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Congressional Report Claims Snowden In 'Contact With Russian Intelligence' (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Edward Snowden has been in contact with Russian intelligence officials since arriving in Russia in 2013, according to a new report from Congress. "Since Snowden's arrival in Moscow, he has had, and continues to have, contact with Russian intelligence services," the 33-page report, issued Thursday by the bipartisan House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked volumes of information on American intelligence and surveillance operations to the media, settled in Moscow after initially traveling to Hong Kong following his 2013 public disclosure of classified information. The Russian government granted asylum to Snowden shortly thereafter. Large portions of the pertinent section, entitled "foreign influence," are redacted, but one paragraph reveals the Russian link, saying that Frants Klintsevich, the deputy chairman of the Russian parliament's defense and security committee, "publicly conceded that 'Snowden did share intelligence' with his government." Snowden immediately took to Twitter following the report's release to dispute the accusations, writing "they claim without evidence that I'm in cahoots with the Russians." The report cites classified material in the section linking Snowden to Russian intelligence. The investigation also noted that Snowden left encrypted hard drives containing classified information in Hong Kong and that the CIA had refused to grant Snowden access to sensitive information years before he began working with the NSA, documenting numerous issues that Snowden had with supervisors and co-wokers during his various jobs in the intelligence community.
If you take everything from a whistle blower but the information they have, your enemies become the only ones they have anything to give in exchange for safety.
I'm trying to figure out how this is news. Snowden was granted asylum by the Russian Government. Naturally there will be some kind of interview process that includes intelligence officials even if such interviews are conducted in the least confrontational way possible.
The more telling part is that if it's true that the CIA actively refused to grant him access to information (ie, evaluated and made a choice, versus simply not granting access as the default policy) and he was later granted that access by the NSA as a different employer, then perhaps there needs to be better protocols for how the various agencies determine risk.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
we will never be rid of fake news.
It's far too useful to some folks when they need to sway public opinion on something. The truth be damned.
Any soviet defector will be in contact with US intelligence aka FBI until the rest of his life, even if he never ever sees them or speaks to them
That's their fscking JOB to monitor former agents of another country. So Snowden has no influence whatsoever that he is under permanent surveillance of a counterintelligence agency. Snowden telling them "I was subcontracted to the NSA" is "intelligence", nothing surprising about that.
Were they thinking that Russian intelligence agencies would forget Snowden was in their country, or that they wouldn't keep tabs on him.
Or were they thinking that someone granted asylum would casually blow off representatives of the country giving him asylum?
Or do they just think people are so stupid that they'll think this was somehow a shocking revelation?
Log in or piss off.
I know the red scare is back in vogue with the powers that be but all I see here is a convenient smear against a man who has acted in good faith every step of the way.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Exactly what does Snowden have to do with Wikileaks, which released the emails leaked to them by the DNC insider and those phished from Podesta's gmail account?
And just what did they think would happen to an NSA whistleblower who got stuck in Russia after the USA cancelled his passport? It's doubly ironic when the NSA watchdog who said that Snowden should have come to him was fired for retaliation against whistleblowers.
This isn't exactly new. The fact that they had to dig up something this old to push tells you they've got nothing.
Who else could guarantee his safety? If it wasn't for Russian intelligence he would probably have been kidnapped and taken back to the US in the trunk of a foreign diplomat's car. In one piece if he's lucky.
This is more from the smear report they released a few months ago.
Barton Gellman (one of the reporters that received the full Snowden Archive) investigated the report the first time and concluded it's full of provable lies and smears.
https://tcf.org/content/commentary/house-intelligence-committees-terrible-horrible-bad-snowden-report/
First you decided the outcome then you sculpt the investigation to match all preconceptions.
In fact, he's even retweeting RT tweets from Putin right now.
So?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Americans are easily mind controlled. I'd say the easiest. Far easier than Muslims.
Forget the Russian intelligence officials, he's breathing Russian air damn it! He's been in contact with Russian air the whole time he's been there!
