-Brexit deal.

I'm not sure which EC you meant in the latter parts of your post, but if it was the Commission then the closest counterpart in the US would be the executive branch of the federal government. The unelected Commission is somewhat like having the President of the United States chosen by part of Congress using some secretive process no-one really understands, having each state's government nominate one person with no democratic accountability to become a cabinet secretary, and then giving Congress an option to object but only by blocking the entire group and starting over.

Re: Good

[dwillden]

No he did not do the exact same thing with his server. He did not put classified information onto his private email, which was a commercial service and was allowed at the time he was Sec State. A couple emails were determined to contain information that was classified after they were sent but no data that was classified at the time he sent it was sent over his private email service.

In contrast 8 communication chains contained information that was classified as TOP SECRET at the time she sent the emails, over 100 contained SECRET information considered such at the time the emails were sent.

You are right that her crimes do not amount to Treason, but they are none the less felonies. Felonies that, contrary to Dir Comey's statement, do not require intent. If entrusted with classified information you are required by law to know when and how to protect it and mishandling is a felony, failure to protect is another felony. Neither of those require intent. However transferring TOPSECRET info from the physically separate network and computer systems to her unclassified system cannot in anyway be a negligent act. You don't do that. Air-gapping is always an intentional act which carries a greater penalty than the mishandling and failure to protect crimes. She needs to be indicted, not running for President.

liars gonna lie

[TheGratefulNet]

too bad those that we trusted to uphold the constitution failed us SO MISERABLY.

even their lies are transparent and shameless.

Re:liars gonna lie

[HBI]

Oh, I think they are actually telling the truth when they say Snowden did them "tremendous damage". He gave away methodologies, which benefited us all, but caused harm to the intelligence gathering efforts they are making reference to.

His attorney is taking quite the wrong tack here, and instead should have criticized the program rather than differed with their characterization. Everyone knows the characterization is quite true if you are fan of constant surveillance of the citizenry.

Re:liars gonna lie

[thestuckmud]

Technically the NSA was not doing anything illegal with it's efforts to collect call meta data because they were not specifically barred from doing so.

The problem here is that NSA is a foreign intelligence agency, specifically prohibited from domestic intelligence collecting. So, it actually takes a great deal of effort to justify wholesale collection of data on US citizens by the NSA. The way they did it was by redefining the meaning of "collected" so that it no longer refers to data acquired through surveillance. Only data viewed by an NSA analyst is consideder "collected" under this scheme. Brilliant!

Of course, our foreign partners at GCHQ are said to have unfettered access to this trove of data, which remain conveniently uncollected until NSA sees it.

To make matters worse, this Orwellian justification for extra-legal domestic surveillance was kept secret from both the public at large and most of Congress. And top intelligence officials (I'm thinking about DNI James Clapper) lied to Congress about it when asked.

"Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."

-- George Orwell, 1984

Re:liars gonna lie

[rtb61]

Keep in mind he exposed a global crime spree by a criminal organisation that broke laws on every single country on the planet. We are literately talking about tens of millions of crimes being committed by that corrupt organisation. The core intent of the crimes, the total control of the planet and turning it into a slave nation via a permanent state of political blackmail. Really sick stuff.

Inherently electoral laws, the prime laws when it comes to democracy were broken upon a massive scale. Corrupt politicians and government officials were seeking to keep secret their criminal activities at tax payer expense when they knew full well those secrets would have a huge bearing upon the voters decisions. Wake up, we do not serve government, the government is our institution meant to serve us and tell us the truth, so we can choose whether or not to replace them at the next election based upon their true actions during their time in office. It is against the constitution and electoral laws for the government to keep secrets and lie to us when that would have an impact on elections.

Re:liars gonna lie

[dgatwood]

Technically the NSA was not doing anything illegal with it's efforts to collect call meta data because they were not specifically barred from doing so.

You mean except by that pesky thing called the fourth amendment, where it says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized," I assume.... That specifically bars them from doing so.

The term "papers" as used in the fourth amendment referred to all forms of non-face-to-face communication. At the time the Constitution was authored, the current state of technology limited the forms of such communication to printed matter, such as pamphlets and snail mail (as affirmed in Ex Parte Jackson, 1876).

