While Snowden became a symbol of resistance to the total surveillance regime, after his Joe Rogan interview there are serious
doubt about his authenticity.
First of all he comes out a clear narcissistic person. I, me, myself. He speaks more like a well trained journalist
and for security specialist he talks way too much promoting his book. Also it looks like he was just a Microsoft certified
engender, he does not have certification in networking like Cisco, or Linux like Red Hat. So doubt increase after that
interview as for how he managed to collect information undetected.
Emergence of new technologies after WWII reacted to the possibility of having powerful intelligence agencies by creating
such agencies. When Truman when when the train of total surveillance start rolling. It did not happened on 9/11. All
envelopes of a regular mail was at least photographed and mail what toes to foreign countries probably selectively
intercepted.
Switch to electronic communication put this process in overdrive.
The key issue is that the US elite willingly speed up the conversion of the USA into full blown national security state.
His meteoric rise in CIA and later in NSA also raises several questions. How typical is for a former security guard at Maryland
University NSA security facility was promoted to the level of diplomatic attaché in Switzerland?
The other suspicious thing about Snowden is his openly hostile attitude toward Russia. The country which actually saved him
from a long jail sentence.
Yet another very strange thing is his interpretation of 9/11 events. That might be CIA/NSA brainwashing, but still thinking man
can't interpret 9/11 the way Snowden did. What he did right is that 0/11 was a pretext to convert the USA into national
security state. Everything else is in his views on 9/11 highly questionable.
In short he is not Manning, who risked everything, delivered material to WikiLeaks, where they were published and face the full
rage on the national security state as the result.
Still be became the symbol of resistance to the total surveillance regime and this was a positive development.
27 Edward Snowden Quotes About US Government Spying
Would you be willing to give up what Edward Snowden has given up? He has given
up his high paying job, his home, his girlfriend, his family, his future and his freedom just to
expose the monolithic spy machinery that the U.S. government has been secretly building to the world.
He says that he does not want to live in a world where there isn't any privacy. He says that he does
not want to live in a world where everything that he says and does is recorded. Thanks to Snowden,
we now know that the U.S. government has been spying on us to a degree that most people would have
never even dared to imagine.
Up until now, the general public has known very little about the U.S. government spy grid
that knows almost everything about us. But making this information public is going to cost
Edward Snowden everything. Essentially, his previous life is now totally over. And if the U.S. government
gets their hands on him, he will be very fortunate if he only has to spend the next several decades
rotting in some horrible prison somewhere.
There is a reason why government whistleblowers are so rare. And most Americans
are so apathetic that they wouldn't even give up watching their favorite television show for a single
evening to do something good for society. Most Americans never even try to make a difference because
they do not believe that it will benefit them personally. Meanwhile, our society continues to fall
apart all around us. Hopefully the great sacrifice that Edward Snowden has made will not be in vain.
Hopefully people will carefully consider what he has tried to share with the world.
The following are 27 quotes from Edward Snowden about U.S. government spying that should
send a chill up your spine...
#1 "The majority of people
in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and Governments are
abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate."
#2 "...I believe that at
this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable
fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents."
#3 "The government has granted
itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself
have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to."
#4 "...I can't in good conscience
allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around
the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."
#5 "The NSA has built an
infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything."
#6 "With this capability,
the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted
to see your e-mails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your e-mails,
passwords, phone records, credit cards."
#7 "Any analyst at any time
can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere... I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities
to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President..."
#8 "To do that, the NSA
specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them
in its system and it filters them and it analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for
periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve
these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government,
or someone that they suspect of terrorism, they are collecting YOUR communications to do so."
#9 "I believe that when
[senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it
did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people
have been scrutinized most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the
Russians."
#10 "...they are intent
on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them."
#11 "Even if you're not
doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded. ...it's getting to the point where you don't
have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody,
even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision
you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis,
to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life."
#12 "Allowing the U.S.
government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary
to the public interest."
#13 "Everyone everywhere
now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to
decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state."
#14 "I do not want to live
in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support
or live under."
#15 "I don't want to live
in a world where there's no privacy, and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."
#16 "I have no intention
of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong."
#17 "I had been looking
for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act."
#18 "There are more important
things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number
of countries and gotten very rich."
#19 "The great fear that
I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. [People]
won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things... And in the
months ahead, the years ahead, it's only going to get worse. [The NSA will] say that... because of
the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more
authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose
it. And it will be turnkey tyranny."
#20 "I will be satisfied
if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world
that I love are revealed even for an instant."
#21 "You can't come up
against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk."
#22 "I know the media likes
to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me."
#23 "We have got a CIA
station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy
for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that
happens to be."
#24 "I understand that
I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks
my end."
Would you make the same choice that Edward Snowden made? Most Americans would not.
One CNN reporter says that he really admires Snowden because he has tried to get insiders to
come forward with details about government spying for years, but none of them were ever willing to...
As a digital technology writer, I have had more than one former student and colleague tell
me about digital switchers they have serviced through which calls and data are diverted to government
servers or the big data algorithms they've written to be used on our e-mails by intelligence agencies.
I always begged them to write about it or to let me do so while protecting their identities. They
refused to come forward and believed my efforts to shield them would be futile. "I don't want
to lose my security clearance. Or my freedom," one told me.
And if the U.S. government has anything to say about it, Snowden is most definitely going to pay
for what he has done. In fact, according to
the Daily Beast, a directorate known as "the Q Group" is already hunting Snowden down...
The people who began chasing Snowden work for the Associate Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence,
according to former U.S. intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity. The directorate,
sometimes known as “the Q Group,” is continuing to track Snowden now that he’s outed himself as
The Guardian’s source, according to the intelligence officers.
If Snowden is not already under the protection of some foreign government (such as China), it
will just be a matter of time before U.S. government agents get him.
And how will they treat him once they find him? Well, one reporter overheard a group of U.S. intelligence
officials talking about how Edward Snowden should be "disappeared". The following is from a
Daily Mail article that was posted on Monday...
A group of intelligence officials were overheard yesterday discussing how the National Security
Agency worker who leaked sensitive documents to a reporter last week should be 'disappeared.'
Foreign policy analyst and editor at large of The Atlantic, Steve Clemons, tweeted about the
'disturbing' conversation after listening in to four men who were sitting near him as he waited
for a flight at Washington's Dulles airport.
'In Dulles UAL lounge listening to 4 US intel officials saying loudly leaker & reporter on
#NSA stuff should be disappeared
recorded a bit,' he tweeted at 8:42 a.m. on Saturday.
According to Clemons, the men had been attending an event hosted by the Intelligence and National
Security Alliance.
As an American, I am deeply disturbed that the U.S. government is embarrassing itself in front
of the rest of the world like this.
The fact that we are collecting
trillions of pieces of information on people all over the planet is a massive embarrassment and
the fact that our politicians are defending this practice now that it has been exposed is a massive
embarrassment.
If the U.S. government continues to act like a Big Brother police state, then the rest of the
world will eventually conclude that is exactly what we are. At that point we become the "bad guy"
and we lose all credibility with the rest of the planet.
"I don't want to live in a world where everything I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity and love or friendship is recorded."
Will we ever return to a time when USSID 18 was adhered to by NSA? Sadly, our politicians or those who quest for power and stroke
won't let U.S. go back to that time of protections for all Americans.
9th Circuit Court of Appeals found the activity regarding NSA and its metadata collections, illegal.
A very disappointing interview. I person that has no doubts about 9/11 doers not reserve our respect. He also might be a
fake defector much like Oswald was. As simple as that. Snowden version of history is deeply wrong. He actually talk as a
second rate journalist, not as a security specialist. If he thinks that bashing Russia and Putin will save him from being
framed as a Russian agent, he is an idiot. It he things that 9/11 official story holds and can't be questioned he is iether a
naive idiot or a Deep State stooge.
And repeating banalities about security risks in modern society do not bring you too far iether. That a very short summary of
this two and a half hour narcissistic monolog, which for some reason is called interview.
In his interview Snowden mainly repeat things that became banalities and that you can learn for any other book on total
surveillance.
What if this was yet another false flag operation? It looks like he was just certified Microsoft engineer, he was not Unix guy.
He views 9/11 disqualify his from providing the explanation of how the USA was converted into national security state.
His view of Putin are probably result of indoctrination in CIA and NSA, but that also means that he is not a deep thinker.
Also it is strange after spending in the country several years and did not lean more about Russia and did not even try to learn the
language.
BTW while his escape from the USA and attempt to provide materials did managed to focus attention of the
public on total severance regime, almost nothing of Snowden materials were published. Almost everything died in the hand of selected
journalists... Guardian published small fragments of one PRISM document. That's it. He is no Manning.
Snowden puts too much efforts in trying to justify his actions and at the end that became annoying and suspicious in its own
right.
Notable quotes:
"... "patriotism isn't about the loyalty to government. Patriotism isn't a loyalty to anything. Patriotism is constant effort to do good for the people of your country" ..."
"... "I'd be working on umm economic takeover of Guatemala for example" Lol CIA's bread and butter ..."
"... While I'm not saying Snowden is wrong, it's important to realize that this is "his side of the story." ..."
"... Honestly don't know how so many can be shocked by these claims. Did you really think that your government sweetheart is trying to protect you? They collectively have an agenda to keep people asleep. ..."
"... Snowden is a D.S. Cutout. Period. Disinfo Personified. He didn't get out of Hong Kong W/O HELP ..."
"... Is anybody else kinda thrown off by how condescending and patronizing Snowden is towards Joe? ..."
"... I can't believe NSA and CIA hired someone that talks that much... ..."
"... So every politician I disagree with is a dictator or fascist. Seems someone hasn't learned much ..."
"... It was the Russian government that took him in, the alternative would be rotting in a dark off shore CIA prison. I would not bite the hand that saved me. Snowden is a good guy but i think he needs to learn gratitude. ..."
"... If this video is trending, this mean Snowden is a puppet to the NWO. NO WAY THEY WILL ALLOW A VIDEO LIKE THIS TO EVER TREND IN YOUTUBE OR ANY WHERE. ..."
"... there were numerous people warned not to fly/go to wtc on 911. Willie Brown, Salmon Rushdie, Israeli citizens, apparently the French knew as well... But Snowden says they didn't know ..."
"... With all do respect to snowden , 9 11 was an inside job The whole event was controlled. Controlled demolition , controlled airlines to launch them in to the towers. All orchestrated by elements of the CIA , FBI , and NSA ..."
"patriotism isn't about the loyalty to government. Patriotism isn't a loyalty to anything.
Patriotism is constant effort to do good for the people of your country"
"People talk about the deep state like it's a conspiracy theory of lizard people, it's
not, its something much simpler, the deep state is the career government." - Edward
Snowden
1:57:00 Snowden talks about how
the Intelligence agencies can stonewall you and sabotage your presidency... Exactly what
President Trump has been saying for years.
What I really got out of this episode is
realization that companies and the government can now track where I have been on a particular
date at a particular time forever. Its crazy what a time we live in.
Imagine kids born in
2006 or so until they expire. They government or companies can pull up data of their entire
life timeline at any point in their lives. Example where were they on 2/15/2010 at 2:15 PM.
Someone born in 1965 can only recall memories of their pass experiences that only they know
or the people around can remember whereas now days and beyond, they can pull that information
out depending on how specific the query you want to obtain. This is not including all the
other data such as relationship they have had, where they had lived, where they had eaten,
what they had buy, etc...
38:00 . CIA and FBI competing
for clout . I'm sorry I know this is serious but just imagined them as
annoying social media acc trying to get the most likes. But seriously, thanks Joe, you let
your guest talk and it was so incredibly insightful!!
When this Edward Snowden thing first happened, the first thing I
thought was wow this is a very very smart man but not smart enough to realize how stupid
people are and how powerful mainstream media is when it comes to the general public's
perception.
The general public doesn't realize that the mainstream news has nowhere near
5million views in 3 days but if it's not talked about on main stream news for a week or if
the president does not acknowledge something then it does not exist. That's the truth.
Snowden tries to advertise his book the whole time Rogan asks him a simple question..
Okay, I get it you go into details in the book... Just answer the question. "Oh yeah, let me
give you a fast version....". 1 hr later - He still hasn't answered.
Joe Rogan is one patient
ass man. Thanks for having such interesting and awesome content on your podcast! :)
"> My obsevation is that if I was in charge of keeping our "They Live" clandestine
alien government's secret, then I wouldn't allow that information wrote down on paper in a
room with a computer even in it , let alone have it in a computer document.
Not many people
should even be aware of the information and When they are they stick to analogue pens and
paper other than when they are reverse engineering anything, When specialist use
hardware/software it is in TOTAL contained environment .
And that dudes is how ya keeps a
secret . Oh and the moon he is wrong with that and you can use the same reasoning, what did
they do for example with all of the film tape recordings of all the footage of Apollo
landing. Yes they taped over it, all of it. If you have ever seen moon landing footage it's a
recording of a recording to hide multitudes of oversights. x
09:45
Sounds more like escalating the surveillance of the general population was the main goal from
the start. A slow subversion made palatable by a perceived threat.
We need to stand up to this somehow. Just think of the chilling effect on anyone who might
want to do a public service but fears exposure of some detail in their private life or their
explorations or communications which could be used to silence or embarrass them.
Bastards!
I can barely keep my eyes open with Snowden. You'd think to yourself, how come such a
sleepy personality individual be so dangerous to the government elite?
Well, the proof is in
what he's saying and it is the truth that 9/11 was a mass conspiracy aimed to change America
and ruin The Will of The American people. I was his age when all this crap went down and I
believed all of it like he and many of my generation did because we didn't have the Alex
Jones of the world waking us up to this sick reality which is our government is treasonous
against its own people.
He was given the same speech training as Obama. Same cadence, same pauses, same use of
"uhh", "right" and "Look...". The repeating of certain words quickly before finishing the
main point is particularly noticeable, i.e. "th- the.." "th- that", "whe- when..."
I feel like lack of communication is so the reason for a lot occupational struggles as
well as in the government structures. It makes me sad to see that sharing and informing is
just so hard for some people. And that negative energy rubs of on everyone else and I feel
like it's a huge spiraling butterfly affect.
But I'm glad to see someone talking about the
issues with our society so intensely and so carefully and so factually and I honestly love
it. I feel included because of this video and for that, I am great full!
While I'm not saying Snowden is wrong, it's important to realize that this is "his side of
the story." This is why fair trials are important.. He complains about the D.C. circuit and
perhaps for good reason; I say fine, bring him to the 8th circuit and let's put all the cards
on the table.
Honestly don't know how so many can be shocked by these claims. Did you really think that
your government sweetheart is trying to protect you? They collectively have an agenda to keep
people asleep.
To keep them in their routines so that they don't ask questions. Also throw
them a bone every now and then so that they feel as if they are getting rewarded while we
extort them, spy on them and use them and then throw them away.
"The public is not partnered with government. The public does not hold the leash to
government. We are subject to them. Subordinate to government" " National security does not
equal to public safety. National security is the safety of the state"
Is anybody else kinda thrown off by how condescending and patronizing Snowden is
towards Joe? He seems to be throwing low key shade/jabs about his preconceived notions about
Joe based off his avatar.
I mean he could have spoken on his initial impression as a little
anecdotal segway into how this interview came to fruition, but he seems arrogant to me. Like
he feels the average layman is beneath him or of lessor intellectualism. Great interview
nonetheless, but I just think Snowden comes off a little uppity (for lack of a better
term)😒
It was the Russian government that took him in, the alternative would be rotting in a dark
off shore CIA prison. I would not bite the hand that saved me. Snowden is a good guy but i
think he needs to learn gratitude.
Ed, you made one mistake: Americans are not "afraid"! US citizens did NOT vote for DT out
of fear. They voted out of CONCERN. The average American? Goes to McD's once a month (they're
lovin' it), buys their daughter an ice cream at Dairy Queen (or equivalent ice cream place in
town), anticipates when is the most convenient day to schedule an oil change, etc. "Fear",
"scared", "fearmonger"?
These are nonsensical words the other side likes to spew. Americans
are c-o-n-c-e-r-n-e-d about their country. The British (and I speak on behalf of all
Americans, British, and so forth - thank you, thank you) opted out of the EU because of
CONCERN for their future. Not fear. You're a smart guy Ed, and this interview is very
telling, (and we the people think you're gonna get your ass assassinated for speaking so
freely like this), and although I only had the patience to sit through the first hour, this
is a good video, and a memorable interview.
But just understand -- aside from North Koreans and
maybe a Syrian here and there, citizens are not afraid. We are instead courageous. We CARE
about the now. We care about the future. We support those that care as well. We're concerned,
kiddo. Not fearful. Boris, Donald, Orban, that green-faced Putin opponent Alexei Navalny guy,
Nigel, Milo, Geert, PJW, Brigitte Bardot, August Sabbe, Romas Kalanta, Joan of Arc (and
countless others) - at risk of their safety / public standing / status quo / whatever - CARE.
Those are the leaders (ASS KICKERS) that we support and vote for. We are members of the human
race. We are not afraid.
#1 if people didn't realize this was going on before 2013, then I don't know where your
brain was. #2 this guy may correct, but he's an opportunist.
He's spent a lot of time putting
this story together. How can he say there are no bodies laying around when Obama was sending
up drones that fired missles at cell phones? I worked in the telecom industry starting in the
90s... I was tracking calls on 9/11. I knew who was calling who, and the FBI didn't ask
permission to see where the calls were going or coming from.
