Edward Snowden thread

I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about this guy.

I haven't really paid that much attention to the man's personal story, not enough to form a concrete judgment of him, but I'm interested to hear what the people of the forum think.

From what little I've seen it doesn't appear that the spying he uncovered is all that sinister or deep compared to some of the more nefarious programs espionage services have undertaken throughout history, but I would hope that if something truly despicable were uncovered by another such whistleblower then the government wouldn't immediately protect themselves by calling said whistleblower a traitor, and instead punish the insitgators of said despicable project. For instance, if there were a modern equivalent to MKUltra it would be easy to excuse the "(the whistleblower) broke his vows and betrayed his government's confidence" accusation.

I admire that he's wanted truth to come out but the way he has done it seemed very self serving and he initially seemed to revel in the celebrity it brought him. He seems to have suddenly disappeared from the cameras now that the pressure is on.

According to a number of sources he's in Moscow now.

He's clearly a traitor. He probably did not do it for heroic reasons but heroism will be attributed to him.

I work for the US Government (but my job will be changing back to the commercial sector next week, so I feel comfortable revealing that, now). By a textbook definition, he is a traitor to the US government and he broke agreements he signed by revealing that. Legal prosecution can and should occur. There are ways to report what one views as illegal and unethical in the government. He did not take those avenues. He, instead, decided to reveal it to the public. I don't know much about his case but if he didn't try the real checks and balances measures before revealing it to the public, he's clearly a "fame" seeking bastard.

Some may complain, "but, but, if the system is corrupt, what good is reporting it?" That's true only if you think the system is completely and entirely corrupt with no hope of anything being done. That's absurdly pessimistic to the point as to render you dysfunctional as a social entity. The probability that you would receive backlash for reporting impropriety is stupid small especially since third parties often do the checks and balances on that unethical/illegal stuff. I have been part of 2 separate investigations and I can assure you: your shit goes to jail, no matter how high up the food chain you are, if you do something illegal or unethical (that has specific laws governing the ethics). I don't know about this case but the individuals that sanctioned and ordered the unethical/illegal wire-taping and records collection would be in trouble (more on this in a second).

As stupid as it sounds, you can even report this shit straight to the office of the president (Obama).

In this case...I digress. It is possible that nothing would have been done because it was government sanctioned. In which case, he may have been morally right to disclose this to the public. But it was morally wrong. If I were in his position and I knew of these things, I would have resigned and worked within the system to get it stopped. Mostly because I'm not a traitor.

edit - I'm all over the place with this and I typed stuff in a confusing manner. Someone please tear me a new a****** by finding fault in what I'm saying. Then I can better explain what I meant (assuming you didn't understand or think I said something wrong).

Running to Hong Kong seemed like a pretty stupid choice--I realize there are reasons why Hong Kong made sense, but there had to be other countries he could flee to that wouldn't immediately hearken back to Cold War defections--it was all that his critics needed to brand him a Chinese spy.

For the levels of media attention he is receiving, one would think that he revealed things that weren't known circa 2006. The heavy involvement of the private sector in intelligence gathering is an interesting aspect to this that I was previously unaware of (something like 70% of money spent on intelligence gathering is given to private contractors).

Regardless of the "proper" avenues or what he "should" have done, he obviously broke the law and should have had the balls to face his day in court, otherwise, ya, it looks very opportunistic and largely draws skepticism to the claims he is making. That being said, I would not be surprised at all if the content of every phone call made in America were stored in that massive NSA facility they are building, even if it isn't specifically "monitored" at the time.

I personally find the biggest issue with all this to be the absolute lack of public debate about the surveillance state. At this point, there are still no confirmed terrorist plots that were stopped by this program (at the very least, the details aren't being released) and terror plots are almost always prevented by traditional police work. However, in a modern society I'm willing to accept that law enforcement needs modern tools that keep pace with technology. The problem is, the state shouldn't have the right to determine what privacy it can infringe and which it cannot: if the government is monitoring anything, people have a right to know. Maybe not in every specific instance (like, you don't need to be informed your phone is tapped, but you do have the right to know "phone tapping" is a thing the government can do).

Originally posted by Oliver North
I personally find the biggest issue with all this to be the absolute lack of public debate about the surveillance state. At this point, there are still no confirmed terrorist plots that were stopped by this program (at the very least, the details aren't being released) and terror plots are almost always prevented by traditional police work. However, in a modern society I'm willing to accept that law enforcement needs modern tools that keep pace with technology. The problem is, the state shouldn't have the right to determine what privacy it can infringe and which it cannot: if the government is monitoring anything, people have a right to know. Maybe not in every specific instance (like, you don't need to be informed your phone is tapped, but you do have the right to know "phone tapping" is a thing the government can do).

I like the premise of innocent until proven guilty.

And in situations where a person may be guilty, a warrant should still be required to wiretap or use surveillance.

Some call this too bureaucratic but it really isn't. That "system" of virtual checks and balances is there to ensure resources and time are not wasted on innocent people because you must first have a reasonable suspicion to get a warrant from a qualified judge.

That said, there is still room for corruption in such a system...it is just much harder to do than just blanket spying on everyone.

An alternative is using an AI to monitor everyone and no humans are involved, at all, unless the AI sends up a red-flag monitor. Certain filters could be used (definitions) and heuristic algorithms used to catch coded behaviors (code speak or bad behavior that is masked).