These days, private long-distance communication can also take the form of phone calls, Internet communication, and so on. These new forms of "papers" are fundamentally the same sort of construct as personal papers and letters—the very things that the fourth amendment was explicitly designed to protect. As such, there is absolutely no plausible legal reasoning by which one could rationally argue that these newer forms of papers should be treated differently from the forms that existed when the Constitution was created, for precisely the same reason that your Internet communication and phone calls are protected under freedom of speech laws even though they are being carried over wires as a series of ones and zeroes—something that the Founding Fathers would never have understood as being speech at the time.

Therefore, it should be clear to any reasonable person that third-party doctrine is fundamentally flawed reasoning. Any argument to the contrary must involve some plausible reason why the law should treat a company's personal papers (telephone logs) differently than your own.

Re:liars gonna lie

[HBI]

What part of the Constitution bans online surveillance? You're going to rely on the definition of 'unreasonable' in the Fourth Amendment here? Unreasonable means different things to different people.

A bit of self-awareness is required here. I don't think anything in existing US law actually rules out the surveillance program. And thinking that it should be illegal is great, but pretending that there's something in law to stop it when it expressly isn't the case is just delusional, and totally ineffective in getting it changed.

Edward Snowden Leaks

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The other side of the coin

[shanen]

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.

Chelsea Manning

[Anonymous Coward]

CHELSEA MANNING should also receive a FULL pardon from President BARAK OBAMA. She is being tortured by the US Navy and is being DENIED access to her attorney and the internet and a cell phone and a laptop. She is also being force-fed through a tube because she refused to eat because she is being treated unjustly and has come down with several throat infections. When you forcefully shove a tube down someones throat, this causes irritation and ultimately leads to infection. She is denied linen and clothing and lives with a bright halogen light on in her cell 24 hours a day. SHE IS BEING TORTURED. What is America going to do about this???

They are right

[Archfeld]

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.

Re:They are right

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowden didn't post any documents online. That is what Manning did. Snowden gave his documents to journalists that reviewed them and release curtailed information.

[citation needed]

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll save you the time - the article is devoid of any reference to what "tremendous damage" was done.

Re:[citation needed]

[zugmeister]

Sure wish I could mod you up. First thing I thought when I read TFS was "Ok, so did they just make claims or did they back them up with verifiable evidence?". Well, that's about what I expected...

Re:[citation needed]

[cbhacking]

Yeah, it's just like those "blood on his hands" lies they keep spouting; there's no actual evidence of harm, but they seem to think we're not going to notice this.

No it didn't

[Lord Apathy]

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.

Re:No it didn't

[TiggertheMad]

If I had my way, I'd hang the architects of the domestic spying program for treason. Those are the real traitors to the country. It is the only punishment that is justified by such a monstrous crime.

maybe we need "pardon snowden" rallies?

[wierd_w]

This is an election year. they wont dare be authoritarian against such rallies. it would force them to eat the crow.

But we'd have to kill you

[Tablizer]

[House Committee claims] documents he stole "have nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests. They instead pertain to military, defense, and intelligence ... The report was disputed by Snowden's ACLU-provided attorney [who said] the committee still can't point to any remotely credible evidence that Snowden's disclosures caused harm.

I'll bet the House's rebuttal to ACLU is, "it did, but the harm is too secret to show you."

For example, maybe Putin now has our Roswell technology?

It's okay, we already swiped their 1908 Tunguska Saucer crash tech. Share and share alike.

Whistleblowers Happen When the Gov Violates Law

[silvergeek]

If the NSA does not want the hassle of whistleblowers, then it should simply follow the law.

Re:Whistleblowers Happen When the Gov Violates Law

[wierd_w]

because laws are for the governed, no the governors.

those that embarass the govenors are traitors, because the governed are the natural enemies of the governors, and one must be among the elite to get such dirt to share.

this is very simple to understnd.

Re:Whistleblowers Happen When the Gov Violates Law

[swillden]

If the NSA does not want the hassle of whistleblowers, then it should simply follow the law.

"Simply follow the law" isn't really good enough, because people who want to justify their actions can almost always construe the law in their favor. The NSA is an excellent case in point: they simply determined that "collected" meant "looked at by a human", leaving them free to hoover up everything and to process it all electronically, presenting it to human eyes only when they could be reasonably certain that it involved something they were authorized to "collect". That's a rather ludicrous definition of "collect" but everyone wanted to accept it, the people in power got attorneys to say it in writing, and off they went, all quite convinced that they were following the law.

No organization of humans can be trusted to follow a set of rules they'd like to work around unless there is oversight. Government employees are quite scrupulous about following the law as they understand it, but without oversight they have a tremendous amount of flexibility in how they interpret it.