"Mistakes were made:" Less than 24 hours after releasing report claiming I lied, HPSCI is walking back its report. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-12-22/in-declassified-edward-snowden-report-committee-walks-back-claims-about-intentional-lying
From that link:
In Declassified Edward Snowden Report, Committee Walks Back Claims About 'Intentional Lying'
The House Intelligence Committee in September issued a three-page document alerting the public that information from its two-year investigation of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden had turned up evidence that Snowden was a “serial exaggerator and fabricator” who exhibited a “pattern of intentional lying.”
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
So is the new incoming President.
When Russian intelligence says, "You will meet with us on Tuesday at 11 AM", Snowden says, "No, I have to get my pedicure then."
When a Republican benefits from Russian intelligence exposure everything is cool.
It's not like Snowden can tell the Russians to go fuck themselves.
...What news worthy story is Washington trying to distract us from this time? Maybe Washington doesn't like being left out of the negotiations for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Syria. Seems that things work better when Washington's left out, don't they?
1. If you do something bad, and others find out about it through some employee of your organization--regarding the issues at hand, you are bad, they are good.
2. If you do something bad, and others find out about it from a foreign source--regarding the issues at hand, you are bad, they are good.
If Kantian Categorical Imperatives aren't sufficient to -prove- this hypocrisy and lack of ethics to yourself (because broadly ignorant of ethics), refer instead to the simpler term "scapegoating". You can't miss it.
Snowden has said unequivocally, many, many times -- despite mainstream media and politicians with an axe to grind repeatedly 'forgetting' to mention it -- that he left Hong Kong with NO storage devices containing copies of the data he provided to Greenwald et al.
Consdering he must have known 110% that, heading to Russia (or even, failing to escape Hong Kong, by China) he'd be subject to many, many interrogations/interviews... it was the most prudent thing to do to protect himself *and* the data he was trying to responsibly release to the world at large.
I'm sure if a mind-wipe device existed, he'd have wiped his memory of his years working for the NSA/CIA as well, so he'd be completely useless to foreign powers. Hopefully he purposely didn't memorize or study anything he leaked in too much depth, so he could not leak anything dangerous under duress.
I'm sure he *has* been grilled by the Russians repeatedly since arriving there. But if he didn't have the leaks with him, how much would they honestly get?
Mostly the text appears to be an attempt to smear Snowden, although who knows what's in the redacted bits. He may have been in contact with Russian intelligence (they'd be stupid not to try), but he claims he got rid of his own ability to access the documents before going there, leaving that all in the hands of journalists.
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I believe it completely. We all know that Obama has done all that he could to keep Snowden in Russia where he could reveal American secrets (such as we spy on our own citizens and ignore our constitution) in order to further harm this country rather than pardoning him and welcoming him back as a hero.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
An intelligence whistle blower who seeks asylum in Russia is asked questions by Russian intelligence offjcials. How is this strange? Do you think if a Russian whistleblower fled to the states US intelligence offjcials wouldn't try to talk to them? Come on US propaganda machine, people are smarter than that.
What fascinates me is the software intelligence/security related TLAs are using. SharePoint, InfoPath, Microsoft live... For the longest time I simply assumed nobody could figure out what Snowden took by design because systems were structured not to rat out their users... What actually seems to be the case is more in line with hopelessly broken with a generous helping of massive incompetence.
Is he the same one who worked for the US intelligence and was forced to seek political asylum elsewhere after revealing that the US intelligence services may have overstepped their legal boundaries? The man who was bestowed the "privilege" of personally asking the President of the Russian Federation (not to be confused with "Russia") a question about mass surveillance on TV is in contact with RF's intelligence services? Shocking. Do they file Congressional reports with their breakfast menus, too?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Clearly conspiracy theories are true whenever the target is Russia, and whenever the accuser is our intellihence conmunity, which lied us into two wars. Nevermind that Clapper himself has stated thay we definitely don't know who it was. Nevermind that the media and political establishment have made clear their intent to blame Russia for their and Clinton's failings, respectively. No, clearly there's a complex conspiratorial network between snowden, assange, and russi. give me a break. It's a good thing that the CTR shills didn't get fired, huh?
I am in contact with Martians.
Impeach Trump NOW !
I am in contact with Martians.
Ask them to say hi to Michael Valentine Smith for me, would you?