The kinks would have to be worked out to reduce false-positives at a tolerable rate of false-negatives.

That's a mildly fascist system, however. I wouldn't want that. The technology loving side of me says it is okay. The libertarian (live and let live) side of me says that's wrong even if the intentions are right.

If there were abuses of the surveillance, such as used to persecute innocent people, Snowden would have a case. But it seems like he betrayed his country for fame and is now trying to dodge punishment.

Originally posted by Lestov16
If there were abuses of the surveillance, such as used to persecute innocent people, Snowden would have a case. But it seems like he betrayed his country for fame and is now trying to dodge punishment.

if tracking people's phone calls and reading their emails doesn't count as "persecution", what would?

I don't care that he betrayed the government or his oath, I care that the government betrayed the people by spying on them. It seems a bit rich for such a state to label another a traitor--pot to the kettle, and all that. I'm not American, but I value the existence of people like Snowden. Cuz apparently in order to do the moral, constitutional thing, you need to break the law. That he was willing to do that makes him a rare and admirable case--I certainly wouldn't have done it. His "true motives" and intentions be damned, I care about what he actually did, not his purported possible reasons for doing so.

and yet, William Binney has no threads dedicated to him

That was like forever ago. F*ck that old guy, get with the times, brah.

true, it was so 2012

Originally posted by Oliver North
For the levels of media attention he is receiving, one would think that he revealed things that weren't known circa 2006. The heavy involvement of the private sector in intelligence gathering is an interesting aspect to this that I was previously unaware of (something like 70% of money spent on intelligence gathering is given to private contractors).

Regardless of the "proper" avenues or what he "should" have done, he obviously broke the law and should have had the balls to face his day in court, otherwise, ya, it looks very opportunistic and largely draws skepticism to the claims he is making. That being said, I would not be surprised at all if the content of every phone call made in America were stored in that massive NSA facility they are building, even if it isn't specifically "monitored" at the time.

I personally find the biggest issue with all this to be the absolute lack of public debate about the surveillance state. At this point, there are still no confirmed terrorist plots that were stopped by this program (at the very least, the details aren't being released) and terror plots are almost always prevented by traditional police work. However, in a modern society I'm willing to accept that law enforcement needs modern tools that keep pace with technology. The problem is, the state shouldn't have the right to determine what privacy it can infringe and which it cannot: if the government is monitoring anything, people have a right to know. Maybe not in every specific instance (like, you don't need to be informed your phone is tapped, but you do have the right to know "phone tapping" is a thing the government can do).

Instead Snowden tries to pull an Assange, the government brushes off criticism and claims that this is all necessary, and China capitalizes on it and does the "you got your hand caught in the cookie jar" dance, even though the worst allegations from Snowden's leak aren't even as bad as the day to day reality of Chinese internet surveillance and internal affairs.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
I don't care that he betrayed the government or his oath, I care that the government betrayed the people by spying on them.

Nothing here is strictly a betrayal by the government. No laws were broken. They used official channels for their work.

Originally posted by dadudemon
An alternative is using an AI to monitor everyone and no humans are involved, at all, unless the AI sends up a red-flag monitor. Certain filters could be used (definitions) and heuristic algorithms used to catch coded behaviors (code speak or bad behavior that is masked).

This is basically how it works now, is it not?

Originally posted by Oliver North
if the government is monitoring anything, people have a right to know.

In a representative system this is a complicated issue. Elected representatives were told about the program which means that "the people" were informed. State secrets are done this way in an effort to follow the principle of democracy without compromising the secrets. Of course, since the public didn't know about these programs when they elected the representatives one could argue this standard is critically flawed.

Originally posted by Oliver North
That being said, I would not be surprised at all if the content of every phone call made in America were stored in that massive NSA facility they are building, even if it isn't specifically "monitored" at the time.

Yeah, the NSA director was dancing around this one in front of Congress. The NSA does not read everyone's "mail" but they definitely have it. I think that alone should be reason for concern. Just because something isn't being abused at the moment doesn't make it okay.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Nothing here is strictly a betrayal by the government. No laws were broken. They used official channels for their work.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
This is basically how it works now, is it not?

No. They stockpile information, currently. That's different than creating files when a flag goes off.

Originally posted by dadudemon
No. They stockpile information, currently. That's different than creating files when a flag goes off.

I thought it was set up so that the computers scanned everything for keywords.

I am fairly much in tune with OmegaVision here. In the end, I think making this hullaballoo about prosecuting him- for such a powerful concept as treason, no less- is unhelpful. I do think Snowden has overdone the drama here; I don't think what he blew was worth the effort. But that being so, if I was in authority, I'd take the stance "Well, we COULD prosecute, we'd be well within our rights to, but we'll let this one go. The guy's an idiot but he had positive motivations; a treason trial isn't worth it, it makes us look like the bad guys. Just make sure he's never allowed to take any job again that lets him anywhere close to secret info and drop the whole thing- no-one cares that much about the leak and it will be forgotten soon enough."

I think that would be both morally and politically appropriate. Nor do I think that dropping it would encourage others to crime; this is a pretty particular circumstance. I DO think trying to push this is just handing the political opponents of the administration (especially foreign ones) an open goal.

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