We task Congress with the job of overseeing the actions of our intelligence organizations, which makes them directly culpable for any creative interpretations of the law. This seems ideal, since you'd expect the body that makes the law to be the best possible authority on what it actually means. But what happened was that Congress, and in particular the House and Senate intelligence committees failed utterly at doing their job.

Snowden showed the world how badly those committees had failed. We shouldn't be surprised that their response is to excoriate him, because the alternative is to castigate themselves and they're not going to do that, especially not in an election year.

Who to?

[AHuxley]

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.

Damage to Whom?

[WillAffleckUW]

To the Unconstitutional and Illegal actions of the NSA against American citizens in our own country?

To the terrorist creating Saudis, Yemenis, and Pakistanis who continue to create terrorism worldwide today but pretend to be our "allies"?

Look, I knew directly about what they were doing since the 1980s. Your gorvernment is still lying to you, and still ignoring the US Constitution.

Show of hands

[nehumanuscrede]

With whom would you place your trust ?

Mr. Snowden or ANY member of our bought and paid for leadership ?

Dead simple answer for me. No matter what they claim he did, his actions had a more positive impact for this country than all of those buffoons combined.

The only thing a polititian does is for the benefit of a polititian. Period.

1.5 million documents?

[Areyoukiddingme]

...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.

Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pardon

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden

Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and is the author of 12 novels, including The Detachment

He let Americans evaluate omniscient domestic surveillance for themselves

This week, Edward Snowden, multiple human rights and civil rights groups, and a broad array of American citizens asked President Obama to exercise his Constitutional power to pardon Snowden. As a former CIA officer, I wholeheartedly support a full presidential pardon for this brave whistleblower.

All nations require some secrecy. But in a democracy, where the government is accountable to the people, transparency should be the default; secrecy, the exception. And this is especially true regarding the implementation of an unprecedented system of domestic bulk surveillance, a mere precursor of which Senator Frank Church warned 40 years ago could lead to the eradication of privacy and the imposition of “total tyranny.”

That today we are engaged in a meaningful debate about whether such a system is desirable is almost entirely due to the conscience, courage and conviction of one man: Edward Snowden. Without Snowden, the American people could not balance for themselves the risks, costs and benefits of omniscient domestic surveillance. Because of him, we can.

For this service, the government has charged Snowden under the World War I-era Espionage Act. Yet Snowden did not sell information secretly to any enemy of America. Instead, he shared it openly through the press with the American people.

For this service, Snowden has been accused of having “blood on his hands“—the same evidence-free cliché trotted out every time a whistleblower reveals corruption, criminality or anything else the government would prefer to hide. That this charge is being aired by the very people responsible for wars that have led to thousands of dead American servicemen and servicewomen; hundreds of thousands burned, blinded, brain-damaged, crippled, maimed and traumatized; and hundreds of thousands of innocent foreigners killed, is more than ironic. It’s also a form of psychological projection, or propaganda, intended to distract from where true responsibility for bloodshed lies.

And for this service, the usual suspects have claimed Snowden has caused “grave damage to national security.” As always, the charge is backed by nothing but air, and ignores—in fact, is intended to distract from—the real damage caused by metastasizing governmental secrecy. This includes not only disastrous government mistakes and cover-ups (see the Bay of Pigs, the “missile gap,” the Gulf of Tonkin, Iraqi wea

Damage to national security *reputation*

[Namarrgon]

Thus undermining the unquestioning trust we're supposed to feel in them, and limiting their ability to do whatever the hell they want. Don't we realise it's all for our own good??

Re:The other side of the coin

[TsuruchiBrian]

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.

tremendous damage to what?

[epyT-R]

Their bullshit propaganda/FUD campaigns?

I have no sympathy. It's like they did everything possible to lose public trust and then they whine about being exposed? Too fucking bad.

Re:Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pard

[hcs_$reboot]

While very informative, it should be modded Insightful for the comments inside

Re:Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pard

[Anonymous Coward]

That was WAY too long. I'm not going to read that.

The article title was MUCH shorter. It said "House Committee: Edward Snowden's Leaks Did 'Tremendous Damage'

That pretty much clears it up. Our government, for whom we voted and who serves us, just gave us the straight dope. I will be able to sleep easy tonight knowing that our governors were the good guys all along.

Have you ever read the Constitution?