This makes him different from the President-elect of the United States how?
nomsg
Exactly what does Snowden have to do with Wikileaks, which released the emails leaked to them by the DNC insider and those phished from Podesta's gmail account?
By "DNC insider" do you perhaps mean the GRU (Russian military intelligence)?
* https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/
* https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/danger-close-fancy-bear-tracking-ukrainian-field-artillery-units/
The security process controls who can access what files. What diff does it make if it's a PowerPoint file? Once the file has been STOLEN (i.e., access controls have been subverted), MS Office files are as good as any other. You're supposed to keep those files on a secure (classified) network AT ALL TIMES.
Like every overblown debating society, Congress is a cesspool of fucking up every single decision. I understand the merit of a brake on runaway gratuitous screwing around with goofy initiatives, but jesus, it's disappointing that it never improves. I guess that's just the natural way zoos work. Monkeys will always throw their own shit.
I have a feeling that from now on no one gets promoted or any type of access until they do at least 5 illegal things themselves. The more of a company man you prove yourself the higher you go. Further the NSA actively works with other agencies to leverage(blackmail) people into being their spies. But I think we can assume from now on they will blackmail their own recruits to compel them into breaking the law as a way of initiation. Further they will engineer multiple scenarios where you must break the espionage act just so they can at any time arrest you and prosecute you in a secret court with incontrovertible proof.
Hey folks, water is wet!
He is also a terrorist, a pedophile, a pirate, a Muslim and a Mexican.
(Did I miss anything?)
If 'being in contact with Russian intelligence officials' were a capital offense, 50% of congress would be dead. The other 50% would be on death-row.
Recently, there seem to be a whole lot of unsubstantiated accusations from the Obama regime. These kind of unsubstantiated accusations are seriously trashing what little credibility the United States has in the eyes of non-Americans. I don't know how the media in America reports this kind of propaganda, but few people here seem to believe anything much that is said by the rulers of the US or their pupped media these days.
See, this kind of bait would be far more effective if I hadn't read the CTR strategy sheets. I should have realized that when your boss called you "nerd virgins", he was implying you came from Slashdot.
It's pretty obvious in retrospect, no?
That evidence has been discussed and it's scant. That group was paid by the DNC to do this assessment. The evidence they present is:
* Some IPs are claimed as Russian / used in other attacks (why would Russian intelligence put the staging server in Russia and not some random hosting provider?)
* The RATs are claimed to be Russian (but other people point out that you can get them on various underground forums... something I don't believe they ever addressed).
* There was some other hack against some other government servers. As if independent hackers don't do such things. Because of course I'm not old enough to remember back when people were doing silly things like hacking NASA to look for evidence of aliens and whatnot.
Moreover, even if you somehow proved the hack part, that doesn't show us who Wikileaks' source is. They could've been owned by multiple parties, including insiders.
Finally, it simply doesn't matter. Frankly, I welcome any hacks that make it difficult for our leaders to conspire against the people.
Feel free to do the same in Russia. Helping them make the government less corrupt by exposing internal corruption is far more moral than shooting Russian diplomats and making ISIS hand signs and ranting about Aleppo. Russia seems to think that Saudi Arabia & Qatar stand to benefit from that one (coincidentally, both are big donors to the Clinton Foundation). Turkey thinks it's that cleric in exile in the USA who they blame for trying to start a coup there. Obama happened to vow revenge on Russia a few days before.
I really hope that's all just coincidental, but it feels like some serious crap is going on behind the scenes that we won't find out the true extent of until people read about it in history books 100 years from now.
And shit like that ***in a supposedly genuine news site***. I mean, fair enough if that shit appears in comments on reddit or even slashdot, but if it appeared ABOVE the line in a slashdot posting, that would be fake news and bad, but when it's repeated on nationwide TV news slots, it's fucking HORRIFIC.
Or do you think it's good that news stations can make up such insane shit and pretend they're still news stations and get away with it?
"Congressional Report Claims Snowden In 'Contact With Russian Intelligence' "
No, more likely: Russian Intelligence In Contact With Snowden.
Like say a Russian defector would not have contact with the CIA. Mmmmmkay?
Do these Congressional Reporters have an IQ above 70?