He's had John McAfee, Rhonda Patrick, Mike Tyson, Graham Hancock, Neil Degrasse Tyson,
Lance Armstrong, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Jay Leno, Anthony Bourdain, David Goggins, Ron
White, Jordan Peterson, Everlast, Immortal Technique, Bernie Sanders, Ben Shapiro, George
St.Pierre, Elon Musk, Alex Jones, and now Edward Snowden. Just to name a few.
But there were numerous people warned not to fly/go to wtc on 911. Willie Brown, Salmon
Rushdie, Israeli citizens, apparently the French knew as well... But Snowden says they didn't
know
"Give me one good reason the government would have committed 9/11." - steel beams don't melt jet fuel, also watch this
podcast and you'll wish you still lived in the matrix
Right now, Chile, my home country, is going through a very difficult and delicate
process of civil unrest that has been met with relentless repression at the hands of a
government that works in favor of private interests and has been confirmed to commit several
and systematic human rights violations, including torture, murder, rape, state terrorism, and
the list goes on. Listening to this podcast right now really puts in perspective the extent
to wich a State can manipulate, hide and forge information in order to limit civil rights
with the excuse of protecting the people.
We NEED guys like Snowden to come forth and show
governments around the world that any measures taken to protect order and national interests
should always be second to the well-being, civil and human rights of the people that
constitute the very foundation of what a country is.
People from the US are lucky to have
true patriots like Snowden, willing to go against the rotten systems so deeply ingrained in
their institutional complexes in order to uphold the ideals that gave birth to their country
in the first place. We need help, and we need clarity. If y'all can, please get informed and
divulge what you learn about our situation right now. Get people talking and get people
acting.
No government that - literally- fires against its people should be left unchecked.
Information is a tool, the greatest one we've got in this day and age, and we the people are
more capable than ever of using it in our advantage.
At 14:15 , he says he went to
journalists with the information and gave them conditions on how that information could be
published. Was this a trust or legal based transaction? If it was trust, would Snowden still
be as confident in doing it that way in today's media climate?
So James Clapper just straight-up lied to Congress under oath and there were no
repercussions, yet they did their best to hunt down Ed Snowden and treat him like a dirty
dog? What is wrong with this picture? Besides everything, I mean.
The scary thing is, is that while Snowden is telling us what happened in the past, the
government is actively abusing powers while looking for new ways to violate our rights. We
need to really look at ourselves as citizens and make sure the people we vote for are
actually serving the public no matter what party or tak they're on.
With all do respect to snowden , 9 11 was an inside job The whole event was controlled.
Controlled demolition , controlled airlines to launch them in to the towers. All orchestrated
by elements of the CIA , FBI , and NSA
"... America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted. ..."
"... Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it. ..."
"... America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened. ..."
"... Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington. ..."
"... Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so. ..."
The motives for so many Western spies serving the Soviet Union – and in the 1940s and
1950s the Soviets had the best "humint" on earth – were rather idealistic. This was
largely true for the Cambridge Circle in Britain. They were concerned that America was going
to "lord it over" the Russians and everyone else.
America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the
1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted.
Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined
towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of
major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent,
sensitive type would be concerned by it.
You certainly did not have to be a communist to feel that way, but being one assisted with
access to important Soviet contacts. They sought you out.
America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable
position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over"
as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened.
It made little secret of its desire to keep such a monopoly, so brilliant people like
Oppenheimer would be well aware of something they might well regard as ominous.
Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the
Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there
were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington.
A hugely important general like MacArthur was unblinkingly ready in 1950 to use atomic
weapons in the Korean War to destroy North Korea's connections with China.
I read several major biographies of Oppenheimer, and there is little to nothing concerning
Soviet intelligence work. When I came across the Sudoplatov book with its straightforward
declaration of Oppenheimer's assistance, it was difficult to know how to weigh the claim.
Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even
insist they do so.
Judging by what is suggested here, if Oppenheimer did help, it was in subtle ways like
letting Klaus Fuchs, a fellow scientist and a rather distinguished one (but a Soviet spy),
look at certain papers. But the scientific community always has some considerable tendency to
share information, a tendency having nothing to do with spying.
In general, it should be understood, that Oppenheimer, despite all his brilliance, was a
rather disturbed man all his life. Quite early on, as just one example, he attempted to
poison someone he did not like. Only pure luck prevented the man's eating a lethally-laced
apple. There were other disturbing behaviors too.
Later they believed that equality of superpower status for the Soviet Union would
contribute to world peace.
How dumb were these "scientists". Everyone knows that once Soviet Union fell, peace and
freedom and democracy are flowering all over the world and United States are not waging any
wars anymore.
My intent here is not to summarize Snowden's entire interview. I want to focus on some
points he made that I found especially revealing, pertinent, and insightful.
Without further ado, here are 12 points I took from this interview:
1. People who reach the highest levels of government do so by being risk-averse. Their
goal is never to screw-up in a major way. This mentality breeds cautiousness, mediocrity, and
buck-passing. (I saw the same in my 20 years in the U.S. military.)
2. The American people are no longer partners of government. We are subjects. Our rights
are routinely violated even as we become accustomed (or largely oblivious) to a form of
turnkey tyranny.
3. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. used 9/11 to enlarge their power. They argued that
9/11 happened because there were "too many restrictions" on them. This led to the PATRIOT Act
and unconstitutional global mass surveillance, disguised as the price of being kept "safe"
from terrorism. Simultaneously, America's 17 intelligence agencies wanted most of all not to
be blamed for 9/11. They wanted to ensure the buck stopped nowhere. This was a goal they
achieved.
4. Every persuasive lie has a kernel of truth. Terrorism does exist - that's the kernel of
truth. Illegal mass surveillance, facilitated by nearly unlimited government power, in the
cause of "keeping us safe" is the persuasive lie.
5. The government uses classification
("Top Secret" and so on) primarily to hide things from the American people, who have no "need
to know" in the view of government officials. Secrecy becomes a cloak for illegality.
Government becomes unaccountable; the people don't know, therefore we are powerless to rein
in government excesses or to prosecute for abuses of power.
6. Fear is the
mind-killer (my expression here, quoting Frank Herbert's Dune ). Snowden spoke much about
the use of fear by the government, using expressions like "they'll be blood on your hands"
and "think of the children." Fear is the way to cloud people's minds. As Snowden put it, you
lose the ability to act because you are afraid.
7. What is true patriotism? For Snowden, it's about a constant effort to do good for the
people. It's not loyalty to government. Loyalty, Snowden notes, is only good in the service
of something good.
8. National security and public safety are not synonymous. In fact, in the name of
national security, our rights are being violated. We are "sweeping up the broken glass of our
lost rights" in today's world of global mass surveillance, Snowden noted.
9. We live naked before power. Companies like Facebook and Google, together with the U.S.
government, know everything about us; we know little about them. It's supposed to be the
reverse (at least in a democracy).
10. "The system is built on lies." James Clapper, the director of national intelligence,
lies under oath before Congress. And there are no consequences. He goes unpunished.
11. We own less and less of our own data. Data increasingly belongs to corporations and
the government. It's become a commodity. Which means we are the commodity. We are being
exploited and manipulated, we are being sold, and it's all legal, because the powerful make
the policies and the laws, and they are unaccountable to the people.
12. Don't wait for a hero to save you. What matters is heroic decisions. You are never
more than one decision away from making the world a better place.
In 2013, Edward Snowden made a heroic decision to reveal illegal mass surveillance by the
U.S. government, among other governmental crimes. He has made the world a better place, but as
he himself knows, the fight has only just begun against turnkey tyranny.
Governments using fear for control is nothing new.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary.
Sorry folks. In time you will see that Snowden was, is, and always will be CIA (black
hat). The whistle blowing was a CIA attempt to shut down the NSA (white hat) leaving no one
to watch over the black hats whilst they conduct thier drug running and regime changing, and
MK ultra operations. Ask Kennedy. Oh wait CIA and daddy Bush blew his head off.
Snowden, in my opinion, is a limited hangout. Not necessarily aware of it, he could just
be a convenient dupe.
If there's this much surveillance, how in the Hell did he exfiltrate that much data AND be
able to leave the country? Why did it take so long to track him down and revoke his passport?
It makes no sense. Why didn't he go to Wikileaks, who has a proven and reliable track record
but instead went to MSM?
I think he is probably genuine in his beliefs, but still see him as a limited hangout.
He has made the world a better place
How? Uncle Scam still has all it's capabilities. That big *** data center in Utah.
Nothing's changed except we were told about it- again. Remember Drake, Wiebe and Binney
spilled the beans in 2004.
And how does a guy go from CIA janitor to effectively an NSA systems admin? Seriously, not
to **** on janitors, but how in the actual **** does that happen?
All your questions are answered in his book. Wkileaks wasn't an option because they
release en masse without any vetting. He didn't want people to die from release of some of
the docs he had.
They are just now getting to the point where they have the tech to effectively sort and
search through all that data. Plus. He tapped it from the source.
The real shame is how little resulted from the exposure. Nothing changed, no one was held
to account, and we the people did nothing. We are a nation of contented slaves, for now.
"Intelligence agencies in the U.S. used 9/11 to enlarge their power. "
And their power was supposed to be limited to foreign actors. The skinny, jug-eared, gay
guy and his acolytes thought up sinister illegal ways to extend that power to private US
citizens and the gay guy's political enemies.
Most of these problems were predicted centuries ago when the founders feared a standing
army that could be turned against the people. Now we have standing armies, and civilian
paramilitaries in every county and big city, local cops, city cops, state police. We have
ATF, FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, and dozens of other armed alphabet soup agencies.
With We THE People are gonna regain our country again and many people will die again, and
with luck all the traitors will hang by the neck until dead.
The elites who think it is their birthright to lord over us need to be reminded that they
serve us. All the communist democrats are in need of reminders and quick drop at the end of a
rope.
It's heartening to know Snowden is a martial alumni..
And speaking of tyranny, we came across a gem, a most enlightening gem thus..
"If you take me down, I'll come after you with everything I've got It will become my
life's mission."
"These are the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to newspaper publisher Arnon
Mozes in a recording that has become central evidence in a corruption case against Netanyahu,
as revealed Saturday by Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker.."
So why have we brought this to your attention?
So you may understand that Liberty is not for the lily livered. If Jefferson and Co had
been squeamish, Americans would still be serfs..
If MLK had been squeamish, negros would not be free today, to be in position to advocate
for rights..
And if Cesar Chavez had adopted cowardice, then Latinos would have no mojo to
advocate..
And if Hugo Chavez had not given his life to Venezuela, it's doubtful that Maduro would
have had a leg to stand on..
And yet, Lula is imprisoned..just like Nelson Mandela, for the best years of his
life..
My friends, mortality eventually ends, that's a certainty..what you do with yours, is
consequential, for good or ill..
When the depraved hurl threats, it means they're afraid, and in that event, increase the
artillery barrage of truth..cheers...
The digital world has become disturbingly invasive and the source of the data the
governments uses against us.
Abstain.
Get off of social media, limit net time, encrypt communications, leave our mobile devices
at home and use cash.
Anything that leaves a digital footprint is being tracked.
The loss of our privacy is the loss of our freedom.
To return democracy to the people we need to do the following:
-Term limits of 8 years at any one level of government for the politicians, diplomats,
bureaucrats and senior civil servants. If our legislators know they will spend the majority
of their working lives in the private sector they will not pass laws that solely benefit the
public sector.
-Recall legislation to hold our legislators accountable.
-Balance budget laws that require referendums to amend or repeal.
-Zero tax increase laws that require referendums to amend or repeal.
We need to return democracy to the people and we do that by demanding change at the
grassroots levels.
These days , The Shang Dynasty's moral decay quickly comes to mind, as outlined in
The Art of War : lies, deceit and diffusion were the norm; unaccountable leaders
immersed themselves in debauchery, orgies and lavish self-profiting (today's
Epsteinism in full-swing); brutally-enforced high taxes & wage thefts levied on
citizens; government's increased violence against state residents, particularly those brave
enough to resist widespread tyranny; escalated harmful interference in the country's
agricultural operations; and knee-jerked, violent responses with heavy-handed, inhuman
punishments (like SWAT teams blowing away innocents -- women & children -- over minor,
inconsequential infractions), especially violation of peoples' guaranteed civil liberties, as
well as their sovereign dignities and property rights, under the guise of ridiculously
concocted "boogeymen" nonsense.
It's also interesting that this area has more millionaires per capita than anywhere else
in America. It's not a high tech area, no manufacturing, and no big agriculture. Sucking the
tit of our taxes.
"... The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with and blew the whistle on (apparently). ..."
"... Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music -- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine. Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that. ..."
Indeed Orwell's "1984" referred to the UK as "Airstrip One" and this Brexit fiasco surely
proves that Outside Influences not only run the Judiciary when necessary, but also plant
poison on doorknobs when it suits them.
The ever servile Australian government to the empire du jour does nothing to honor their
passport pledge. We would have to assume it qualifies as Orwell's "Airstrip Two"
In contrast to Assange's predicament (and Manning I assume), the main point of this post
is to mention the recent Joe Rogan interview of Edward Snowden (touting his book) --
http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/edward-snowden
Nearly three hours of mostly Snowden rambling on. I stayed with it to the end. A few items
of interest but mostly just noise. I found him initially somewhat suspicious -- by the end I
was more neutral. However, what a display of American arrogance and ingratitude. The Russian
government has saved his bacon and has given him refuge with great freedoms he would not have
in the USA -- or Airstrip One ... or, HK, or any South American backyard colony. And yet he
makes no attempt to thank them and even virtually panders to the American anti-Russian meme.
He has even dabbled in Russian opposition politics via local newspaper comments. What an
ungrateful guest! (Or still an agent @ work?) I would entirely understand the Russians
putting him on a plane back to the USA tomorrow. Ungrateful little character, imo. And says a
lot about the way Americans treat the external world from inside their little fishbowl.
Simply a doormat for convenience.
The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal
conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in
these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court
system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with
and blew the whistle on (apparently).
Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music
-- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits
apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine.
Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that.
I don't see how he could have handled it better. He was polite and well-spoken, never
flustered or defensive, and the talking heads tumbled over one another in their eagerness to
be properly judgmental, to talk over him and recite their own talking points, and ended up
looking like buffoons. He will be a tough nut to crack, and so far the American regime has
done nothing to convince ordinary people that he is a cowardly traitor. Putting him on
television only makes him look more heroic.
And a US "talking" head, in reply to Snowdon's belief that he would not get a fair trial in
the USA (a US human rights issue, is that not, Mr.Snowdon?) says that criminals and alleged
criminals do not customarily get to determine the terms of their trial: they broke the law
and they face the consequences "
Guilty before proven innocent?
Presumption of innocence: an international human right under the UN Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, Article 11.
Nor, to the best of my recollection, did it have an Abu Ghraib. The United States actually
has a pretty shitty human-rights record if you consider it from the viewpoint of how it treas
others than Americans, and – going further back – only white Americans. The west
always tries to factor in the Holodomor, too, how Russia deliberately starved the Ukrainians
to death, as an example of their horrible human rights record.
I cringed at that one too. But I forgive Edward, because I think he was trying to make a
tactical debating point, namely:
I am not a Russia stooge, I have my criticisms of the Russian regime yada yada, and I
agree with you talking heads that their human rights record is not well received in the West.
And yet they scored a human-rights trifecta when they let me in, when not one single
"democracy" would defend me or give me asylum.
In other words, he would concede, for argumentation purposes, that Russia is bad, only to
stick it to them that Russia did well by him and scored propaganda points against the West.
It's a particular debating tactic, whose Latin name I cannot recall.
Unfortunately, Edward never got to finish his point, because those bitches cut him off
before he could even get to the punchline.
US authorities usually do not allow such staff for people why really want to hurt. They couple easily put his girlfriend
on "nofly" list, if they wanted.
In the interview, timed to coincide with the release of his book titled Permanent Record,
Snowden said he and Mills, who later moved to him in Russia, married two years ago at a private
ceremony ... ... ... One of world's most beautiful countries
According to Snowden, people in the West often have no information about the beauty of
Russian nature and hospitality of Russians.
"I've been to St. Petersburg, I've been to Sochi. I love travelling and I still do, even
though I can't cross borders now," he said.
"One of the things that is lost in all the problematic politics of the Russian government is
the fact this is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The people are friendly. The
people are warm," he continued. "And when I came here I did not understand any of this. I was
terrified of this place because, of course, they were the great fortress of the enemy, which is
the way a CIA agent looks at Russia."
According to Snowden, "What people don't realize about Russia is that basically you can get
all the same things you can get in the United States." "The only thing they don't have in
Russia is Taco Bell," he added.
He said it was never his plan to reside in Russia, but, "with time, with open eyes you can
see that our presumptions of a place are almost always different from the reality."
Noble
cause
According to Snowden, his book was intended not only to inform reader of his life in the US
and Russia, but also to draw attention to serious challenges the modern society is now
facing.
"We have moved into a time where people care much more deeply about feelings than they do
about facts. And this is a dangerous moment for democracy, because people believe that once
we have achieved and established a free and open society it will remain that way, it will
always be there. But the reality is: things can backslide very quickly," Snowden said when
asked how dangerous, in his opinion, Trump's rise to power was.
The whistleblower believes that people should be informed of infringements on their freedom
and of acute problems, such as climate change or advanced mass surveillance technologies used
by various governments.
"We need people to recognize these problems, to understand these problems and then to be
willing to give something up to change that problem," he said. "But it's not enough to believe
in something. You have to be ready to stand for something if you want it to change. And so that
is what I hope this book will help people come to decide for themselves: are you ready to this
change."
Snowden's case
In June 2013, Snowden leaked classified information to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura
Poitras, which revealed global surveillance programs run by US and British intelligence
agencies. He explained the move by saying that he wanted to tell the world the truth because he
believed such large-scale surveillance on innocent citizens was unacceptable and the public
needed to know about it.