[rsilvergun]

I mean, _really_ read it and considered all the implications of how it sets up our system of government? The entire thing was built from the ground up to protect the interests of wealthy land owners. I'd say they're doing a fabulous job of uphodling the Constitution.

Now, if you mean the parts of the Constitution that have no legal meaning I guess I could agree. But they're meaningless fluff. Want a real government by the people for the people? Then you want a parliamentary system. Not a Representative Democracy with branches structured to prevent populist uprisings. This is why we can't have nice things.

Re:Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pard

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Be careful of handwaving arguments

[hey!]

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.

Re:O no

[Z00L00K]

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.

Re:Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pard

[davester666]

Unfortunately, the US gov't now considers and treats the American people as "the enemy".

Re:The other side of the coin

[taustin]

Naw, that's just ridiculous. Snowden is not stupid and he did not keep the stuff with him.

Snowden: I'd like sanctuary in Russia. The Americans want to kill me. Think how embarrassing it'd be if you gave me refuge.

Russian Immigration Official: We want copies of everything you stole form them.

S: I don't have it with me.

RIO: Well, get back to us when you do. In the meantime, there's the door.

S: Well, here's what I got. That's all there is.

RIO: I don't believe you, and even if I did, that's not worth the trouble of taking you in, since you'll be a parasite living off the dole for the rest of your life. Go away.

S: Well, maybe there's more.

RIO: Lie to us again, and we'll stuff you onto a plane back to the US at gunpoint, and crow about how gullible you were to give us everything you stole, and thought we'd let you stay here.

Re:The other side of the coin

[jopsen]

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.

Re:Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pard

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect piano wire will be a valuable commodity in some places, soon...

Well, they're right in that it did great damage: To their reputations, which in fact does hurt national security, but not in the way they want you to think.

It means their careers are harmed, and people are less likely to trust us, such as when negotiating treaties. Not everyone was around, but the finding of the wireless microphone in the state seal hurt Russia's reputation immensely. It also taught the USA how to be better at counter-intelligence. Now we're in their shoes. XD

"So how the fuck did you arrive on that conclusion is beyond me. " Easy, they're gullible or think we are. Actually, correction. It's quite possible to think in terms of black and white when dealing with law and order. Either full-blown feudalism, or being abandoned in the Antarctic. Of course that tends to fall under "believes anything". Only reason a lot of people support libertarians and anarchists, is because the state has gone so full-blown regressive spyocracy (LOL, swear I didn't know Alex Jones uses that term before searching for the spelling). Black mail for all!

Re:Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pard

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the US gov't now considers and treats the American people as "the enemy".

Nonsense. The American people are the ones enabling the life style of the U.S. government in the first place. They aren't considered and treated as enemies but as cattle. Only those consistently resisting to be reined in will be sent to the slaughterhouse early. The others are looking forward to being milked for what they are worth.

Re:The other side of the coin

[F.Ultra]

Exactly, his final destination was not to Russia so the only reason that he ended up trapped in Russia was due to the American government since they revoked his password when he was in transit at the airport. And then they have the nerve to claim that he did it because of the Russians...

Yes, read the constitution

[bigpat]

Why does shit like this get upvoted? The US only differs from a parliamentary system in that the President is elected by electors via a popular vote. Congress and Parliament are otherwise functionally equivalent.

The US constitution doesn't give the elite any particular power. Yes, read it. The elite get their power, influence and wealth from their power, influence and wealth. No document has ever been able to redistribute wealth, power or influence on a societal level and maintain any real equality. Certainly not communism which if anything further concentrates power and effective wealth into a smaller class of elites that control everything.. Redistribution of wealth is something that is done as a result of force and usually ends up with just a different set of people with wealth power and influence above others without really leveling the playing field.

If anything having power derived from the people in the broadest modern sense ensures that we can at least limit the power of the elite.

Black and white, day and night

[Geoffrey.landis]

... Actually, correction. It's quite possible to think in terms of black and white when dealing with law and order.

I think you've nailed it there. It's very easy for the security people to see things in black and white; that anything that gives them more power to stop the bad guys-- and there actually are bad guys here, you know-- has to be good, and anybody who tries to limit that power has to be bad.

Re:Yeah, ripe with the NSA harvest

[GuB-42]

I thought about this too. Snowden being a NSA puppet would really be the move of a grandmaster. It would be awesome in all senses of the word. I almost want to believe this.

However, using Hanlon's razor, it think that the NSA is simply a bloated administration and that Snowden's leaks are the results of sheer incompetence.