Edward Snowden is winning the internet today

2ndcoming · 01-10-2015 10:28AM

Mother Brain wrote: »

Perhaps so, though I wouldn't rate the average american congressman's willingness to go against the prevailing political orthodoxy and speak out against national security policy off their own bat. Especially in a void of awareness amongst voters of what it was he was trying to expose.

You also, mention above that snowden had a duty of care to reveal the information in the least damaging way possible and of course, I totally agree, but I fail to see any material harm caused by the leaks.

There were no personnel lists or operational / military records leaked. It's mostly internal briefing documents and memo's and the like. I can't off the top of my head think of anyone who be said to have materially suffered as a result of this information going public than snowden himself really?

I agree that he could perhaps have gone the route you describe and still have had the option to go public if he failed to achieve results, however I'd probably provide the benefit of the doubt to snowden for being able to judge the likelihood of his actions ramifications had he tried to go through official or internal channels. And indeed, i don't feel it would outside the realms of possibility that revealing your misgivings about the program could have resulted in some potentially nasty retort from the security and intelligence services, though that's pure speculation of course.

This sums up my thoughts exactly. The notion that the intelligence and security agencies who are knowingly doing wrong as a part of covert government policy are just going to allow this information to be escalated casually into the public domain through the proper channels displays an incredible level of naivety, especially given all we know about the track record of the agencies in question.

In short, that's how you end up dead.

hatrickpatrick · 01-10-2015 11:28AM

I know it didn't get a great reception because of the lack of Matt Damon, but the fourth Bourne film (The Bourne Legacy) is a good watch simply because there's an entire segment mid-way through it in which the intelligence agencies are trying to discredit a potential whistleblower before she can blow the whistle. The scene shows them trawling through files they have on this woman and leaking anything which could damage her credibility to the press (I remember one or two things about smoking pot in college, a conviction for having no insurance etc) and she watches all of these stories appearing in the media from the airport.

Why do I bring this up? Because literally immediately after Snowden's identity was made public by Glenn Greenwald, stuff about his past started appearing in the media. The US press made a massively big deal of the fact that he had applied to join the military and been a trainee, but ultimately hadn't been good enough at it and had been turned down. They also went to town trying to paint him as some kind of low-level technician who knew nothing about what he was doing, rather than the senior systems administrator he was with the level of respect and influence he had within the intelligence community.

I'm irresistibly reminded of how the Irish establishment and media handled the Garda whistleblowers, and subsequently GSOC, in 2014.

The Western World simply doesn't do political accountability on any level. Anyone who tries to force it will be targeted relentlessly by various prongs of the establishment until they shut up, disappear into the night, and stop being a nuisance. The only way to achieve any level of genuine transparency and rule by the public is for people to break the law. It's that simple. The methods of protest and whistleblowing which are "officially sanctioned" are very deliberately only those which can be easily deflected. If you want to actually make waves, you have to rock the boat.

K-9 · 01-10-2015 11:54AM

MonkeyTennis wrote: »

The worst thing about Snowdons revelations is that no-one seemed to really care they were being spied upon.

This is a country where half the people claim to hate 'big government'

Good point.

Small Government until it comes to armies and stuff, then shock and awe and all that. Really is bizarre logic but armies have guns so therefore.........

K-9 · 01-10-2015 12:04PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I know it didn't get a great reception because of the lack of Matt Damon, but the fourth Bourne film (The Bourne Legacy) is a good watch simply because there's an entire segment mid-way through it in which the intelligence agencies are trying to discredit a potential whistleblower before she can blow the whistle. The scene shows them trawling through files they have on this woman and leaking anything which could damage her credibility to the press (I remember one or two things about smoking pot in college, a conviction for having no insurance etc) and she watches all of these stories appearing in the media from the airport.

Why do I bring this up? Because literally immediately after Snowden's identity was made public by Glenn Greenwald, stuff about his past started appearing in the media. The US press made a massively big deal of the fact that he had applied to join the military and been a trainee, but ultimately hadn't been good enough at it and had been turned down. They also went to town trying to paint him as some kind of low-level technician who knew nothing about what he was doing, rather than the senior systems administrator he was with the level of respect and influence he had within the intelligence community.

I'm irresistibly reminded of how the Irish establishment and media handled the Garda whistleblowers, and subsequently GSOC, in 2014.

The Western World simply doesn't do political accountability on any level. Anyone who tries to force it will be targeted relentlessly by various prongs of the establishment until they shut up, disappear into the night, and stop being a nuisance. The only way to achieve any level of genuine transparency and rule by the public is for people to break the law. It's that simple. The methods of protest and whistleblowing which are "officially sanctioned" are very deliberately only those which can be easily deflected. If you want to actually make waves, you have to rock the boat.

I'd recommend Kill the Messenger, out last year about the Contras.

Once the story is out, the story then becomes you, the whistleblowers credibility and Government, just like big tobacco or oil or pharma will do whatever it takes to tarnish that good name.