The Guardian and The Washington Post published the first documents concerning the US
intelligence agencies' spying on Internet users on June 6, 2013. According to the documents,
major phone companies, including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint Nextel, handed records of their
customers' phone conversations over to the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
who also had direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Skype,
YouTube, Paltalk, AOL and Apple. In addition, Snowden's revelations showed that a secret
program named PRISM was aimed at collecting audio and video recordings, photos, emails and
information about users' connections to various websites.
After leaking classified information, Snowden flew to Hong Kong and then to Moscow, arriving
in Russia on June 23, 2013. He applied for political asylum to more than 20 countries while
staying in the transit zone at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. On July 16, he applied for a
temporary asylum in Russia, accepting Moscow's condition to refrain from activities aimed
against the US.
The NSA and the Pentagon claim that Snowden stole about 1.7 mln classified documents
concerning the activities of US intelligence services and US military operations. He is charged
with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information
and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an
unauthorized person. He is facing up to ten years in prison on each charge.
This article raises serious questions about
Snowden's authenticity. Although the level of damage he has done make suggestion that he is apart of CIA operation
against NSA much less plausible. He did some damage by publicizing operations like Prism. No question about it.
And it is diffuclt to treat Snowden like another variation of Lee Harvey Oswald defection
to the USSR.
But it is true that several steps that he took after supposed exfiltration of the documents were highly suspicious: As author pointed out WaPo
and Guardian are essentially intelligence agencies controlled outlets, so there is no chance that publication can't be completely blocked.
Another good point is that in any large corporation there is system of logs and they suppoedly are analysed, althout the level
of qualification in doing so varies greatly.
And if reports are created automatically that not not mean that they are ver read. Another valid point is that even if you are system administrator, you have
great powers over all your users. But at the same time your power is compartmentalized: you have access only to few selected computer that constitute the set of servers you manage.
And you usually access then via special jumpserver, which logs everything you do. In no way you have access to any server and any
database in the organization; you
might not even know that some servers exist. Actually access to critical databases is very tightly controlled.
The author also pointed to an interesting question about difficulties of exfiltration of data on encrypted Windows computers. I
think that copy to the UCB drive from encrypted drive to SD or USB drive might still be permitted for sysadmins, as it might be required for some operations.
But SD accepted might be special, issued by NSA, not retai and they should be accounted for. Still the point that Yvonne Lorenzo raised is very interesting: how you bypass existing protections on you computer to copy information
of SD card ?
On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks?
Notable quotes:
"... How many reading my words work at a large entity, not necessarily government, let us say a Fortune 1000 or higher? Do you have the ability to copy data unimpeded onto any external device? Can you surf the Internet at will? Or is everything you do on the computer network under constant, real-time scrutiny? ..."
"... Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated to his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time. Are his supporters alleging he is so clever he could disappear from the "Eye of Sauron's" view and be unnoticed? If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Crimea. ZeroHedge reported " IRS Agent Charged In Leak Of Michael Cohen Transactions To Michael Avenatti ." ..."
"... However, don't believe it takes nine months to identify such an unauthorized intrusion. Don't think every keystroke isn't monitored in real-time. So my question is: would the NSA, which has much more sensitive data (especially compromising information on the governing class) than tax returns and financial transactions have inferior capabilities than the IRS as to maintaining data security? Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents? ..."
"... On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database? ..."
"... While other outlets -- such as the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post and the New York Times -- also possess much (though not all) of the archive, the Intercept was the only outlet with the (full) archive that had continued to publish documents, albeit at a remarkably slow pace, in recent years. In total, fewer than 10 percent of the Snowden documents have been published since 2013. Thus, the closing of the publication's Snowden archive will likely mean the end of any future publications, unless Greenwald's promise of finding "the right partner that has the funds to robustly publish" is fulfilled ..."
"... Do you believe Putin's intelligence agencies don't communicate to him how Washington "organized crime" really operates, as Whitney Webb has disclosed, now on the pages of Unz.com ? What difference does any compromised President make to the policies and goals of the occupational government of the United States (obvious to any reader of this and similar websites)? ..."
"... Why is an alleged humanitarian such a Russophobe? ..."
"... Has Snowden ever challenged the September 11 narrative, ludicrous as it is, and him being an "engineer?" ..."
"... STO equals Special Technical Operations It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these. ..."
"... ECI = Exceptionally Controlled Information. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these ECI controlled networks). VRK = Very Restricted Knowledge. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these VRK controlled networks. ..."
"... So what they did, is they took a few documents and they downgraded [he classification level of the documents] – just a few – and gave them to them to placate this basic whitewash investigation. ..."
"... Journalist Margie Burns asked some good questions back in June that have not yet been answered. She wondered about the 29-year old Snowden who had been a U.S. Army Special Forces recruit, a covert CIA operative, and an NSA employee in various capacities, all in just a few, short years. Burns asked "How, exactly, did Snowden get his series of NSA jobs? Did he apply through regular channels? Was it through someone he knew? Who recommended him? Who were his references for a string of six-figure, high-level security jobs? Are there any safeguards in place so that red flags go up when a subcontractor jumps from job to job, especially in high-level clearance positions?" ..."
"... In December, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds broke the news that Omidyar's Paypal Corporation was implicated in the as-yet-unreleased NSA documents from Snowden. Moreover, Edmonds had allegedly been contacted by an NSA official who alleged that "a deal was made in early June, 2013 between the journalists involved in this recent NSA scandal and U.S. government officials, which was then sealed by secrecy and nondisclosure agreements by all parties involved." ..."
"... No, no one is accusing Wikileaks of conspiring with Russia, just Robert Mueller. I really appreciate Snowden calling Julian Assange a liar, for he has consistently denied there was a "state actor." ..."
"... "Terrorism is a real problem" Snowden said. Is it credible that Snowden, who presented himself as donating funds to Ron Paul, has never read any alternative news sites? Is it credible that Snowden believes that terrorists and this would include the good "moderate terrorists" in Syria are armed and act on their own initiative, and is ignorant of the role of the governments of America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia in using them to achieve their ends as proxy armies? ..."
"... Does Snowden then think this report, " America Created Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group" is false? Does that mindset make Snowden a champion for liberty or a tool for more control of the American population? For example, is it credible that this alleged genius supports the narrative of the September 11 attacks World Trade Center attacks? ..."
"... Tor lists on its own website sponsors that include Google, the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ONR via Naval Research Laboratory (past sponsor) and DARPA. ..."
"... Perhaps Snowden is only a Soros and Hillary Clinton supporting liberal -- but then why would he have done what he did? His character is of any government employee of the "surface state" who swallows false narratives whole. ..."
"... The logging of user and information accessed is sure added to the file. But real time supervision? No. A eye of sauron? Please. The system isnt there to prevent crime, its to track down the criminal and deeds later. And yes everything takes a very long time on the public side. ..."
"... 'Edward Snowden' who first 'leaked' to the CIA's Washington Post, in fact to Bush VP Dick Cheney's biographer Bart Gellman then the Deep State realised that was too stupid, so they switched to Rothschild employee & ex-gay-pornography-seller Glenn Greenwald, former proprietor of 'hairystuds', at the Guardian, an intel-agency rag which lies about nearly everything ..."
"... NeonRevolt once floated the theory that Snowden was an FBI or CIA plant who whistleblew solely because he had the mission to undermine NSA operations by exposing their equipment/techniques and turning public opinion against them. ..."
"... inter-service rivalry and sabotage between spy agencies is absolutely a thing, and reviewing the inconsistencies of Snowden's stunt, its aftermath, and his personal views with that potential background in mind suddenly makes things make much more sense, in my mind at least. ..."
"... If we accept the later, that he's a plant, then it raises a further question: was the short term loss, associated with his revelations, ie highlighting the utterly disturbing degree of Gov surveillance over US citizens (etc) worth the long term profit of having an established, authoritive psy-op's agent able to influence/distort etc any debate or narrative concerning the US State /elites. On this side the author notes Snowmen's views on Tor, 9/11, Russia etc which clearly advantage the US State's own views on these subjects. ..."
"... Consider that nothing Snowden revealed was news. It was all old hat for anyone who'd been paying attention, and for up to ten years. Sure Snowden made it mainstream for what good it did but nothing he said was a secret anymore. In fact, I thought even at the time his actions were nothing less than a 'threat and warning' from the intel services that they had this much on everyone. Just imagine all those national leaders, politicians from all states being pout on notice. All your secrets are ours! What a powerful global message to deliver and in such a loud and clear fashion. ..."
"... The lack of deviation from official bullshit on 9/11 is on its own however reason enough to toss this guy out. ..."
"... To my mind "9/11, attitude to", is a sort of touch-stone for telling genuine dissidents from fake and both Snowden and Assange fail on that test ..."
"... Snowden is not a classic defector so it makes sense for him to keep his distance from Russian society so as not to be inadvertently compromised or used by their intelligence services. He's obviously under surveillance there, I know we all are but he's much more aware of it, so that doesn't make it easy for him but he's definitely safer there than he'd be in France or Germany. I just don't think he planned well ahead when he became a whistle-blower or was clear about what he was trying to achieve. He's not the top level type of spy we're accustomed to reading about who betray their country for money or to serve another they believe in more than their own. If he has been on active duty as a CIA asset all along I can't see that he has achieved much of use to them other than in some inter-agency rivalry game. But it's natural for Russians to be suspicious of him – they're suspicious by nature – and rightly so, but it doesn't make his life easy there. ..."
"... 9/11 is the "litmus test" and it appears that both Assange and Snowden have failed it. ..."
"... Snowden keeping "distance" to Russia, and not openly defending them seems reasonable to me. You can imagine the smear campaign back home if he would side with Russia against the U.S. on almost anything. "The Russians got to him" or "He was always their man". ..."
"... He is trying to keep his neutrality and credibility and his target audience isn't the average Unz reader, but rather some mainstream educated middle/upper class blokes. Easily scared away from his views if they become too controversial and too far from the established narrative. ..."
"... If I had been in the position like 'Snowden', after first having been granted asylum, my priority would have been to study the language. I would gtuess that he can order food or drink, do basic greetings, and not much else. ..."
"... I agree. Shilling for the Israelis regarding 911 is a deal breaker for me. They had me going about these 2 guys for a while, but when I heard that they had ridiculed 911 truthers I smelled a rat. And after this article I agree they are shills for the status quo. Reasonable people can not doubt that 911 was a false flag operation. There's just too much bullshit there. ..."
"... I think the idea Snowden is a "plant" is a bit far out there. If he is; the real purpose of the exercise is what exactly? ..."
"... I also don't get why some commenters think Julian Assange isn't who he claims to be. His Wikileaks has published great volume of highly embarrassing material for the U.S. The embassy cables come to mind – bringing to light evidence contrary to Washington narrative on many events. ..."
"... There is another thing; Just after he established Wikileaks he came to Iceland and met with journalists and few politicians. The result from that visit was he met one Kristinn Hrafnsson, long time journalist in Iceland with excellent track record and credibility. Since Assange got in trouble, accused of sexual harassment from Swedish woman and finally escaped into the Ecuador embassy in London, Hrafnsson has been spokesman for Wikileaks. ..."
"... "It all comes down to 9/11.Everything that has happened has happened based on a lie . Everyone in Government ; everyone in the media , in entertainment , in organized religion , in the public ,in the public eye who accepts and promotes the official story is either a traitor or a tool . Everyone who does not stand forth and speak truth to power is a coward , a liar and complicit in mass-murder . Everyone everywhere can be measured by this Litmus Test ." ..."
Have you ever had the pleasure of dealing with an agent of the Federal government? For example, have you been audited by the IRS?
Did you notice what the "Agent" does to gain access to his (or her) computer -- by inserting a "Smart ID" into a slot? Did you ask
how your personal information is protected from disclosure or theft? What is to prevent the Agent from copying files to a thumb drive
and taking them home?
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12), issued by President George W. Bush on August 27, 2004, mandated the
establishment of a standard for identification of Federal government employees and contractors. HSPD-12 requires the use of
a common identification credential for both logical and physical access to federally controlled facilities and information systems.
The Department of Commerce and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) were tasked with producing a standard for
secure and reliable forms of identification. In response, NIST published Federal Information Processing Standard Publication
201 (FIPS 201), Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors, issued on February 25, 2005, and a
number of special publications that provide more detail on the implementation of the standard.
Both Federal agencies and enterprises have implemented FIPS 201-compliant ID programs and have issued PIV cards. The FIPS
201 PIV card is a smart card with both contact and contactless interfaces that is now being issued to all Federal employees and
contractors
Additional information about FIPS 201 can be found on the Government Identity/Credentialing Resources page, from NIST, and
from the Secure Technology Alliance Access Control Council.
If you engage the IRS employee in conversation, remembering the adage you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, you'll
learn the computer cannot be compromised -- all data on the device are encrypted; the only access to it is via the Smart ID. Data
can be copied to an external "thumb drive" but everything copied will be encrypted; any file on that thumb drive is only readable
by that specific device. Wouldn't this be true of NSA devices as well? Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption:
how would it be possible?
In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden , as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers, did
you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement? Why wasn't
its use, which is public knowledge, shown or discussed? Per the above, the Smart ID is deployed in all government agencies: there
are no exceptions. And while the financial portion (think of all those Goldman Sachs alumni at the U.S. Department of the Treasury)
is likely the most powerful part of the financial-military-industrial-media-congressional complex that is the central power of the
federal government, do you think that IRS systems are different and superior in security to what was employed by a contractor working
for Booze-Allen Hamilton at the NSA?
How many reading my words work at a large entity, not necessarily government, let us say a Fortune 1000 or higher? Do you
have the ability to copy data unimpeded onto any external device? Can you surf the Internet at will? Or is everything you do on the
computer network under constant, real-time scrutiny?
Did Edward Snowden, who has publicly criticized Google, mention Google is deployed as a search engine throughout the federal "intranet"?
And can he catch a link to the Washington Post on the NSA homepage too? Or would he testify and can it be verified that NSA does
not use Google (for example to obtain the PowerPoint he revealed) for searching for internal documents and procedures? Can anyone
reading my words answer the questions I've posed so far and answer accurately and honestly with confirmatory evidence?
Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated to
his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time. Are his supporters alleging
he is so clever he could disappear from the "Eye of Sauron's" view and be unnoticed? If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell
you in Crimea. ZeroHedge reported "
IRS Agent Charged In Leak Of Michael Cohen Transactions To Michael Avenatti ." From the article:
John C. Fry, an analyst in the San Francisco IRS office who had worked for the agency since 2008, was charged with disclosing
Cohen's Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) – nine months after we reported that it wouldn't be difficult to track down the leaker
due to a digital trail left behind from accessing the system.
However, don't believe it takes nine months to identify such an unauthorized intrusion. Don't think every keystroke isn't
monitored in real-time. So my question is: would the NSA, which has much more sensitive data (especially compromising information
on the governing class) than tax returns and financial transactions have inferior capabilities than the IRS as to maintaining data
security? Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents?
On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database? As Roger Stone has
noted, the odious Nixon was taken down principally by the CIA media front The Washington Post because he sought detente with Russia
and another presidential assassination would have been too obvious. Notice the situation regarding the Snowden treasure trove as
investigative journalist Whitney Webb writes about it here: "
Silencing the Whistle: The Intercept Shutters
Snowden Archive, Citing Cost ."
According to a timeline of events written by Poitras that was shared and published by journalist and former Intercept columnist
Barrett Brown, both Scahill and Greenwald were intimately involved in the decision to close the Snowden archive.
While other outlets -- such as the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post and the New York Times -- also possess much (though
not all) of the archive, the Intercept was the only outlet with the (full) archive that had continued to publish documents, albeit
at a remarkably slow pace, in recent years. In total, fewer than 10 percent of the Snowden documents have been published since
2013. Thus, the closing of the publication's Snowden archive will likely mean the end of any future publications, unless Greenwald's
promise of finding "the right partner that has the funds to robustly publish" is fulfilled
Yet, as Poitras pointed out, the research department accounted for a minuscule 1.5 percent of First Look Media's budget. Greenwald's
claim that the archive was shuttered owing to its high cost to the company is also greatly undermined by the fact that he, along
with several other Intercept employees -- Reed and Scahill among them -- receive massive salaries that dwarf those of journalists
working for similar nonprofit publications.
Greenwald, for instance, received $1.6 million from First Look Media, of which Omidyar is the sole shareholder, from 2014 to
2017. His yearly salary peaked in 2015, when he made over $518,000. Reed and Scahill both earn well over $300,000 annually from
First Look. According to journalist Mark Ames, Scahill made over $43,000 per article at the Intercept in 2014. Other writers at
the site, by comparison, have a base salary of $50,000, which itself is higher than the national average for journalists.
And what about Snowden himself, the pontificator, the man who can speak on television or to the media with evidence of training?
Practice yourself -- see how well you can answer questions and speak publicly to a TV camera. How did he get his training? Who trained
him? Why? How is it that the legacy media, which
applauds
the slow, painful execution of Julian Assange , be in rapture over Snowden's new book tour and provide ample coverage? Is Assange
being murdered in part to prevent his providing exculpatory evidence that Russia never hacked the DNC and it was a leak?
I have provided two videos below for the reader to consider and compare.
Look at how Bill Binney, a true techno-nerd speaks and compare the difference between him with the polished interviews given by
Snowden who borders on pomposity. Also, to his favor Binney is doing his best to debunk the Russia hacking narrative of the DNC;
Snowden makes his thoughts about Russia and Russians clear
in his latest interview with Der Spiegel promoting his new book about himself:
DER SPIEGEL: Do you have Russian friends?
