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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! --
"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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
In their defense, Congress has no reason to take Snowden at his word. But, more broadly, not having information on him is not the same thing as not having the information within one's reach. All it takes is an encrypted blob in some Dropbox(TM) account and the info is accessible to anyone in the world, but only readable to him personally. I am sure someone like him could concoct a more sophisticated and more finely granulated information retrieval scheme from anywhere in the world which would depend on a keyset generated from information known only to him.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I am in contact with Martians.
Ask them to say hi to Michael Valentine Smith for me, would you?
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.
He is also a terrorist, a pedophile, a pirate, a Muslim and a Mexican.
(Did I miss anything?)
"Congress has no reason to take Snowden at his word."
How so? Snowden has shown himself to be more honest and ethical than the intelligence bureaucracy which is smearing him.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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.
Hey, she won California, where all those votes came from. Why should one state have so much sway over the rest of the country? I, for one, am most pleased she lost. She and the rest of the party deserved it.
Trump didn't lose by 2.9 million votes either. He won by ~70 electoral votes.
"Congress has no reason to take Snowden at his word."
How so? Snowden has shown himself to be more honest and ethical than the intelligence bureaucracy [washingtonpost.com] which is smearing him.
Because he was a contractor rather than a federal employee. A federal employee would have had swear an oath to protect and defend The Constitution of The United States. So there would be room to argue that this is what he did. As a contractor, he, without a doubt, had to sign an NDA. By making his revelations, he broke the terms of the NDA. And since Congress was paying his salary (which was pre-conditioned on his signing the NDA), he did willingly break the terms of a contract which he signed. So Congress has good reasons not to take him at his word.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
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
At which point Russian intelligence says "What for?" WHOMP "You have no feet!"
Thanks for supporting the point. A functionary breaking a contract to expose illegal activity is more honest than an executive breaking an oath in order to hide it from Congress and the public.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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.
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?
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.
Watch Putin offer up Snowden to Trump as a token of trust in their new partnership.