Do you honestly think Russian intelligence isn't checking in with him every now and again to see if he's interested in a job/full on defection?
In Putinist Russia, Putin learns about YOU!
yeah.
Daily Mail is a tabloid.
But even that is better than the "usual media outlet" used by Craig Murray (and most of the right-wing blogs "reporting" his words) - Alex Jones Bitch! Two days BEFORE the Daily Mail interview.
You know... the inter-dimensional baby-sacrificing lizard-men guy.
Which is where that Craig Murray story started in that form - where it's a talk about him being center stage, claiming everyone else is wrong.
Back then they still had to cherry pick the actual Guardian article where Murray's stance was mentioned as an "opposing view" to the title and the core of the article.
CIA concludes Russia interfered to help Trump win election, say reports
Isn't it great that now tabloids are giving time directly to Murray, so you can quote a rag without linking to the article where he comes off as profanity slinging loon?
Or better yet! His blog.
Where he rants about the conspiracy to remove that Guardian article (while begging people to buy his book) from the Guardian's front page.
While the article was not taken down, the home page links to it vanished and it was replaced by a ludicrous one repeating the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming â" incredibly â" that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion.
Apparently, Murray doesn't understand the concept of a dynamic web page.
But he sure as hell leans towards conspiracy theorist way of thinking, doesn't he? Can't find that link... must be a conspiracy to hide it from you.
Just like when you spam people with your conspiracy theories and no one rushes to your blog - it must be Facebook conspiring against you.
Good thing that "calling out Facebook" still works. Or as some might call it - asking his followers to spam his link around.
All 650 of them, which by his math means his blog should get 200k+ hits. But he'll clearly settle for a dozen or so.
And while we're talking about his blog... do notice how his claims change over time.
First he, in his own words, "met the person who leaked them" while talking to the Guardian and quoting himself from the same "hidden" article.
By the time he talks to Daily Mail - it's "leakers" and "sources" and "identities" (Oh my!).
And he's gone from "I've met the person who leaked them" to this:
Murray said he retrieved the package from a source during a clandestine meeting in a wooded area near American University, in northwest D.C.
He said the individual he met with was not the original person who obtained the information, but an intermediary.
Apparently, now he DIDN'T actually meet the person who leaked them. Or was that persons?
It's kinda hard to keep up with all the... how does Murray put it? Ah yes... Utter bullshit.
BUT WAIT! THAT'S NOT ALL!
As a good pal and collaborator of Julian Assange he's coming to Assange's defense once again.
Cause if what CIA claims is true - Assange is nothing but a "useful idiot" to Putin. Which makes Murray into a... what exactly?
Funny thing is... Last time he came to Assange's defense like that he publicly outed one of the women who were accusing Assange of sexual assault.
This time he does no such thing while admonishing "truly execrable" journalists for treating "the US government, for goodness sake" (actual quote) as a credible source.
While HE and Assange ARE credible because "I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling" (another actual quote).
And yet he doesn't out the source he claims t
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If he comes to the US, he gets hanged. If he goes to Russia, they give him a house, women, cars. Hard decision.
At which point Russian intelligence says "What for?" WHOMP "You have no feet!"
They have a defector in their country who [1] used to work of US intel, [2] delivered some of that intel to Russia, [3] has a demonstrated penchant for abusing computer access to spy, even against his own side, [4] has a history that demonstrates he cannot be trusted to keep his word or an oath.
They would be wise to keep an eye on him, MIGHT be able to get more info from him, might be able to recruit him, need to suspect his whole thing might be a scam and he might actually still be working for US agencies, etc.
When Lee Harvey Oswald returned to the US after having been in the Soviet Union, the US Government kept an eye on him and the FBI regularly confronted him and interviewed him as a standard procedure for such a suspicious character - and yet to the shame of the FBI Oswald still managed to bump off the then-sitting US President. It's about as shocking that Russian intel might be in contact with Snowden as it is shocking that things fall to the ground when you drop them.
Besides the initial interview, half of everyone he interacts with on a daily basis probably works for the intelligence service in some form or another.
I mean, it's not like he's Joe nobody.