Snowden: I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life
with basically the English-speaking community. I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm
an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into.
DER SPIEGEL: Western authorities accuse the Russian government on a regular basis of being one of the biggest disrupters
in the digital world. Are they right?
Snowden: Russia is responsible for a lot of negative activity in the world, you can say that right and fairly. Did Russia
interfere with elections? Almost certainly. But do the United States interfere in elections? Of course. They've been doing
it for the last 50 years. Any country bigger than Iceland is going to interfere in every crucial election, and they're going to
deny it every time, because this is what intelligence services do. This is explicitly why covert operations and influence divisions
are created, and their purpose as an instrument of national power is to ask: How can we influence the world in a direction that
improves our standing relative to all the other countries?
I am pleased to have played a small role in getting Stephen F. Cohen's work published on Unz.com. He and others have effectively
debunked Russian involvement in the manipulation of America elections and the conclusions of the Mueller report. To paraphrase a
point Professor Cohen made in his most recent article posted here, which is simply common sense: We are to believe Trump is Putin's
puppet yet Putin simultaneously encouraged the preparation of a dossier to destroy him. Does that make sense to any one with half
a brain? Do you believe Putin's intelligence agencies don't communicate to him how Washington "organized crime" really operates,
as Whitney Webb has disclosed, now on the pages of Unz.com
? What difference does any compromised President make to the policies and goals of the occupational government of the United States
(obvious to any reader of this and similar websites)?
Do you notice how Snowden never challenges any government narrative, whether it's on Russia as a villain, and not as a victim
of war initiated by Washington? Why is an alleged humanitarian such a Russophobe? Is this how he repays the nation that
granted him asylum? Has he only compassion in the abstract, and is a genius but too stupid to consider the consequences of America
going to war with Russia and in fact exacerbating the tension by his false and inflammatory statements about Russian conduct in the
2016 elections, for which there are no facts and evidence?
And then there's the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings. Of course Snowden at NSA had no access to information on
how and why it was done, but as Dmitri Orlov has written:
I suppose I am a "conspiracy theorist" too. Whenever I write something that questions the veracity of some official narrative,
someone (probably a troll) pops up and asks me what I think of 9/11. Here is what I typically reply:
I totally believe that it was possible to knock down three steel-framed buildings using two flying aluminum cans loaded
with kerosene, luggage and meat. I have proven that this is possible by throwing two beer cans at three chain-link fences.
All three fences were instantly swallowed up by holes in the ground that mysteriously opened up right under them and in which
they were instantaneously incinerated into fine oxide powder that coated the entire neighborhood. Anybody who does not believe
my experimental results is obviously a tin-foil-hat crackpot conspiracy theorist.
Lots of people read this and ran away bleating; a few people bust a gut laughing because this is (trust me on this!) actually
quite funny. Some people took offense at someone ridiculing an event in which thousands of people died. (To protect their tender
sensibilities they should consider emigrating to a country that isn't run by a bunch of war criminals.)
But if you do see the humor in this, then you may be up to the challenge, which is to pull out a useful signal (a typical
experimentalist's task) out of a mess of unreliable and contradictory data. Only then would you be in a position to persuasively
argue -- not prove, mind you! -- that the official story is complete and utter bullshit.
Note that everything beyond that point, such as arguing what "the real story" is, is strictly off-limits. If you move beyond
that point you open yourself up to well-organized, well-funded debunking. But if all you produce is a very large and imposing
question mark, then the only way to attack it is by producing certainty -- a very tall order! In conspiracy theory, as in
guerrilla warfare, you don't have to win. You just have to not lose long enough for the enemy to give up.
Has Snowden ever challenged the September 11 narrative, ludicrous as it is, and him being an "engineer?" And this last
point is the reason I'm writing these words: I don't have to come up with the "real story" on who Edward Snowden is and what his
true motives are. I am asking questions that point out the discrepancies in Snowden's statements and conduct and his alleged sanctity.
In this article, "
EXCLUSIVE REPORT: NSA Whistleblower: Snowden Never Had Access to the JUICIEST Documents Far More Damning "
WASHINGTON'S BLOG: Glenn Greenwald – supposedly, in the next couple of days or weeks – is going to disclose, based on NSA documents
leaked by Snowden, that the NSA is spying on all sorts of normal Americans and that the spying is really to crush dissent. [Background
here, here and here.]
Does Snowden even have documents which contain the information which you've seen?
RUSSELL TICE: The answer is no.
WASHINGTON'S BLOG: So you saw handwritten notes. And what Snowden was seeing were electronic files ?
RUSSELL TICE: Think of it this way. Remember I told you about the NSA doing everything they could to make sure that the
information from 40 years ago – from spying on Frank Church and Lord knows how many other Congressman that they were spying on
– was hidden?
Now do you think they're going to put that information into PowerPoint slides that are easy to explain to everybody what
they're doing?
They would not even put their own NSA designators on the reports [so that no one would know that] it came from the NSA.
They made the reports look like they were Humint (human intelligence) reports. They did it to hide the fact that they were NSA
and they were doing the collection. That's 40 years ago. [The NSA and other agencies are still doing "parallel construction",
"laundering" information to hide the fact that the information is actually from mass NSA surveillance.]
Now, what NSA is doing right now is that they're taking the information and they're putting it in a much higher security level.
It's called "ECI" – Exceptionally Controlled Information – and it's called the black program which I was a specialist in, by the
way.
I specialized in black world – DOD and IC (Intelligence Community) – programs, operations and missions in "VRKs", "ECIs", and
"SAPs", "STOs". SAP equals Special Access Program. It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these. STO equals Special
Technical Operations It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these.
Now in that world – the ECI/VRK world – everything in that system is classified at a higher level and it has its own computer
systems that house it. It's totally separate than the system which Mr. Snowden was privy to, which was called the "JWICS": Joint
Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. The JWICS system is what everybody at NSA has access to. Mr Snowden had Sys Admin
[systems administrator] authority for the JWICS.
And you still have to have TS/SCI clearance [i.e. Top Secret/ Sensitive Compartmented Information – also known as "code word"
– clearance] to get on the JWICS. But the ECI/VRK systems are much higher [levels of special compartmentalized clearance] than
the JWICS. And you have to be in the black world to get that [clearance].
ECI = Exceptionally Controlled Information. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these ECI controlled networks).
VRK = Very Restricted Knowledge. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these VRK controlled networks.
These programs typically have, at the least, a requirement of 100 year or until death, 'till the person first being "read in"
[i.e. sworn to secrecy as part of access to the higher classification program] can talk about them. [As an interesting sidenote,
the Washington Times reported in 2006 that – when Tice offered to testify to Congress about this illegal spying – he was informed
by the NSA that the Senate and House intelligence committees were not cleared to hear such information.]
It's very compartmentalized and – even with stuff that they had – you might have something at NSA, that there's literally 40
people at NSA that know that it's going on in the entire agency.
When the stuff came out in the New York Times [the first big spying story, which broke in 2005] – and I was a source of information
for the New York Times – that's when President Bush made up that nonsense about the "terrorist surveillance program." By the way,
that never existed. That was made up.
There was no such thing beforehand. It was made up to try to placate the American people.
The NSA IG (Inspector General) – who was not cleared for this – all of a sudden is told he has to do an investigation on this;
something he has no information or knowledge of.
So what they did, is they took a few documents and they downgraded [he classification level of the documents] – just a
few – and gave them to them to placate this basic whitewash investigation.
Snowden's Failure To Understand the Most Important Documents
RUSSELL TICE: Now, if Mr. Snowden were to find the crossover, it would be those documents that were downgraded to the NSA's
IG.
The stuff that I saw looked like a bunch of alphanumeric gobbledygook. Unless you have an analyst to know what to look for
– and believe me, I think that what Snowden's done is great – he's not an intelligence analyst. So he would see something like
that, and he wouldn't know what he's looking at.
But that would be "the jewels". And the key is, you wouldn't know it's the jewels unless you were a diamond miner and you knew
what to look for. Because otherwise, there's a big lump of rock and you don't know there's a diamond in there.
I worked special programs. And the way I found out is that I was working on a special operation, and I needed information from
NSA from another unit. And when I went to that unit and I said "I need this information", and I dealt with [satellite spy operations],
and I did that in the black world. I was a special operations officer. I would literally go do special missions that were in the
black world where I would travel overseas and do spooky stuff.
Did we really need Snowden to have told us that the Internet, federally controlled, does not allow anyone a modicum of privacy
and the government after implementing the Patriot Act considers ordinary Americans the enemy?
Journalist Margie Burns asked some good questions back in June that have not yet been answered. She wondered about the
29-year old Snowden who had been a U.S. Army Special Forces recruit, a covert CIA operative, and an NSA employee in various capacities,
all in just a few, short years. Burns asked "How, exactly, did Snowden get his series of NSA jobs? Did he apply through regular
channels? Was it through someone he knew? Who recommended him? Who were his references for a string of six-figure, high-level
security jobs? Are there any safeguards in place so that red flags go up when a subcontractor jumps from job to job, especially
in high-level clearance positions?"
Five months later, journalists Mark Ames and Yasha Levine investigated some of the businesses in which Greenwald's benefactor
Omidyar had invested. They found that the actual practices of those businesses were considerably less humanitarian than the outward
appearance of Omidyar's ventures often portray. The result was that Omidyar took down references to at least one of those businesses
from his website.
In December, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds broke the news that Omidyar's Paypal Corporation was implicated in the as-yet-unreleased
NSA documents from Snowden. Moreover, Edmonds had allegedly been contacted by an NSA official who alleged that "a deal was made
in early June, 2013 between the journalists involved in this recent NSA scandal and U.S. government officials, which was then
sealed by secrecy and nondisclosure agreements by all parties involved."
It would appear that Snowden's whistleblowing has been co-opted by private corporate interests. Are those involved with privatization
of the stolen documents also colluding with government agencies to frame and direct national discussions on domestic spying and
other serious matters?
The possibilities are endless, it seems. Presenting documents at a measured rate could be a way to acclimate citizens to
painful realities without stirring the public into a panic or a unified response that might actually threaten the status quo.
And considering that the number of documents has somehow grown from only thousands to nearly two million, it seems possible
that those in control could release practically anything, thereby controlling national dialogue on many topics.
Please read the final paragraph above twice and think about the points raised about acclimating citizens and controlling national
dialog. Is Snowden as much of a "Pied Piper" as QAnon? How did Snowden describe the nature of the CIA and NSA
in this earlier interview with Der Spiegel ?
DER SPIEGEL: But those people see you as their biggest enemy today.
Snowden: My personal battle was not to burn down the NSA or the CIA. I even think they actually do have a useful role in
society when they limit themselves to the truly important threats that we face and when they use their least intrusive means.
**
Snowden: It wasn't that difficult. Everybody is currently pointing at the Russians.
DER SPIEGEL: Rightfully?
Snowden: I don't know. They probably did hack the systems of Hillary Clinton's Democratic Party, but we should have proof
of that. In the case of the hacking attack on Sony, the FBI presented evidence that North Korea was behind it. In this case
they didn't, although I am convinced that they do have evidence. The question is why?
DER SPIEGEL: Mike Pompeo, the new head of the CIA, has accused WikiLeaks, whose lawyers helped you, of being a mouthpiece for
the Russians. Is that not harmful to your image as well?
Snowden: First, we should be fair about what the accusations are. I don't believe the U.S. government or anybody in the
intelligence community is directly accusing Julian Assange or WikiLeaks of working directly for the Russian government. The
allegations I understand are that they were used as a tool basically to wash documents that had been stolen by the Russian government.
And, of course, that's a concern. I don't see that as directly affecting me because I'm not WikiLeaks and there is no question
about the provenance of the documents that I dealt with.
DER SPIEGEL: Currently, there's another American guy out there who is accused of being too close to Putin.
Snowden: Oh (laughs).
DER SPIEGEL: Your president. Is he your president?
Snowden: The idea that half of American voters thought that Donald Trump was the best among us, is something that I struggle
with. And I think we will all be struggling with it for decades to come.
DER SPIEGEL: But isn't there reason to fear terrorism?
Snowden: Sure there is. Terrorism is a real problem. But when we look at how many lives it has claimed in basically
any country that is outside of war zones like Iraq or Afghanistan, it is so much less than, say, car accidents or heart attacks.
Even if Sept. 11 were to happen every single year in the U.S., terrorism would be a much lower threat than so many other things.
No, no one is accusing Wikileaks of conspiring with Russia, just Robert Mueller. I really appreciate Snowden calling Julian Assange
a liar, for he has consistently denied there was a "state actor."
"Terrorism is a real problem" Snowden said. Is it credible that Snowden, who presented himself as donating funds to Ron Paul,
has never read any alternative news sites? Is it credible that Snowden believes that terrorists and this would include the good "moderate
terrorists" in Syria are armed and act on their own initiative, and is ignorant of the role of the governments of America, Israel,
and Saudi Arabia in using them to achieve their ends as proxy armies?
Does Snowden then think this report, "
America Created
Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group" is false? Does that mindset make Snowden a champion for liberty or a tool for more control
of the American population? For example, is it credible that this alleged genius supports the narrative of the September 11 attacks
World Trade Center attacks? Whom do you trust, the contributors to these very pages or Edward Snowden?
The Tor Project – a private nonprofit known as the "NSA-proof" gateway to the "dark web," turns out to be almost "100% funded
by the US government" according to documents obtained by investigative journalist and author Yasha Levine.
In a recent blog post, Levine details how he was able to obtain roughly 2,500 pages of correspondence via FOIA requests while
performing research for a book. The documents include strategy, contract, budgets and status updates between the Tor project and
its primary source of funding; a CIA spinoff known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which "oversees America's foreign
broadcasting operations like Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe."
By following the money, I discovered that Tor was not a grassroots. I was able to show that despite its indie radical
cred and claims to help its users protect themselves from government surveillance online, Tor was almost 100% funded by three
U.S. National Security agencies: the Navy, the State Department and the BBG. Following the money revealed that Tor was not
a grassroots outfit, but a military contractor with its own government contractor number. In other words: it was a privatized
extension of the very same government that it claimed to be fighting.
The documents conclusively showed that Tor is not independent at all. The organization did not have free reign to do
whatever it wanted, but was kept on a very short leash and bound by contracts with strict contractual obligations. It was also
required to file detailed monthly status reports that gave the U.S. government a clear picture of what Tor employees were developing,
where they went and who they saw. -Yasha Levine
The FOIA documents also suggest that Tor's ability to shield users from government spying may be nothing more than hot air.
While no evidence of a "backdoor" exists, the documents obtained by Levine reveal that Tor has "no qualms with privately tipping
off the federal government to security vulnerabilities before alerting the public, a move that would give the feds an opportunity
to exploit the security weakness long before informing Tor users."
Interestingly, Edward Snowden is a big fan of Tor – even throwing a "cryptoparty" while he was still an NSA contractor where
he set up a Tor exit node to show off how cool they are.
In a 2015 interview with The Intercept's (Wikileaks hating) Micah Lee, Snowden said:
LEE: What do you think about Tor? Do you think that everyone should be familiar with it, or do you think that it's only a use-it-if-you-need-it
thing?
SNOWDEN: I think Tor is the most important privacy-enhancing technology project being used today.
"Tor Browser is a great way to selectively use Tor to look something up and not leave a trace that you did it. It can also
help bypass censorship when you're on a network where certain sites are blocked. If you want to get more involved, you can volunteer
to run your own Tor node, as I do, and support the diversity of the Tor network."
Tor lists on its own website sponsors that include Google,
the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ONR via Naval Research Laboratory (past sponsor) and DARPA.
When Julian Assange was taken from the Ecuadoran embassy, he was carrying a copy of Gore Vidal: History of the National Security
State & Vidal on America. As an older article on Vidal in The Guardian noted, "
Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit
in 9/11 ."
Isn't it odd by doing what he did with Vidal's book Assange makes the point the legitimacy of Washington must be challenged, but
Snowden never does, other than offering suggestions for tinkering at the margins, perhaps advising we use DuckDuckGo instead of Google
to give us the illusion of privacy? Did Snowden, for someone who is in front of a computer screen for most of the day, make public
the facts obtained by Whitney Webb in her piece "
How the CIA, Mossad and 'the Epstein Network' Are Exploiting Mass Shootings to Create an Orwellian Nightmare " posted on Unz.com
which goes in depth into the Orwellian hell we are facing, for as Webb concludes:
With companies like Carbyne -- with its ties to both the Trump administration and to Israeli intelligence -- and the Mossad-linked
Gabriel also marketing themselves as "technological" solutions to mass shootings while also doubling as covert tools for mass
data collection and extraction, the end result is a massive surveillance system so complete and so dystopian that even George
Orwell himself could not have predicted it.
Following another catastrophic mass shooting or crisis event, aggressive efforts will likely follow to foist these "solutions"
on a frightened American public by the very network connected, not only to Jeffrey Epstein, but to a litany of crimes and a
frightening history of plans to crush internal dissent and would-be dissenters in the United States.
There is the concept of willful blindness that I think applies to much of what Snowden has done, if not something altogether more
nefarious -- distorations, misrepresenations, and outright lies, in addition to hubris. What is the point I'm making? Perhaps Snowden
is only a Soros and Hillary Clinton supporting liberal -- but then why would he have done what he did? His character is of any government
employee of the "surface state" who swallows false narratives whole.
I only wish the reader fairly and intelligently consider the questions I have raised. For I am encouraging you to think very carefully
before you trust the statements, purpose, motives, and truthfulness of the secular saint, Edward Snowden.
Yvonne Lorenzo makes her home in New England in a house full to bursting with books, including works on classical Greece.