RustyNut · 01-10-2015 01:52PM

Manic Moran wrote: »

Last I checked, it was the US politicians and courts which have had any influence on curtailing the NSA's activities, not outraged denizens of the Twitterverse no matter what country they were in.

LOL.
And who exactly was it that set up and approved all the illegal and highly immoral Stasi type spying in the first place if not the very same us politicians and secret courts?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 01-10-2015 02:21PM

Manic Moran wrote: »

Given that no nation usually acts out in the interests of any nation but itself, I can't say that it's surprising, even if it comes with political liabilities if discovered. I wouldn't be surprised if any nation which had the resources to spare would be doing so.

And, given that we know it's not for security reasons, you think this is acceptable?

Which other establishment has he been relying upon? Last I checked, it was the US politicians and courts which have had any influence on curtailing the NSA's activities, not outraged denizens of the Twitterverse no matter what country they were in.

True, but the problems start when these institutions go unchallenged and unexposed when they abuse their powers.

hatrickpatrick · 01-10-2015 02:47PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsmo0hUWJ08

Ron Wyden vs James Clapper.

For anyone who believes that following the establishment approved methods of whistleblowing or public accountability actually works.

When Clapper said "not wittingly", he was in full possession of the detailed inner workings of 215, PRISM, and UPSTREAM. This was not a case of an official being coy or obfuscating, it wasn't a case of words being open to many interpretations, and it wasn't a case of a vague question being misunderstood.

The man sat there and directly lied, under oath, to the faces of those tasked with representing the public and making the rules regarding these programs. He lied under oath, and has never been charged with a crime or even investigated over that crime.

Democracy as we practise it in the West is a joke. The only way to force the establishment to serve the people instead of itself is to break the rules.

Overheal · 01-10-2015 04:06PM

To wit, Snowden sat on the information for years, and it according to his interviews it was not until he saw rampant crap like that above that he took the avenue he did. Even under congressional scrutiny, the intelligence community has no regard for perjury. Not only were they lying to the common citizens, but to elected officials, and blatantly at that.

hatrickpatrick · 01-10-2015 04:50PM

Overheal wrote: »

To wit, Snowden sat on the information for years, and it according to his interviews it was not until he saw rampant crap like that above that he took the avenue he did. Even under congressional scrutiny, the intelligence community has no regard for perjury. Not only were they lying to the common citizens, but to elected officials, and blatantly at that.

I think it says a lot that Snowden by all accounts took the "leakers are traitorous scum" view earlier in his life before he became aware of what was going on within the NSA.

One interesting aspect is that when he asked his colleagues if they had seen any of this stiff and how they felt about it, most were horrified and apparently only knew about a tiny bit of it themselves. So for instance, the guy at the NSA in charge of collecting July's Verizon phone records might only know about those records and assume that was part of a specific, time-sensitive investigation. Someone else would be responsible for AT&T, another for Sprint, and they'd be rotated around again the following month. Someone tasked with recording Skype metadata might not know that GCHQ in the UK were recording all the content. Someone tasked with tapping one fibre optic cable might not know that the others were being tapped by other staff members, and would assume that there was a specific, individual reason for their own assignment.

The difference with Snowden was that at his level of seniority he had access to all but a tiny handful of protected information (names and company identifies, the real people behind the codename essentially, were the only things he didn't have clearance for) and it was having this view of pretty much every major program going on that he was able to sit back and say "holy f*ck, the NSA is literally wiretapping every form of electronic communication for everyone in the world". Other staff couldn't see that and when Snowden confided in some of them, they were astonished - they thought that their own assignments were exceptional and therefore that there was probably a very specific justification for them.

ClovenHoof · 01-10-2015 06:50PM

Just one question? Show me one thing he has leaked that we didn't already know?

Actually 2 questions.

What if he was created by DARPA as a kind of Emmanuel Goldstein to make people think that there is a resistance to the USA's Patriot Act and all the other totalitarian measures implemented by Neo Cons AND Mr Hope and Change?

Public_Enema · 01-10-2015 06:57PM

Cienciano wrote: »

TIL that I'm the only person that thinks Neil DeGrasse Tyson comes across as a bit of a wánker

Ya, thankfully I think you are the only one.

hatrickpatrick · 01-10-2015 07:23PM

ClovenHoof wrote: »

Just one question? Show me one thing he has leaked that we didn't already know?

We didn't know that every byte of data we transmit was being warehoused by GCHQ for long term perusal. We suspected it, but we didn't have proof. We also didn't know, crucially, that the NSA had deliberately weakened several mainstream encryption standards and that the RSA was probably in bed with them thus rendering all RSA encryption products suspect. Finally, we didn't know for sure that Tor was (at least at the time) safe from snooping provided you configured ti correctly and used your common sense.

KingBrian2 · 01-10-2015 07:49PM

The American public and their international allies are very unhappy with how intelligence is gathered, be it through subterfuge or surveillance. Their activities creates more turmoil than it does keep America safe.

Edward Snowden is winning the internet today

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