He's a smart guy and probably knows that everyone he interacts with is working for someone or another. The $64k question is "is he actively working for and/or providing information to the Russians." There's no evidence that he's released anything to Russia that he hasn't released to anyone else, but you never know.
The good thing is that Snowden didn't flip for money, which probably means his motives are what he said they were. The downside is that there's no guarantee he won't drop some more info in the future, although that info is slowly losing its value as time goes on.
The continual whining that Trump might have lost by some rules that were not in effect is just tiresome.
Face it: your candidate was too stupid, entitled and arrogant to win by the rules, which she was fully-aware of. Hillary has known the rules for getting elected for 40+ years. The woman was a lawyer working on the Watergate committee to impeach President Nixon in the '70s! Her husband Bill won by those rules TWICE, and she lost by those rules TWICE. There's NO MYSTERY to the FACT that in the US you win the Presidency by winning the Electoral College.
You cannot even keep screeching about Citizens United ... Hillary spent something like 15 times as much money as Trump did, and most of her money was from big special interests. They woman had problems winning her primaries against a 70 year old dim-witted socialist who went out of his way NOT to attack her on her weak points, and even AFTER having her pals in the party rig the primary system and slip her the debate questions. She was unable to beat Trump even though every significant media outlet in the country was all-in for her. The Washington Post, for example, admitted they had 20 reporters looking for dirt on "the Donald" and nearly every paper endorsed her. The only TV channel that did not support her was Fox News, and half of THEM were either actual "never Trumpers" or closely-aligned with the anti-Trump Bushies (Gutfeld, Krauthammer, Will, Hayes, Rove, Perino, Kelly, Smith, ...).
Now it's "the Russians did it!"
Obama himself admitted there is no evidence the Russians did ANYTHING to the actual election. At worst, IF THEY DID IT, all they did was expose the actual e-mails of the Democrats, allowing the public to see the truth. Hillary herself validated those e-mail dumps in one debate where she tried to explain her Abraham Lincoln reference in one. Remember THAT blunder??? Had she not been so defensive and had she not tried to mislead on the issue, she would not have effectively validated the content of the hacks.
Oh, and for the Democrats, who hacked Sarah Palin's e-mails and who ridiculed Romney for suggesting Russia was a threat, to now complain that the Russkies hacked them is just entirely too rich with irony and hypocrisy.
Here's the WLTaskForce linking to the article you claim is debunked, so whether or not you believe that story, I was correct about them promoting it.
That said, your debunking is a bit off. How would they know it was an intermediary and not the original leaker if they'd never met them before that? He never said that was the only meeting, now, did he? In fact, it'd be damn stupid of the leaker to go about meeting him.
And thus, based on a lot of questionable assumptions, denzacar "decimated" them as you put it. What does that decimation mean, anyhow? That he can argue with maybe one tenth of the things they said? Sounds about right. I mean, I agree that the Daily Mail is a rag, I'll give you that, but we can read Craig's blog which they link to, so I'm not relying on them to be credible. And the guy you link to wants him to out the source? Why don't you ask Manning how that works out.
As for yelling about "conspiracy" in regards to burying news, it's a time honored practice. Bad news is dumped on Fridays, for example. And yes, I'd say that when you can no longer find something from a site's own search engine, it's reasonable to consider it buried. Funny how that screed takes up half the rant, though. Nothing better to talk about?
Every time you go to an airport in the US, you are "in contact with American intelligence agencies" - specifically, the TSA. and if you're boarding or leaving an international flight. you're in contact with Customs and Border Protection, too.
The notion that any government whistle blower from any country would not be in contact with the intelligence services of their new home is absurd.. with or without their consent or knowledge.
This report is nothing more than a transparent hatchet job. "We hate Snowden! Accuse him of being 'in contact' with Russian intelligence! Suggest that he was a problem employee for the NSA! Claim, at one and the same time, that he had invaluable intelligence that he gave up to foreign powers, and that he had nothing of value to give because the NSA didn't trust him!!"
As a hatchet job this one doesn't even have competence to recommend it. Sad! As a soon-to-be POTUS would say.
Watch Putin offer up Snowden to Trump as a token of trust in their new partnership.