Her interests include gardening, mythology, ancient history, The Electric Universe, and classical music, especially the compositions
of Handel, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and the Bel Canto repertoire. She is the author of the novels the
Son of Thunder and
The Cloak of Freya and has contributed to LewRockwell.com and TheSaker.IS.
Edward Snowden is a typical American fachidiot who, despite their protestations is a striver and bootlick for the Empire.
I genuinely believe that he is puzzled as to why it has turned against him. He deserves his destiny of forever languishing in
political purgatory.
Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US, and possible elsewhere (save for when it is convenient
for the media). Julian Assange was a far more daring, more insightful figure.
(As an aside, I am curious about the author's liking of bel canto . Lot of birdbrain music to my ears; I prefer Wagner,
Strauss, Schreker, and Berg. Also, the older I get, the more I realize that Schoenberg was by far the greater genius than Mahler.)
The logging of user and information accessed is sure added to the file. But real time supervision? No. A eye of sauron? Please.
The system isnt there to prevent crime, its to track down the criminal and deeds later. And yes everything takes a very long time
on the public side.
You know, 16:00 hours the mouse just drops dead from the hand. Public servants don't give a damn if a job is made fast or efficient,
only that procedure if followed and that it is eventually done. Unless priorities are reassigned, stuff left halfway undone in
disarray is no problem when reassigned.
Just as keeping secret private archives of more or less job related data is all standard procedure. That is keep a load of
data in your personal folders and move those into whatever form desired. Security is not very tight. Only in the sense that eventually
every person with hours and access point etc data can be recovered if so ordered to.
So stealing data out of that system shouldn't be terribly hard. Just email it to a private email. Or store on something else
and transport out. For one Hillary was doing the same thing for ages. In that case though "what difference does it make"
There was an interview with Edward in the German magazine Der Spiegel this month, Nr. 18. In it, we get the tale, he copied material
on SD cards, and smugeled them in his mouth, or inside a "magic cube" out of the base on Hawaii, passing "guards". A cube, the
occult symbol, how blatant, just mocking the profane.
On the technical side, I got a story from a German BMW factory. A bunch
of guys on nightshift plugged a USB Harddisk into a PC to watch a movie. Minutes later they received a call from the IT, it had
been recognized remotely. What a charade. It has the taste of Jewish tales, smuggling stuff, tricking guards of an evil system.
Nice to have a piece helping point to the truth, that Glenn Greenwald & Edward Snowden are CIA frauds, as every major government
knows
'Edward Snowden' who first 'leaked' to the CIA's Washington Post, in fact to Bush VP Dick Cheney's biographer Bart Gellman
then the Deep State realised that was too stupid, so they switched to Rothschild employee & ex-gay-pornography-seller Glenn Greenwald,
former proprietor of 'hairystuds', at the Guardian, an intel-agency rag which lies about nearly everything
Despite the Snowden-Assange mutual sniping in their media-star rivalry, Julian Assange is also a CIA-Mossad asset, as Bibi
Netanyahu himself has boasted to Israeli media, regarding aggressively pro-Zionist, anti-Palestinian Julian, equally anti-9-11-truth
along with Eddie Snowden
As loyal CIA assets, neither Assange and Snowden dare to mention USA Virginia fed judge bribery files that have blocked other
extraditions, tho these files would make their own extraditions impossible, if these CIA fakers really cared about their own 'defence'
Zbigniew Brzezinski on 29 Nov 2010, on the US public television PBS News Hour, also admitted Assange was intel, his Wikileaks
'selected'
People trusting Assange are dead, Peter W Smith, Seth Rich; others jailed
You will notice that Assange & Snowden both got famous via CIA – MI6 media, NY Times, UK Guardian, who are never interested
in real dissidents
Assange shared lawyer with Rothschilds, Rothschild sister-in-law posted Assange bail, Assange has ties to George Soros too
Early on, Assange helped Rothschilds destroy rival bank Julius Baer that is 'progressive Wiki-leaking' for you
Assange had a weird childhood with Aussie mind-control cult 'the Family'
Things like 'Assange living at Ecuador Embassy' – 'now in Belmarsh prison' – easily faked, Assange moved in & out for photos
by MI5 MI6, police under national security orders 'Snowden' is not necessarily in Russia either
Assange & Snowden de-legitimise real dissidents, because people say, 'Wikileaks – NY Times – UK Guardian would cover it if
it was true'
NeonRevolt once floated the theory that Snowden was an FBI or CIA plant who whistleblew solely because he had the mission to undermine
NSA operations by exposing their equipment/techniques and turning public opinion against them.
I completely understand if people are leery of the theorycrafting of a Q tracker, but I do believe that this suggestion is plausible.
Setting aside attempts at placing it in context of a Deep State war, inter-service rivalry and sabotage between spy agencies is
absolutely a thing, and reviewing the inconsistencies of Snowden's stunt, its aftermath, and his personal views with that potential
background in mind suddenly makes things make much more sense, in my mind at least.
Interesting, thought-provoking article.
It asks us to balance up competing interests & advantages.
On the one hand we can assume Snowden is "real" or not. That is, he's a genuine whistle blower, or he's a government psy-op's
plant.
If we accept the later, that he's a plant, then it raises a further question: was the short term loss, associated with his revelations,
ie highlighting the utterly disturbing degree of Gov surveillance over US citizens (etc) worth the long term profit of having
an established, authoritive psy-op's agent able to influence/distort etc any debate or narrative concerning the US State /elites.
On this side the author notes Snowmen's views on Tor, 9/11, Russia etc which clearly advantage the US State's own views on these
subjects.
I don't know the answer -- except that this article raises serious questions, suspicions , about
Snowden's authenticity.
Never for a moment considered Snowden any sort of secular saint.
Snowden for the most part only confirmed the downward trajectory of the formerly at least interesting filmmaker, Oliver Stone.
If JFK was worth a laugh (and evidently did get a few people thinking about the phoniness of Dallas '63 for the first time),
Snowden was total chloroform on screen. Sad to see Ollie hit such lows.
This bit is interesting:
When Julian Assange was taken from the Ecuadoran embassy, he was carrying a copy of Gore Vidal: History of the National
Security State & Vidal on America. As an older article on Vidal in The Guardian noted, "Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit
in 9/11."
As batty as Vidal may have been, it is a fact he was the first American with any sort of national recognition to speak out
against the National Security State, starting in the Eisenhower years. His fury was partly stoked by their meddling in Central
America, but he stayed at it. Even gave it a mention in a movie he had a gag role in, Bob Roberts , 1992.
His favorite line (variously rendered) was "Harry Truman signed the United States of America into oblivion in February, 1949"
which was when the NSA papers were drawn up, giving us the security state, the CIA and the whole shebang. Anytime before, any
US citizen could demand accounting of any government project, no matter what. Afterward, the rule by secrecy applied.
Vidal had been a WWII veteran and deplored all that came about after. Credit is due for that.
Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you are being watched and recorded. The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows
it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested
without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone calls, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get
your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards. – Edward Snowden
Snowden, exiled and isolated in Russia, is some sort of USG crypto-agent or something?
I suppose that if you're going to look for outside-the-box commentary and analysis, you're going to get some of this sort of
nonsense. I guess you can't expect to hit a home run every time.
"Edward Snowden is a typical American fachidiot who, despite their protestations is a striver and bootlick for the Empire.
I genuinely believe that he is puzzled as to why it has turned against him. He deserves his destiny of forever languishing
in political purgatory."
And yet this "striver and bootlick for the Empire" is exiled in Russia. So some guy sacrifices an enjoyable and secure life
to go live in Russia and all you can say is that "he deserves his destiny?"
"Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US"
And this is a reflection on him or on the rest of us?
Comfortable living in Moscow, vs. Belmarsh, makes all the difference in the world.
You might be right about Snowden, you might not be, but were Assange living in a Russian city, far out of reach of NeoconiaDC,
Bill Blaney would show him greater respect believe me.
@Horst G Boy howdy, a Rubik's
Cube is now magical, profane, occult, and eerily symbolic, because it's cubical! And geometry class is a satanic false
flag op of oppressive propaganda taught by crypto-Jews! Who else could be interested in IRRATIONAL numbers like π? PYTHAGORAS
WAS A MOSSAD AGENT!
And yet this "striver and bootlick for the Empire" is exiled in Russia. So some guy sacrifices an enjoyable and secure life
to go live in Russia and all you can say is that "he deserves his destiny?"
His "sacrifice" was inadvertent and involuntary. The fact that he seems not to appreciate the sanctuary offered to him by Russia
-- has he not repeatedly expressed the desire to go elsewhere? -- says a lot. From everything I have read about him, it would
appear that he regards his exile not as something to be borne with dignity, but as something to pout over as does a child who
unexpectedly did not get his way.
Julian Assange, on the other hand, sacrificed much more and did so willingly and courageously. He had no illusions about the
consequences that he would face for his beliefs and actions.
And this is a reflection on him or on the rest of us?
Both. Nobody remembers anything here in the US anyway, least of all people and events which do not flatter the national mythos.
In the case of this would-be patriot -- the scion of a family that grew fat at the government teat, and who himself has made a
tidy profit from his exile -- his unofficial damnatio memoriæ is deserved.
Maybe you ought to give Snowden some credit for his military service too. Fair is fair.
Snowden enlisted in the United States Army Reserve on May 7, 2004, and became a Special Forces candidate through its 18X
enlistment option.[39] He did not complete the training.[12] After breaking both legs in a training accident,[40] he was discharged
on September 28, 2004.[41]
@Brabantian Is Seth Rich dead
? OpDeepState.com : "The 'murder' of Seth Rich – Everything we thought we knew is wrong !" by Lisa Phillips . "The MOSSAD infiltrated
Clinton's campaign with a Sayanim contractor – Seth Rich – this OP took Hillary right out of the race ."
Tor is a great tool, if you know how to use it correctly. The US gov't know people don't know how to use it correctly, and sets
up exit nodes to spy on idiots, like this:
In 2007 Egerstad set up just five Tor exit nodes and used them to intercept thousands of private emails, instant messages
and email account credentials.
Amongst his unwitting victims were the Australia, Japanese, Iranian, India and Russia embassies, .
Dan Egerstad proved then that exit nodes were a fine place to spy on people and his research convinced him in 2007, long
before Snowden, that governments were funding expensive, high bandwidth exit nodes for exactly that purpose.
Tor is a fine security project and an excellent component in a strategy of defence in depth but it isn't (sadly) a cloak
of invisibility.
Exit nodes, just like fake Wi-Fi hotspots, are an easy and tempting way for attackers to silently insert themselves into
a network.
By running an exit node they can sit there as an invisible man-in-the-middle on a system that people choose when
they want extra privacy and security.
Well, this is refreshing. I agree wholeheartedly about Snowden and have the same reservations. My feelings about Assange, however,
aren't much different. Julian has not challenged the 9/11 narrative either to be fair. I am inclined to see them both as limited
hangouts. Snowden's 'revelations' were all old news to anyone who'd been paying attention for 10 years before his appearance.
Even other whistleblowers, none of whom got any media coverage, had spoken of much of it previously. I see them both as pied pipers
and nothing more. I think Russian intelligence services are perfectly well aware of what Snowden is and have kept him at arms
length themselves. Not much they could do but play along but nothing suggests they ever saw him as any sort of 'coup'
Anyone who still plays along with the 9/11 bullshit narrative isn't worth a damn anyway.
@animalogicConsider that nothing
Snowden revealed was news. It was all old hat for anyone who'd been paying attention, and for up to ten years. Sure Snowden made
it mainstream for what good it did but nothing he said was a secret anymore. In fact, I thought even at the time his actions were
nothing less than a 'threat and warning' from the intel services that they had this much on everyone. Just imagine all those national
leaders, politicians from all states being pout on notice. All your secrets are ours! What a powerful global message to deliver
and in such a loud and clear fashion.
The lack of deviation from official bullshit on 9/11 is on its own however reason enough to toss this guy out. Snowden NEVER
impressed me for a moment and honestly, nor has Assange. I believe they're both working for the other side still. By the way,
Julian Assange has actually denigrated 9/11 truthers a number of times.
@anon It's in the magazine, page
82, quote "Zauberwürfel". Presented by me, for you to get the picture. Maybe you haven't seen enough cubes around, to get that
humor. In real life, copying material on devices will be followed by arrest, no interview, no journey to some exile. This whole
tale is not funny, it's evil on many levels. Your sarcasm is disturbing.
Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US, and possible elsewhere (save for when it is convenient
for the media). Julian Assange was a far more daring, more insightful figure.
I disagree, there are plenty of people who remember him. The problem is they don't care, most Americans would rather watch
America's Got Talent or Dancing With The Stars than do something about our corrupt political system.
2013 Edward Snowden 'leaked stolen documents' (1) 'Leaked' to Dick Cheney friend at CIA WashPost, Rothschild employee Greenwald
(2) Anti-9-11-truth (3) Nothing really new beyond more than 5+ previous NSA whistleblowers (4) Has CIA lawyers, worked with Brzezinski
son, promoted by Brzezinski daughter, fake CV history (5) Known as fake to all major gov intel agencies
@Johnny Walker ReadThis is
absolutely dynamite material, it blows to smithereens any notion that Edward Snowden is anything other than a fraud, a CIA disinfo
op.
So now we can place him alongside Julian Assange and Wikileaks in the rogue's gallery of professional liars. This report
also exposes several other media outlets as being under CIA control, something we have known for some time
I don't know the answer -- except that this article raises serious questions, suspicions , about
Snowden's authenticity.
To my mind "9/11, attitude to", is a sort of touch-stone for telling genuine dissidents from fake and both Snowden and Assange
fail on that test. I don't have a reference for it, but I saw it in correspondence on this site. There was a video of a lecture
given by Assange, where someone asked him about 9/11. He looked extremely embarrassed and then replied that he thought that it
was "not very important" (Sic!) and changed the subject.
I am less sure of this but I think I saw something similar in an interview with Snowden. Perhaps someone else can remind me
of exact references?
This is the same government whose leaders secure their laptops with the secret code "pas$word" and require the producers of computers
to give them full access via day one exploits along with tailor fitted programs that are easier to hack.
That Snowden got away with what he did is not that shocking.
These days Snowden has become a generic term for whistleblowing on the Deep State tech spying, like xerox for copying. I suppose someone here wants to remind us that this was _really_ the first copier, patented in 1879:
The truth or falsity of the original "myth" becames moot at some point.
The Deep State is spying. They do have hardware and software and monkey in the middle hacks. They do trade intelligence with
other spy agencies, domestic and foreign. They lie about it through the Mockingbird media.
_That_ is what is important.
Snowden's bona fides are "inside baseball", and minor league baseball at that.
.gov IT security is a joke–millions of pages of regulations, proclamations, millions of hours of management meetings, goals,
powerpoint slides–ultimately easily outmatched by any determined hackers (whether in mom's basement or an intelligence agency's
basement).
If he was a sys admin, that probably meant he had the rights to install, remove, enable, and disable the various safety guards
and security checks discussed in this article.
@Jonathan Revusky Yvonne Lorenzo
paper suggest suspect issues exist to support Snowden's story but finds Assange's saga to be
based in epic, consistent, continued resistance to the organized forces at work in governments and high profile international
corporations and agencies to keep secret things which expose officials as criminals.
<=the difference is consistency, scope and finger points. Assange has been consistent.. always seeking to make available as
much as he could, always with as much clarity as possible; making the point where he could, that much of what he exposed seems
to be in the domain of organized crime. Assange often exposes high profile persons and tags them with evidence to connect them
to prior and current organized crime or obviously corrupt activities. Assange shows these persons or governments or agencies are
involved in secret diplomatic activities, the secrecy of which seem always to be protected by judicial and legal processes
The Assange story paints a picture that suggest globally organized crime has come into possession and now manages and controls
many well armed domestic governments and that selected agencies of government have been enabling selected private enterprises.
Assange exposes intelligence services of many different nations to be a bank, corporation, and agency inter connects that coordinate
infrastructure destruction, invasion, regime change, and war, and that these events are often followed by opportunistic privatization.
Snowden merely says a few things are wrong and should be corrected. in time the government will fix its own mistakes. I do
not know if Snowden is a Trojan, but nothing Assange has done suggest he is and governments have treated Assange as anything but
one of them. My opinion.
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro I agree
that Assange has suffered much more than Snowden, but why hold that against the latter?
Snowden took a risk to publicize what he thought was important information indicating a dangerous trend in US policy. He wasn't
willing to offer himself up as a lamb to the slaughter, so it's true that his sacrifice is not perhaps the ultimate one. He seems
to have thought he could remain in Hong Kong but didn't realize that China was never going to compromise relations with the US
to protect him. Putin wouldn't have either except that the US was so imperious in demanding his return that Putin really couldn't
save face and give him up, and no doubt he was rankled by US hypocrisy, knowing that had Snowden been a Russian, the US would
never have considered sending him back.
But Snowden DID take action which is more than most of us do. I find your complete lack of empathy kind of weird, to be honest.
Even if Assange is the more virtuous or if one disagrees with Snowden's actions, he has paid a price for principle.
What does his family background have to do with anything?
I'm not inclined to sneer at him, and I don't see how you get to "he deserves what he gets."
So Pamela Anderson lied about visiting Assange in the embassy? If they're faking it, wherever he is he isn't in the public
eye walking down the street or sitting in a Starbucks, so he's leading a prison life anyway behind closed doors somewhere. I suppose
a dedicated agent would do something like that for Queen and country or whatever, but I doubt he's the type. I gather veterans
today are trying to cast Assange as a Mossad agent but then they're the Journal of the Clandestine Community, whatever that is.
