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5 Years on, US Government Still Counting Snowden Leak Costs (apnews.com)
National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the lid off U.S. government surveillance methods five years ago, but intelligence chiefs complain that revelations from the trove of classified documents he disclosed are still trickling out. From a report: That includes recent reporting on a mass surveillance program run by close U.S. ally Japan and on how the NSA targeted bitcoin users to gather intelligence to combat narcotics and money laundering. The Intercept, an investigative publication with access to Snowden documents, published stories on both subjects. The top U.S. counterintelligence official said journalists have released only about 1 percent taken by the 34-year-old American, now living in exile in Russia, "so we don't see this issue ending anytime soon." "This past year, we had more international, Snowden-related documents and breaches than ever," Bill Evanina, who directs the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said at a recent conference. "Since 2013, when Snowden left, there have been thousands of articles around the world with really sensitive stuff that's been leaked."
When you find out your government has dozens if not 100s of illegal operations running, and you realize that everyone above you is involved, what exactly are you meant to do?
> He made no complaints or reports of abuses or improper behavior by his agency.
Because he already saw what happened to the insiders before him who attempted to do as much.
> Snowden was not a whistleblower. He was an "information wants to be free!" anti-government attention-whore, and rotting in Russia is better than he deserves for his acts.
Tell us how you really feel, Mr. Clapper...
Absolutely incorrect.
There are multiple chains of authority that someone in the IC can report to if they discovery improper behavior. Local office, agency IG, other agency IGs, the IC IG, even the Congressional Oversight Committees.
Sure. You could even report the improper behaviour to the guy who's doing it. Or to President Trump himself. The effect will be the same in every case however. You will suffer more than the person you are reporting. Sometimes just a little. Sometimes lots. There have been plenty of cases where people got serious shit for reporting up the chain.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/how-pentagon-punished-nsa-whistleblowers
Quit lying your ass off and learn how to use Google for fuck's sake
Really?
Cite the people that have been punished for reporting illegal spying through channels, please. Since there are plenty of cases, you will have no trouble coming up with three.
Here are your three whistle-blowers who have been punished for whistleblowing according to the correct procecures. In fact, just in case you question the criteria, I'll throw in a few bonus ones.
On the other hand, I *have* reported improper behavior, and watched the violator be punished. In one cases, even go to jail.
You will notice that the above list of whistleblowers are public knowledge. If you are an insider then you should know more than me. I really question how you can seem to think I wouldn't be able to come up with three
The IC takes the rules seriously... abusing them WILL get you in trouble.
I think you are confusing "the rules", as in what they have decided they will do, where I would say that for the most part they are taken very seriously, with "the law", as in what they are actually allowed to do, which they will bend endlessly. If you were reporting a place where the rules were breaching the law or you were reporting a person for breaching the law when they were following orders then I think you would have found plenty more difficulty than the situation of reporting an individual for a violation of the rules.
Also, you seem to have forgotten already, but Snowden was during the Obama administration. Trump has nothing to do with him.
My point was in the context of a discussion about Snowden 2.0 which will, likely, happen under Trump. In any case Obama was at least as rabid as Trump in pursuing whistleblowers. Probably more so because he actually had the ability to keep a thought in his head for more than five minutes.
Shocking. The government people doing clearly immoral and probably illegal things claim the illegal things they were doing as legal and when pressured on the matter threw the book at the person who brought it up.
Your face couldn't be more smeared with bootpolish if you tried.
Yeah, not buying that. But I was illegally surveilled as part of Operation Sun Devil, so my thoughts on "legal channels" are informed by the fact that they didn't work in my case. If I thought it wasn't intentional, I'd maybe buy your story, but I know it wasn't. It's just their MO.