Snowden is not a classic defector so it makes sense for him to keep his distance from Russian society so as not to be inadvertently
compromised or used by their intelligence services. He's obviously under surveillance there, I know we all are but he's much more
aware of it, so that doesn't make it easy for him but he's definitely safer there than he'd be in France or Germany. I just don't
think he planned well ahead when he became a whistle-blower or was clear about what he was trying to achieve. He's not the top
level type of spy we're accustomed to reading about who betray their country for money or to serve another they believe in more
than their own. If he has been on active duty as a CIA asset all along I can't see that he has achieved much of use to them other
than in some inter-agency rivalry game. But it's natural for Russians to be suspicious of him – they're suspicious by nature –
and rightly so, but it doesn't make his life easy there.
Good stuff. Snowden was outed by Gordon Duff years ago. Although I'll have to come back to finish this article, it generally appears
to agree with Duff's analysis that none of it adds up. If I may paraphrase Edward Bernays, To read the Washington Post and Guardian or watch TV news is to see America and Western Civilization through the eyes of its
enemy.
The owners of the media own the public forum in America and through it the formation of men's attitudes and the outcome of
elections. The left vs right, CNN vs Fox News, MAGA vs socialism and other contrived theater serves the interests of the media
owners and no other.
Assange tried to destroy the "system", which would have furthered the conditions for completing the ongoing, global
Cultural Marxist Revolution Mao Zedong on steroids.
Snowden, on the other hand, wanted something much less extreme. He wanted to fix and save the "system" by exposing
its excesses in order to bring it back within a quasi-legal, democratic framework.
In response, the "system" was satisfied to teach Snowden a lesson. They were willing to slap Snowden's hand by exiling him
to Western Russia, which is better than rotting in a Siberian labor camp or "max" prison in the United States.
Assange, on the other hand, is a reincarnated, digital version of Che Guevara. They want his scalp, recognizing that Assange
(like Che Guevara) will brook no compromise in his revolutionary agitation.
Good article. Snowden and Assange are agents of disinformation
"I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence
of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud."
@9/11 Inside job Well, the
Real Litmus Test ™ is eternal security vs. conditional salvation. Don't fail, or everything else you've ever said must be
summarily dismissed. Answer well, friendo .
Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking) is the failure in a person's thinking to bring
together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole. It
is a common defense mechanism.
The problem is they don't care, most Americans would rather watch America's Got Talent or Dancing With The Stars than do
something about our corrupt political system.
It appears the author of this piece has not read Snowden's book, Permanent Record . If she had, she would not have asked
questions which are answered, in detail, in Snowden's book. Here are some of the most obvious points.
1. "Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption: how would it be possible?"
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes the layers of encryption that he used when copying the files from NSA. He also describes
the extraordinary level of access he had as a systems engineer. Further, he mentions his surprise at finding that the NSA did
not practice widespread encryption, in contrast to his experience at CIA, where the hard drives were not only encrypted, but removed
from the computers and placed in a safe each night.
2. "In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden, as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers, did
you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement?"
Answer: Movies omit details. In his book, Snowden describes working in the one-person Information Sharing department. As part
of that work, he brought an older, "obsolete" system to his office under the cover story of "compatibility testing" and used this
older system to copy the data.
3. "Did Edward Snowden, who has publicly criticized Google, mention Google is deployed as a search engine throughout the federal
"intranet"?"
Answer: Yes, as a matter of fact, in his book, Snowden does mention that Google provides a custom internal version of their
search engine to the intelligence community.
4. "Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated
to his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time."
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes how he created a "readboard" that collected the documents as part of his work in the
Information Sharing department. He also describes how another systems administrator did notice, and how he addressed this attention
by providing access to his "readboard" to the other administrator, and explained its purpose and value to users. In other words,
the "gigabytes of data" he was looking at were directly related to his job function.
5. "On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database?"
Answer: Snowden also discusses this topic in his book. According to Snowden, he did not want to simply release the information,
he wanted the media to remove anything that might cause harm.
6. "And what about Snowden himself, the pontificator, the man who can speak on television or to the media with evidence of
training? Practice yourself -- see how well you can answer questions and speak publicly to a TV camera. How did he get his training?
Who trained him? Why?"
Answer: After 6 years of media attention, it seems reasonable he would gain some expertise in dealing with the media.
My purpose in providing the answers above is not to defend or attack Snowden. Rather, these examples just show that the author
of this piece is a sloppy amateur who did not do her homework. I suspect the author is also woefully ignorant of computer technology.
Anyone curious about these topics should read Permanent Record and decide for themselves.
Your opinion stands. Snowden has de facto been compromised. Being in Russia, and not in control of his environment. Whether
he was from the start, could be. The Tor browser bull- *** t speaks against him all the way. His conventional career start, and
youth also. He is more Macron then a Galloway.
Assange was in for the long term, had thorough knowledge of affairs digital, his youth, his physical courage(there must be
a point where selling out was a possibility) were exemplary all along the (long) and still ongoing slug.
Even his ego, fronting Wikileaks seems to be proportionate as compared to the conventional Jerks &, as Pompeo, Hillary, Trump,
Obama. If one sees how many personnel is dedicated to steer elections and governance public opinion, he certainly looks like a
lonely giant on the civil disobedience, organizational, knowledgeable, energy spent and resilience side. A true example of what
White, and Western European descend stands for. Enlightenment, in system, style, and function. Relevancy, long term goals, dare,
does not come better then that.
@Oscar Peterson I don't have "Agree/Disagree/Etc"
privileges so I say here that I agree with you.
Some of the pompous ingrates trashing Snowden for the flimsiest of reasons still seem to have a high opinion of Thomas Drake,
William Binney, or Kirk Wiebe. They might read this:
Three NSA Veterans Speak Out on Whistleblower
The author, interestingly enough, isn't I.T. professional, but, has very definite opinions about IT security. Dumb.
Just email it to a private email.
Well, firewall logs could reveal your connection to some email server outside ..
Or store on something else and transport out.
Yep. Hehe the girl doesn't actually get how that "encryption" thing works. OSI layers etc.
And, what people really don't get: all security is as good as an average person using it.
As hehe you pointed out:
Hillary was doing the same thing for ages.
Insider doesn't need to tackle technology. All he/she needs is to tackle is a dumb employee.
Anyway .
I could make my home systems quite secure, even against Five Eyes. That would create another set of even worse problems, but
let's leave it out for now.
The problem is my wife and her browsing/computer use habits. Hehe makes sense?
Snowden keeping "distance" to Russia, and not openly defending them seems reasonable to me. You can imagine the smear campaign
back home if he would side with Russia against the U.S. on almost anything. "The Russians got to him" or "He was always their
man".
He is trying to keep his neutrality and credibility and his target audience isn't the average Unz reader, but rather some mainstream
educated middle/upper class blokes. Easily scared away from his views if they become too controversial and too far from the established
narrative.
Last but not least, he is playing very dangerous game, probably without much security from his host country. This probably
limits what he can do, TPTB could probably get to him if they wanted it badly enough.
@PetrOldSack > The Tor browser
bull- *** t speaks against him all the way
No, your stupid bull- *** t lack of understanding about Tor speaks against you all the way. It's not encryption, like you probably
think it is. It's simply a way to use another IP address without having to drive to the nearest Starbucks to use their wifi. You
treat Tor just like any "free" wifi, assuming that your data is being sniffed and collected. If you're going to message, use Signal
(or Telegram.) Always force HTTPS. Use encryption. All Tor does is obfuscate your IP location, which is exactly what Snowden states,
"All Tor does is obfuscate your IP location .
"[Tor] allows you to disassociate your physical location ."
And now Brave Browser has it built in! So easy. Try it. Just don't do anything on Tor that you wouldn't do with a Starbuck's
free wifi in Foggy Bottom.
@Republic How he got taken down
is here
, and it started with the name-fag using his Real Name while e-begging for help to run illegal websites, and ended up with a half-dozen
FBI agents tailing him at his arrest. Even then, Tor made it harder for the FBI to track him, just not impossible.
Tor only does one thing, obfuscate your physical location. That's it. It's not magic. It's a virtual way to sit at the Starbucks
cafe and use their free wifi. Just assume the exit node is owned by the Feds, looking for criminal morons who don't understand
it and think it's "secure" or "encrypted." It's not. Use encryption too.
Stuff like this just confirms Qanon. He said years ago Snowden was a CIA plant in the NSA to reveal this information about their
mass surveillance on purpose. Why ? Maybe it relates to what Michael Hoffman describes as revelation of the method – a process
of revealing the crimes being committed against us by "they" so it breeds apathy and despair in the population when nothing comes
from
The revelation of the crimes
An allegedly very high iq high school from a family with drop out Snowden's tried to join special forces and failed jump school,
he failed a polygraph, got accepted to the CIA though not as a field agent despite his lack of a degree, and was bounced from
the CIA and then got a job with Dell as an outside contractor on the basis of his still intact security clearance, the contractors
were not compartmentalised in the way government employees were.
Then he went to work for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton,
at an NSA facility in Hawaii. In subsequent interview with journalists, Snowden lied about his doing undercover work for the CIA,
salary and seniority at Booz Allen, being able to spy on the the emails and phone calls of President Obama. Oh, and suffering broken
bones in special forces jump school, he just had shin splints It is very clear how he got access, and why most of the people who
gave him it did not own up.
https://nypost.com/2013/11/08/snowden-duped-coworkers-to-get-passwords/
Snowden duped co-workers to get passwords A handful of agency employees who gave their login details to Snowden were identified,
questioned and removed from their assignments, said a source close to several U.S. government investigations into the damage
caused by the leaks.
Snowden may have persuaded between 20 and 25 fellow workers at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii
to give him their logins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator,
a second source said.
Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents?
It's only difficult to believe if you think NASA (like the CIA and FBI once were) are only guarded in relation to external
rather than internal security breaches
[A] frightening history of plans to crush internal dissent and would-be dissenters in the United States.
Why would they bother? Those dissenters cannot change anything, while they are whiling away their free time on the internet.
Such activity cannot change anything at all, and so it is to be encouraged from the point of view of any establishment as open
dissent on the net wards off the allegation of totalitarian state. Talk is cheap.
I'm not going to comment on the person or their agenda, rather the process-broadly.
Can you copy encrypted files without knowledge and smuggle them out?
Short answer:
Yes, with a second device and some standard hardware stuff.
They can see the second device if it is plugged in, but they have to look for it.
There is no need to try and copy from the source, copy the output to a second machine that can interpret.
ought to give Snowden some credit for his military service too.
Hell, I'd give the guy credit for his quick sprinting at the NSA. But we haven't established if he was a wiz kid or a plant.
Vidal went into the US Army after Pearl Harbor, at age 17. Even though he'd been his high school representative for the America
First Committee, trying to keep the US out of the war. Due to hypothermia working on army transport ships in the Aleutians, he
was initially misdiagnosed as arthritic and, not being caught in time, ended up first with a titanium leg replacement years later,
then in a wheelchair.
I remain sort of impressed when a young man opposes a fight, then for patriotic reasons, serves anyway (and pays a steep price).
I'm sure we'll get the full story on Snowden sooner or later.
@Saggy A stupid girl who is completely
unfamiliar with the Snowden history. For example, she asks this, "why did Snowden provide his files to The Guardian?"
Because he needed immediate press coverage. He didn't have weeks or even days, he had at most a few hours. His story
had to be in the press the next morning. Both Greenwald and the Guardian reporter were with him at the hotel, worried that
Snowden might even be assassinated if caught by US forces, and worked to get immediate press coverage of his plight to save his
life. Plus, he was in constant contact with Wikileaks'Julian Assange, which she conveniently ignores to promote her lie-based
conspiritard theory.
Without his story getting into the press within a few hours, and without Wikileaks' Julian Assange helping Snowden, he'd be
in prison now, at best, possibly dead.
I say, give the guy a fair trial. He has asked for a fair trial. But the US Gov't has refused to allow his motive to
be considered in the trial. Amazing, isn't it? Since when is motive to not be considered in a criminal trial?
For Snowden, a fair trial means allowing the jury to consider his motivations rather than simply deciding the case
on whether a law was broken.
"They want the jury strictly to consider whether these actions were lawful or unlawful, not whether they were right or wrong,"
Snowden said. "And I'm sorry, but that defeats the purpose of a jury trial."
Tor may still be a good tool, it certainly was, I had great fun using it to troll and set off edit wars on English Wikipedia for
a year or two mid-last decade. One of those edit wars lasted for about three days. I just watched after starting it (but I meant
what I said in the comment that set it off, but not always in the trolling(^-^)v).
In any case, the English-language WP has been madly tracking Tor exit nodes and banning them since about early '07.
Fun while it lasted.
As for the wrong way to use it, that basically means making a connection to any other site, without Tor, while using Tor. I
slipped up on that once or twice when slightly drunk.
I don't even know if using Tor is even legal in Japan now. I do love, however, how Wikipedia is aggressively supressing it.
Some politicians in ruling party were moving to make it illegal a couple of years ago, our polity is so nonsensical that I
have to checck Japanese wiki to see the result.
Any fule knows that Tor original is a U.S.N. programme,
Rappaport started my thinking and I bookmarked his pages long ago and to my horror found the site was taken down. I wonder
why? Glad for this archive. Thank you.
It appears the author of this piece has not read Snowden's book, Permanent Record. If she had, she would not have asked
questions which are answered, in detail, in Snowden's book. Here are some of the most obvious points.
1. "Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption: how would it be possible?"
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes the layers of encryption that he used when copying the files from NSA. He also describes
the extraordinary level of access he had as a systems engineer. Further, he mentions his surprise at finding that the NSA did
not practice widespread encryption, in contrast to his experience at CIA, where the hard drives were not only encrypted, but
removed from the computers and placed in a safe each night.
2. "In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden, as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers,
did you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement?"
Answer: Movies omit details. In his book, Snowden describes working in the one-person Information Sharing department. As
part of that work, he brought an older, "obsolete" system to his office under the cover story of "compatibility testing" and
used this older system to copy the data.
No, I haven't read the book–yet.
As part of a forensic analysis, which none of you were observant enough to understand, the subject is interviewed without knowledge
of the questions in advance. His answers would be evaluated based on facts, for which a forensic IT team with no connections to
government contractors would be part of and gain access to NSA systems. Thus, testimony is considered but it must be verified.
Rand Paul might be one to open an investigation into the inadequacy of NSA security but government investigating itself is suspect.
No such investigation will ever take place.
Note there has been no calls, that I am aware of, for any GAO study of NSA vulnerabilities.
Second, the critics miss the point: providing files to CIA-Five Eye fronts like Guardian and CIA Washington Post is suspect.
As per what I wrote, no one now has access to this data.
I suspect Snowden leaked legitimate information to con the Russians to be on their soil and conduct malfeasance. Prior to Putin
providing S-300s to Syria, Israel had better relations with Russia. I suspect Q is also coordinated by Intel agency friendly to
Likud. Note his mention of John Perry Barlow before his death. He warned of Snowden being sent deliberately to Russia and hence
my concern for CIA doing something stupid.
As to his comments on not supporting Russia, no support is necessary. If he were a decent human being he could simply have
stated, "Election interference notwithstanding the U.S. should pursue non-aggressive posture against Russia. There was no 'Second
Pearl Harbor.' The risk of nuclear war is great and I agree with President Trump to reduce tensions, although I disagree with
his politics."
Instead, see his Tweets supporting the Pussy Hats and "We came, we saw, he died" Hillary Clinton.
In the event, Snowden is irrelevant. The end of Empire is imminent.
Read Martyanov's post on the recent threats America made to Russia here.
I have compassion for Snowden. His end will likely be as Skripals was: disappearance by Western IC which he supports and blame
placed on Russia.
We are free to disagree with one another. I trust nothing a supporter of Empire says.
As to September 11 I wasn't aware of Assange's remarks. This is the touchstone as others have said. Snowden enlisted because
of September 11 false flag. Yeah, right, he is an idiot savant.
Even Ed Asner who no longer wins Emmy awards and is blackballed had the courage to do this video. Trust Snowden? I think not.
Y. Lorenzo (this site will not allow me to post under my name)
p.s. Ron uses Gmail. The nearest military base is a long, long way from my location. A helicopter outfitted with surveillance
bubbles overflew after I submitted this piece.. Coincidence, right?
I will fight for the truth. I receive no compensation for my work and expect none. I support the cause of peace and not Empire.
Thanks for the intelligent supportive comments. Ad hominem attacks mean nothing. Thanks to Ron for posting though he disagrees.
...re. 'Smowden"when he was constantly whining about Russia, getting hhs pole-dancing gf to join him there must have
been a major effort, but he has no gratitude for it.
Really strange. At the time, I thought that Putin's comment 'he is a strange young man' had to do only with questions of loyalty and betrayal,
of course, it was lilekely deeper and more suspicious than that. If I had been in the position like 'Snowden', after first having been granted asylum, my priority would have been to study
the language. I would gtuess that he can order food or drink, do basic greetings, and not much else.
@Republic Snowden's wife is a
former pole dancer, those are for good for something, but its not marrying. Everything about him suggests immaturity, from his
toying with the idea of being a model to his trying to go from frail civilian with a youth spent 24/7 gaming to passing jumps
school. He stole vastly more than he could ever have read, much of it having no bearing on privacy so he has no idea what he might
have compromised. Quoth he:
There is a secrecy agreement, but there is also an oath of service. An oath of service is to support and defend, not an
agency, not even the president, it is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies
– direct quote – foreign and domestic. And this begs the question, what happens when our obligations come into conflict.
If you have meaningful values (ie those that do not charge to suit your personal aggrandisement) you resign, I but instead
of doing that he deliberately got another job contracting with the NSA all the better to steal data.
.In the event, Snowden is irrelevant. The end of Empire is imminent. Read Martyanov's post on the recent threats America made to Russia here .
That was fast, even for this pub.
Ad hominem attacks mean nothing.
You mean being positive about you UNABLE to visualize a byte from a "keypress" moving all the way to the LAN cable with each
timer "click"? You know, buffers, busses, microcode/firmware, interrupts, stack/heap, closed source, encryption/decryption layer
of the OSI stack etc. That's for technology.
As for people, unaware of an average idiot user in any environment using IT, Governments in particular, and the role and power
of sysadmins in such environments?
But confident to write articles what can and can not be done re IT security?
Yeah .
@anon Not sure about Pythagoras,
but there are (very unfortunately) people who might have
fun from combining "Rubik's Cube and highly classified information".
And not necessarily in reality.
You mean being positive about you UNABLE to visualize a byte from a "keypress" moving all the way to the LAN cable with
each timer "click"? You know, buffers, busses, microcode/firmware, interrupts, stack/heap, closed source, encryption/decryption
layer of the OSI stack etc. That's for technology.
Rand Paul might be one to open an investigation into the inadequacy of NSA security but government investigating itself
is suspect. No such investigation will ever take place.
Yes, Rand Paul who while cutting his lawn provoked his own retired doctor neighbor in a gated community into a maddened vicious
rib dislocating attack that cost Paul part of his lung What a brilliant choice to annoy the government.
His end will likely be as Skripals was: disappearance by Western IC which he supports and blame placed on Russia
Skirpal is in America. The British got Skirpal out of Russia, but Russia could have killed him any time because he was homesick
and meeting people from the Russian Embassy. In my opinion the Russians were trying to kill Skirpal's daughter along with him.
They knew she was coming and timed the nerve agent attack so as to 'accidentally' kill her along with the traitor. The knowledge
that you will go after their families is the ultimate deterrent. Unless you are a narcissistic dick like Snowden, who hardly mentions
anything his family did for him except getting a second phone line so he could play some stupid internet game. Snowden actually
says in his book that the internet raised him. It did not get him a job in the CIA despite him having no degree, that was his
mom's NSA and her father's Pentagon connections. Aldrich Ames's father worked for the CIA .
Edward Snowden is a great man – a great American. (Will a Dem president pardon him?) I recently viewed a video on how a poor immigrant family hid Snowden before he secured a flight out of Hong Kong. (He is working
to get them out of Hong Kong, to Canada.) I am curious as to how he got the flight out to Russia?????
This will be my final comment.
My issue is one regarding Snowden's character and integrity, especially as the collapsing Empire under FUBAR Trump is waging
war on the world. Come on, none of the CIA trolls here have read The Saker with Orlov on the fate of the mass murdering Empire?
At this point it is important to explain what exactly a "final collapse" looks like. Some people are under the very mistaken
assumption that a collapsed society or country looks like a Mad Max world. This is not so. The Ukraine has been a failed state
for several years already, but it still exists on the map. People live there, work, most people still have electricity (albeit
not 24/7), a government exists, and, at least officially, law and order is maintained. This kind of collapsed society can go
on for years, maybe decades, but it is in a state of collapse nonetheless, as it has reached all the 5 Stages of Collapse as
defined by Dmitry Orlov in his seminal book "The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors' Toolkit" where he mentions the following
5 stages of collapse:
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost.
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in "the goodness of humanity" is lost.
Sound familiar? Read it and weep. Your pensions are toast.
Or read Chris Hedges America The Farewell Tour.
Snowden's character is proven by his interview with Brian Roberts.
Now, although only 14% of U.S. TLAMs got past Syrian air defenses, hear him was rhapsodic on the "beautiful missiles."
And Snowden is happy to talk to this creep? And asks Rothschild-Kravis puppet Macron to ex-filtrate him to France?
It was in this milieu that he met Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, in their residence on Park Avenue in New York [1]. The Kravis
couple, unfailing supporters of the US Republican Party, are among the great world fortunes who play politics out of sight
of the Press. Their company, KKR, like Blackstone and the Carlyle Group, is one of the world's major investment funds.
" Emmanuel's curiosity for the 'can-do attitude' was fascinating – the capacity to tell yourself that you can do anything
you set your mind to. He had a thirst for knowledge and a desire to understand how things work, but without imitating or copying
anyone. In this, he remained entirely French ", declares Marie-Josée Drouin (Mrs. Kravis) today [2].
Snowden's revelations about his aspirations for asylum outside of Russia come just days ahead of the upcoming release of
his new memoir which is expected to hit the shelves on US Constitution Day.
Famous American whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the man responsible for exposing a number of global
surveillance programs run by the US agency, has recently revealed that he would like to obtain asylum in France.
Call it female intuition, Snowden creeps me out.
Those who want to bow before his altar, be my guest. You have free will.
Just realized, isn't this creature the only female author here?
A female creature is writing, as an author, on alt-whatever site, about things she has never been professionally involved in.
With certain hahaha style.
Hahaha ..oh my.
So, what have we got:
1. Unz finally collapsed under "diversity" pressure?
2. There is, sort of a hidden, message here.
@Sean True true .mea culpa. Female
stuff, that is, in general.
Style, though, is unique for the creature here.
Butthurt
whoo-hoo..
Go wave your flag
.CIA trolls here
Read it and weep. Your pensions are toast .
.creep .creeps me out
I mean hahaha .when reading those things it's, almost, as written by a certain type of commentators here. Almost as one of
them, actually. Same "footprint". Especially the first two.
I mean, having that from an author here is, really, a new low for sure.
This is the first time I've seen something like that, and my attitude was mild in this thread compared to some in other threads.
I mean, I was quite hard on some authors here, and never, so far that. "Butthurt" ."whoo-hoo"
I've quite offended a couple of authors here and they never replied with any rude word. And ..my God "whoo-hoo". Haha crazy.
New "quality" seeping here, apparently. Hehe getting with times, I guess. And program.
Understandable.
I've been on this site for quite some time. Read, on average, 20 % of articles and similar number of comments in those articles.
I can't, really, recollect ONE case when an AUTHOR, here, in a comments exchange with a commentator, used the words
"butthurt" and "whoo-hoo". Not once from the, say, authors from the West. Born and raised there, that is. Cultural
thing, I guess.
@foolisholdmanI agree. Shilling
for the Israelis regarding 911 is a deal breaker for me. They had me going about these 2 guys for a while, but when I heard that
they had ridiculed 911 truthers I smelled a rat. And after this article I agree they are shills for the status quo. Reasonable
people can not doubt that 911 was a false flag operation. There's just too much bullshit there.
I think the idea Snowden is a "plant" is a bit far out there. If he is; the real purpose of the exercise is what exactly?
I also don't get why some commenters think Julian Assange isn't who he claims to be. His Wikileaks has published great volume
of highly embarrassing material for the U.S. The embassy cables come to mind – bringing to light evidence contrary to Washington
narrative on many events.
There is another thing; Just after he established Wikileaks he came to Iceland and met with journalists and few politicians.
The result from that visit was he met one Kristinn Hrafnsson, long time journalist in Iceland with excellent track record and
credibility. Since Assange got in trouble, accused of sexual harassment from Swedish woman and finally escaped into the Ecuador
embassy in London, Hrafnsson has been spokesman for Wikileaks.
Since I am familiar with Hrafnsson work for decades, I would be very surprised if he worked with Assagne all this time, and
even took over his job, so to speak, as head of Wikileaks if Assagne wasn't genuine. Hrafnsson has struck me as smart guy and
honest and it's extremely unlikely he would continue if something didn't smell right at Wikileaks. I also want to point out Wikileaks
has been working with, what I consider the few remaining NEWS outlets in Europe. (Including The Guardian before it was bought
few years ago and became worthless).
To Assagne credit he booted Icelandic polititian, one Birgitta Jónsdóttir; who tried to visit him in U.K. prison – and wanted
nothing to do with her. She has been trying to make international name for herself as fighter for human rights and peacemaker
and against corruption and so forth. Unfortunately she is a bag full of hot air and thinks SHE is the center of the universe.
It's all about her and therefore she is of no use for any cause. Julian was right to send her packing.
I can't imagine what the CIA or NSA or other tentacles of the Empire would gain by running Wikileaks. It makes absolutely no
sense to me.
@2stateshmustate "9/11 is the
Litmus Test " By Smoking – Mirrors.Com :
"It all comes down to 9/11.Everything that has happened has happened based on a lie . Everyone in Government ; everyone in
the media , in entertainment , in organized religion , in the public ,in the public eye who accepts and promotes the official
story is either a traitor or a tool . Everyone who does not stand forth and speak truth to power is a coward , a liar and complicit
in mass-murder . Everyone
everywhere can be measured by this Litmus Test ."
In 2013, Edward Snowden was an IT systems expert working under contract for the National
Security Agency when he traveled to Hong Kong to provide three journalists with thousands of
top-secret documents about U.S. intelligence agencies' surveillance of American citizens.
To Snowden, the classified information he shared with the journalists exposed privacy abuses
by government intelligence agencies. He saw himself as a whistleblower. But the U.S. government
considered him a traitor in violation of the
Espionage Act .
After meeting with the journalists, Snowden intended to leave Hong Kong and travel -- via
Russia -- to Ecuador, where he would seek asylum. But when his plane landed at Moscow's
Sheremetyevo International Airport, things didn't go according to plan.
"What I wasn't expecting was that the United States government itself ... would cancel my
passport," he says.
Snowden was directed to a room where Russian intelligence agents offered to assist him -- in
return for access to any secrets he harbored. Snowden says he refused.
"I didn't cooperate with the Russian intelligence services -- I haven't and I won't," he
says. "I destroyed my access to the archive. ... I had no material with me before I left Hong
Kong, because I knew I was going to have to go through this complex multi-jurisdictional
route."
Snowden spent 40 days in the Moscow airport, trying to negotiate asylum in various
countries. After being denied asylum by 27 nations, he settled in Russia, where he remains
today.
"People look at me now and they think I'm this crazy guy, I'm this extremist or whatever.
Some people have a misconception that [I] set out to burn down the NSA," he says. "But that's
not what this was about. In many ways, 2013 wasn't about surveillance at all. What it was about
was a violation of the Constitution."
Snowden's 2013 revelations led to changes in the laws and standards governing American
intelligence agencies and the practices of U.S. technology companies, which now encrypt much of
their Web traffic for security. He reflects on his life and his experience in the intelligence
community in the memoir Permanent Record.
On Sept. 17, the U.S. Justice Department filed suit to recover all proceeds from the book,
alleging that Snowden violated nondisclosure agreements by not letting the government review
the manuscript before publication; Snowden's attorney, Ben Wizner, said in a statement that the
book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news
organizations, and that the government's prepublication review system is under court
challenge.
"... The United States is seeking all proceeds earned by Snowden for the book, the Justice Department said. The lawsuit also names the "corporate entities" behind the book's publication as nominal defendants. ..."
"... Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Snowden, said the lawsuit was without merit. "This book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organizations," he said in a statement, adding that Snowden would have submitted it for review if he thought the government would review it in good faith. ..."
The United States filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked
secret documents about U.S. telephone and internet surveillance in 2013, saying his new book violates non-disclosure agreements.
The Justice Department said Snowden published his memoir, "Permanent Record," without submitting it to intelligence agencies for
review, adding that speeches given by Snowden also violated nondisclosure agreements. In 2013, Snowden wrote "Everything You Know
about the Constitution is Wrong."
The United States is seeking all proceeds earned by Snowden for the book, the Justice Department said. The lawsuit also names
the "corporate entities" behind the book's publication as nominal defendants.
Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Snowden, said the lawsuit was without merit.
"This book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organizations," he said in a
statement, adding that Snowden would have submitted it for review if he thought the government would review it in good faith.
Representatives for the book's publisher, Macmillan Publishers, and its unit Henry Holt & Co, did not immediately respond to requests
for comment.
Snowden has lived in Russia since he revealed details of U.S. intelligence agencies' secret surveillance programs.
Though he is viewed by some as a hero, U.S. authorities want him to stand in a criminal trial over his disclosures of classified
information.
Speaking by video link at an event in Berlin to promote the book, Snowden said that while he had signed a non-disclosure agreement
to maintain secrecy, he had also sworn an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
"You've told the government you're not going to talk to journalists. You've told them you're not going to write a book," Snowden
said. "At the same time you have an oath to defend the Constitution. And the secret that you are asked to protect is that the government
is violating that Constitution and the rights of people around the world."
Reporting by Makini Brice; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Paul Carrell in Berlin; Editing by Marguerita
Choy and Lisa Shumaker Our Standards: The Thomson
Reuters Trust Principles.
When the ideology collapses like neoliberalism collapsed in 2008 defections and leaks from the intelligence agencies became more
prominent and higher level. Just before the USSR collapsed there were several high level officers of KGB that changed sides including
at least one general of KGB.
We can probably view Snowden and Manning as signs of similar process which started in the USA after the collapse of neoliberalism.
They suggest that loyalty to the USA in CIA or NSA is on low level not became of some external factors, but due to lack of conviction
in the sanity of the current social system in the USA (aka neoliberal society). So "protest defections" will probably continues unabated.
Of course, dealing with intelligence agencies is tricky as Snowden revelation might just be a limited revenge of CIA to NSA.
But in any case it is undisputable that while few Snowden files were published the mere fact of exfiltration of so much highly sensitive
information did some damage to military industrial complex. That makes is less pausible that he operates as CIA mole, which several
commenters below suggest.
At the same time in this interview Snowden sounds like a naive and disoriented person: " I try to keep a distance between myself
and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community." English
speaking community in Russia probably has highest in the world percentage of intelligence officers of Western countries including CIA
officers.
Another somewhat suspicious fact is that very few files that Snowden files were released. So the whole story now looks like "Too
much ado about nothing." Unlike Wikileaks that published Manning materials.
Notable quotes:
"... He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction, with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars". ..."
"... Snowden also said: " The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities, such as facial and pattern recognition. ..."
"... " An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer to an automated police officer ." - The Guardian ..."
"... You have to remember, in the beginning I didn't even know mass surveillance was a thing because I worked for the CIA, which is a human intelligence organization. But when I was sent back to NSA headquarters and my very last position to directly work with a tool of mass surveillance, there was a guy who was supposed to be teaching me . And sometimes he would spin around in his chair, showing me nudes of whatever target's wife he's looking at. And he's like: "Bonus!" ..."
"... The most important part of the Rubik's cube was actually not as a concealment device, but a distraction device. I had to get things out of that building many times. I really gave Rubik's cubes to everyone in my office as gifts and guards saw me coming and going with this Rubik's cube all the time. So I was the Rubik's cube guy . ..."
"... When you're doing this for the first time, you're just going down the hallway and trying not to shake. And then, as you do it more times, you realize that it works. You realize that a metal detector won't detect an SD card because it has less metal in it than the brackets on your jeans. ..."
"... I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community . I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into. ..."
"... 16 June 2013 The revelations expand to include the UK, with news that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications during the 2009 G20 summit in London, and that the British spy agency has also tapped the fibre-optic cables carrying much of the internet's traffic. ..."
"... 3 July 2013 While en route from Moscow, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is forced to land in Vienna after European countries refuse his plane airspace, suspecting that Snowden was on board. It is held and searched for 12 hours. ..."
"... December 2016 Oliver Stone releases the movie Snowden featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary Quinto and a cameo by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. ..."
"... When he originally contacted Glenn Greenwald, I was suspicious. I said then, nothing will come of this, and nothing did, because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE all the files he had and what was on them. ..."
"... Read in Reuters that he's requested asylum in France. ..."
"... It will be common knowledge soon that it was the NSA (Admiral Rogers) that first detected the coup against Trump and the illegal surveillance. Remember friends, the FISA warrants were a cover for the illegal spying the Obama administration was ALREADY doing on Trump, Cruz, and others. ..."
"... I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community. ..."
"... What an ungrateful twat. Russia saved his bacon and yet he wants to know nothing of the country and its people and maybe begin to understand WHY they would offer to help him...even if he doesnt like the Russain government, he CHOOSES to know nothing of the Russian people. What a loser! ..."
"... Maybe he doesn't know how to speak Russian, seeing as how getting stuck in Russia was not exactly his original plan. He just happened to be in a Russian airport when the USA happened to revoke his passport, making it impossible for him to leave. ..."
"... There is also the other angle, that perhaps he might be working as a CIA agent even now, and that his predicament is actually all entirely pre-meditated by the USA. Russia might take his getting friendly with the locals as being a bit impolite if he is doing spy work for the USA while living in Russia. ..."
"... He doesnt need to be "palsy-walsy" with Russians, he has NO knowledge of the country he lives in and its people and doesn't want to. That is ungrateful to the nth degree. ..."
"... If Russia wanted to they could shut down his ability to give video-conferences etc. They don't, they continue to show him a hospitality that he seems willing to spit on! ..."
"... Serious damage? I fear Snowden and Assange wasted their lives upon the American people. Was Snowden wrong morally? He fought the totalitarian giant and for this the people sit back in their arm chairs and moralize whether it was right or wrong. We don't deserve to be "free.". ..."
"... Why and how has Greenwald been able to "sit on" countless info files but never released them? If that is true then why haven't US authorities gone after him as well? Way too many strange aspects to Snowden's cover story and how he's allowed by the Russian's to make public statements about their local political landscape. ..."
"... It's not just that. Greenwald lives full time in Brazil for a very good reason--Brazil has no extradition treaty with the US. He's relatively safe there, although his boyfriend was stupid enough to go to London briefly and nearly got the Assange treatment... ..."
"... What I hate is that Snowden gave all those documents to Greenwald who said he was going to publish them and once he went to the Intercept under Omadyar...nothing but silence on those files. To my mind he betrayed Snowden. ..."
"... Book tour, Docudrama and T-Shirt? ..."
"... That part of the narrative does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? She's allowed to come and go as she pleases in the USA, yet is married to this guy wanted by the US authorities? Hmm. Nothing suspicious about that. ..."
"... Can anybody name something that Snowfen revealed that wasn't common knowledge? ..."
Meeting with both
The Guardian and
Spiegel Online in Moscow as part of its promotion, the infamous whistleblower spent nearly five hours with the two media
outlets - offering a taste of what's in the book, details on his background, and his thoughts on artificial intelligence, facial
recognition, and other intelligence gathering tools coming to a dystopia near you.
While The Guardian interview is 'okay,' scroll down for the far more interesting Spiegel interview, where Snowden
goes way deeper into his cloak-and-dagger life, including thoughts on getting suicided.
First, The Guardian :
Snowden describes in detail for the first time his background, and what led him to leak details of the secret programms being
run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's secret communication headquarters,
GCHQ .
He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction,
with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars".
Snowden also said: " The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities,
such as facial and pattern recognition.
" An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer
to an automated police officer ." -
The Guardian
Snowden secretly married his partner, Lindsay Mills, two years ago in a Russian courthouse. They met when he was 22 (14 years
ago) on the internet site "Hot or Not," where he rated her a 10 out of 10 and she rated him a (generous) eight.
He freely moves around Moscow, riding the metro, visiting art galleries or the ballet, and meeting with friends in cafes and
restaurants.
The 36-year-old lives in a two-bedroom flat on the outskirts of Moscow, and derives most of his income (until now) from speaking
fees - mainly to students, civil rights activists and others abroad via video chat.
Snowden is an "indoor cat by choice," who is "happiest sitting at his computer late into the night, communicating with campaigners
and supporters."
At a training school for spies, Snowden was nicknamed "the Count" after the Sesame Street character.
The Der Spiegel interview, meanwhile, is way more interesting ... For example:
" If I Happen to Fall out of a Window, You Can Be Sure I Was Pushed. "
Meeting Edward Snwoden is pretty much exactly how children imagine the grand game of espionage is played.
But then, on Monday, there he was, standing in our room on the first floor of the Hotel Metropol, as pale and boyish-looking
as the was when the world first saw him in June 2013 . For the last six years, he has been living in Russian exile. The U.S. has
considered him to be an enemy of the state, right up there with Julian Assange, ever since he revealed, with the help of journalists,
the full scope of the surveillance system operated by the National Security Agency (NSA).
For quite some time, though, he remained silent about how he smuggled the secrets out of the country and what his personal
motivations were. -
Spiegel Online
Select excerpts via Der Spiegel (emphasis ours):
***
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Snowden, you always said: "I am not the story." But now you've written 432 pages about yourself. Why?
Edward Snowden: Because I think it's more important than ever to explain systems of mass surveillance and mass manipulation
to the public. And I can't explain how these systems came to be without explaining my role in helping to build them.
DER SPIEGEL: Wasn't it just as important four or even six years ago?
Snowden: Four years ago, Barack Obama was president. Four years ago, Boris Johnson wasn't around and the AfD ( Germany's
right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany ) was still kind of a joke. But now in 2019, no one is laughing. When you look
around the world, when you look at the rising factionalization of society, when you see this new wave of authoritarianism sweeping
over many countries: Everywhere political classes and commercial classes are realizing they can use technology to influence the world
on a new scale that was not previously available. We are seeing our systems coming under attack.
DER SPIEGEL: What systems?
Snowden: The political system, the legal system, the social system. And we have the proclivity to think that if we get rid of
the people we don't like, the problem is solved. We go: "Oh, it's Donald Trump. Oh, it's Boris Johnson. Oh, it's the Russians" But
Donald Trump is not the problem. Donald Trump is the product of the problem.
***
DER SPIEGEL: While writing, did you discover any truths about yourself that you didn't like?
Snowden: The most unflattering thing is to realize just how naïve and credulous I was and how that could make me into a
tool of systems that would use my skills for an act of global harm . The class of which I am a part of, the global technological
community, was for the longest time apolitical. We have this history of thinking: "We're going to make the world better."
***
DER SPIEGEL: Was that your motivation when you entered the world of espionage?
Snowden: Entering the world of espionage sounds so grand. I just saw an enormous landscape of opportunities because the
government in its post-9/11 spending blitz was desperate to hire anybody who had high-level technical skills and a clearance. And
I happened to have both. It was weird to be just a kid and be brought into CIA headquarters, put in charge of the entire Washington
metropolitan area's network .
DER SPIEGEL: Was it not also fascinating to be able to invade pretty much everybody's life via state-sponsored hacking?
Snowden: You have to remember, in the beginning I didn't even know mass surveillance was a thing because I worked for
the CIA, which is a human intelligence organization. But when I was sent back to NSA headquarters and my very last position to directly
work with a tool of mass surveillance, there was a guy who was supposed to be teaching me . And sometimes he would spin around in
his chair, showing me nudes of whatever target's wife he's looking at. And he's like: "Bonus!"
***
DER SPIEGEL: You became seriously ill and fell into depression. Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?
Snowden: No! This is important for the record. I am not now, nor have I ever been suicidal. I have a philosophical objection
to the idea of suicide, and if I happen to fall out of a window, you can be sure I was pushed.
***
DER SPIEGEL: You write that you sometimes smuggled SD memory cards inside a Rubik's cube .
Snowden: The most important part of the Rubik's cube was actually not as a concealment device, but a distraction device.
I had to get things out of that building many times. I really gave Rubik's cubes to everyone in my office as gifts and guards saw
me coming and going with this Rubik's cube all the time. So I was the Rubik's cube guy . And when I came out of the tunnel with
my contraband and saw one of the bored guards, I sometimes tossed the cube to him. He's like, "Oh, man, I had one of these things
when I was a kid, but you know, I could never solve it. So I just pulled the stickers off." That was exactly what I had done -- but
for different reasons.
DER SPIEGEL: You even put the SD cards into your mouth.
Snowden:When you're doing this for the first time, you're just going down the hallway and trying not to shake. And
then, as you do it more times, you realize that it works. You realize that a metal detector won't detect an SD card because it has
less metal in it than the brackets on your jeans.
***
DER SPIEGEL: You describe your arrival in Moscow as a walk in the park. You say you refused to cooperate with the Russian
intelligence agency FSB and they let you go. That sounds implausible to us.
Snowden: I think what explains the fact that the Russian government didn't hang me upside down my ankles and beat me with
a shock prod until secrets came out was because everyone in the world was paying attention to it. And they didn't know what to do.
They just didn't know how to handle it. I think their answer was: "Let's wait and see."
DER SPIEGEL: Do you have Russian friends?
Snowden: I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my
life with basically the English-speaking community . I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm
an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into.
***
Read the rest of Der Spiegel' s interview with Edward Snowden
here .
Meanwhile, The Guardian provides an interesting 'Snowden Timeline':
Snowden's timeline
21 June 1983 Edward Joseph Snowden is born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, US.
2006-2013 Initially at the CIA, and then as a contractor for first Dell and then Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden spends years
working in cybersecurity on projects for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
20 May 2013 Edward Snowden arrives in Hong Kong, where a few days later he meets with Guardian journalists, and shares with
them a cache of top secret documents he has been downloading and storing for some time.
5 June 2013 The Guardian begins reporting the Snowden leaks, with revelations about the NSA storing the phone records of millions
of Americans, and the agency's claim its Prism programme had "direct access" to data held by Google, Facebook, Apple and other
US internet giants.
7 June 2013 The US president, Barack Obama, is forced to defend the programmes, insisting that they are adequately overseen
by the courts and Congress.
9 June 2013 Snowden goes public as the source of the leaks in a video interview.
16 June 2013 The revelations expand to include the UK, with news that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications
during the 2009 G20 summit in London, and that the British spy agency has also tapped the fibre-optic cables carrying much of
the internet's traffic.
21 June 2013 The US files espionage charges against Snowden and requests Hong Kong detain him for extradition.
23 June 2013 Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Moscow. Hong Kong claims that the US got Snowden's middle name wrong in documents
submitted requesting his arrest meaning they were powerless to prevent his departure.
1 July 2013 Russia reveals that Snowden has applied for asylum. He also expresses an interest in claiming asylum in several
South American nations. Eventually Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela offer permanent asylum.
3 July 2013 While en route from Moscow, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is forced to land in Vienna after European countries
refuse his plane airspace, suspecting that Snowden was on board. It is held and searched for 12 hours.
1 August 2013 After living in an airport for a month, Snowden is granted asylum in Russia.
21 August 2013 The Guardian reveals that the UK government ordered it to destroy the computer equipment used for the Snowden
documents.
December 2013 Snowden is a runner-up to Pope Francis as Time's Person of the Year, and gives Channel 4's "Alternative Christmas
Message".
May 2015 The NSA stops the bulk collection of US phone calling records that had been revealed by Snowden.
December 2016 Oliver Stone releases the movie Snowden featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary
Quinto and a cameo by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.
January 2017 Snowden's leave to remain in Russia is extended for three more years.
June 2018 Snowden says he has no regrets about his revelations, saying: "The government and corporate sector preyed on our
ignorance. But now we know. People are aware now. People are still powerless to stop it but we are trying."
March 2019 Vanessa Rodel, who sheltered Snowden in Hong Kong, is granted asylum in Canada.
September 2019 Snowden remains living in an undisclosed location in Moscow as he prepares to publish his memoirs.
There's really no way to know that for sure if this guy is legit. If he is part of an operation, let's hope it's for something
good. When he originally contacted Glenn Greenwald, I was suspicious. I said then, nothing will come of this, and nothing
did, because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE all the files he had and what was on them.
Just what this man is up to we will likely never know. These kinds of operations can take years to set up.
My guess is Snowden is the Decoy, the distraction. There is likely someone else or something else that all of this camouflages.
Things go both ways in a surveillance environment. Snowden will be exposed in time as a CIA operative. The NSA has everything
including Hillary's private emails. Obama and many in his regime were also using private email servers, and the NSA has them all.
Snowden was trying to destroy the NSA, when they are what was needed to take down the CIA, FBI, and the Deep State. I don't
like the NSA being in existence, but this will help in prosecuting the criminals.
So what is the NSA waiting for? The statute of limitations to expire? LOL. Snowden wasn't trying to do anything except educate
people on what their government is doing. You obviously hate truth and knowledge. You work for the NSA?
I don't believe a damned thing about anything published about any of the alphabet agencies - good, bad, neutral, doesn't matter
it's all clown show bs.
Any other critical thinkers notice the CIA activated their asset again finally ? A predictable programmed book really ? Just
imagine what kind of juicy already known statecraft he will reveal. Lol. America loves their confabulated mythical pseudo-hero's
& cucked political demigods full of bovine scat don't they.
The UberMensch hero who somehow miraculously survived the 'enkryptonite' where other HVT can't. Amazing. Need to hurl makes
me gag reflex & gut retch.
Snowden is still CIA and his mission was to throw the NSA under the bus.
It will be common knowledge soon that it was the NSA (Admiral Rogers) that first detected the coup against Trump and the
illegal surveillance. Remember friends, the FISA warrants were a cover for the illegal spying the Obama administration was ALREADY
doing on Trump, Cruz, and others.
I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with
basically the English-speaking community.
What an ungrateful twat. Russia saved his bacon and yet he wants to know nothing of the country and its people and maybe
begin to understand WHY they would offer to help him...even if he doesnt like the Russain government, he CHOOSES to know nothing
of the Russian people. What a loser!
Just how is he to know who is undercover security services and who is just plain good and interesting?
Maybe he doesn't know how to speak Russian, seeing as how getting stuck in Russia was not exactly his original plan. He
just happened to be in a Russian airport when the USA happened to revoke his passport, making it impossible for him to leave.
There is also the other angle, that perhaps he might be working as a CIA agent even now, and that his predicament is actually
all entirely pre-meditated by the USA. Russia might take his getting friendly with the locals as being a bit impolite if he is
doing spy work for the USA while living in Russia.
He doesnt need to be "palsy-walsy" with Russians, he has NO knowledge of the country he lives in and its people and doesn't
want to. That is ungrateful to the nth degree.
If Russia wanted to they could shut down his ability to give video-conferences etc. They don't, they continue to show him
a hospitality that he seems willing to spit on!
No, really, I met people there who were deep and friendly and sensitive. Lots critical of what's not right with their own society,
and yet not traitors to their country.
I agree with you vasilievich....I am looking forward to visiting Russia next spring in time for the V-Day and the Immortal
Regiment, then spend a month visiting Russian and hopefully getting to interact with Russians "on the street".
One of the differences with Russia and the "West" is that Putins hours long live "conversations" with Russians and the way
he gets his government to follow up up problems, which he himself follows up on to insure actions are taken, ensure that people
have that freedom to be critical of their own society. Such an opposite to what happens to critics in the "west"
My take on Snowden is he's basically a decent guy who did some serious damage. Was he wrong legally? Hell yes! Was he wrong
morally? Possibly. Would I put the guy in prison if I could? Yeah for about 30 days because the bottom line of what he did was
to expose **** that needed to be exposed.
It's complicated but occasionally a guy like this is needed to stir the pot.
Serious damage? I fear Snowden and Assange wasted their lives upon the American people. Was Snowden wrong morally? He fought
the totalitarian giant and for this the people sit back in their arm chairs and moralize whether it was right or wrong. We don't
deserve to be "free.".
There is still more and something very fishy about Snowden.....if he really did so much so called "damage" to the US why do
US authorities never mention him? Why do they never pressure Russia to send him back?
Why and how has Greenwald been able to "sit on" countless info files but never released them? If that is true then why
haven't US authorities gone after him as well? Way too many strange aspects to Snowden's cover story and how he's allowed by the
Russian's to make public statements about their local political landscape.
It's not just that. Greenwald lives full time in Brazil for a very good reason--Brazil has no extradition treaty with the
US. He's relatively safe there, although his boyfriend was stupid enough to go to London briefly and nearly got the Assange treatment...
What I hate is that Snowden gave all those documents to Greenwald who said he was going to publish them and once he went
to the Intercept under Omadyar...nothing but silence on those files. To my mind he betrayed Snowden.
That part of the narrative does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? She's allowed to come and go as she pleases in the USA, yet
is married to this guy wanted by the US authorities? Hmm. Nothing suspicious about that.
How does what I wrote translate into an integrity issue?
Been married twice, fully faithful. But at his age particularly, would not recommend it to a guy who is in an unstable situation
anyway. (not to mention the girl originally rejected him when the going got rough).
Live a little, enjoy your youth, and enjoy the infamy!
The US government has a tendency to hijack and weaponize revolutionary innovations, Edward
Snowden said, noting that the natural human desire to communicate with others is now being
exploited on an unprecedented scale. "Our utopian vision for the future is never guaranteed
to be realized," Snowden told the audience in Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada via
live stream from Moscow this week, stressing that the US government "corrupted our
knowledge... towards a military purpose."
They took our nuclear capability and transformed it into the most horrible weapon that
the world had ever witnessed. And we're seeing an atomic moment of computer science... Its
reach is unlimited... but its safeguards are not!
The whistleblower, who in 2013 leaked a trove of highly classified information about global
spying operations by the National Security Agency, argued that, armed with modern technology
and with the help of social media and tech giants, governments are becoming
"all-powerful" in their ability to monitor, analyze, and influence behavior.
It's through the use of new platforms and algorithms that are built on and around these
capabilities that they are able to shift our behavior. In some cases, they are able to
predict our decisions and also nudge them to different outcomes.
The natural human need for "belonging" is being exploited and users voluntarily
consent to surrender virtually all of their data by signing carefully drafted user agreements
that no one bothers to read. "Everything has hundreds and hundreds of pages of legal jargon
that we're not qualified to read and assess and yet they are considered binding upon us,"
Snowden said.
And now these institutions, which are both commercial and governmental... have
structuralized and entrenched it to where it has become now the most effective means of
social control in the history of our species.
"... Institutions can "monitor and record private activities of people on a scale that's broad enough that we can say it's close to all-powerful," said Snowden. They do this through "new platforms and algorithms," through which "they're able to shift our behavior. In some cases they're able to predict our decisions -- and also nudge them -- to different outcomes. And they do this by exploiting the human need for belonging ." ..."
"... "We don't sign up for this," he added, dismissing the notion that people know exactly what they are getting into with social media platforms like Facebook. ..."
"... That means that a company, community or country that uses Huawei technology is protecting itself from the US-led international system of surveillance and possible control. And the threats and demands that they stop using Huawei products is more about keeping US control, not so much about blocking Chinese control ..."
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Thursday that people in systems of power have exploited the human desire to connect in
order to create systems of mass surveillance .
Snowden appeared at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia via
livestream from Moscow to give a keynote address
for the Canadian university's Open Dialogue Series.
Right now, he said, humanity is in a sort of "atomic moment" in the field of computer science. "We're in the midst of the greatest
redistribution of power since the Industrial Revolution, and this is happening because technology has provided a new capability,"
Snowden said.
"It's related to influence that reaches everyone in every place," he said. "It has no regard for borders. Its reach is unlimited,
if you will, but its safeguards are not." Without such defenses, technology is able to affect human behavior.
Institutions can "monitor and record private activities of people on a scale that's broad enough that we can say it's close
to all-powerful," said Snowden. They do this through "new platforms and algorithms," through which "they're able to shift our behavior.
In some cases they're able to predict our decisions -- and also nudge them -- to different outcomes. And they do this by exploiting
the human need for belonging ."
"We don't sign up for this," he added, dismissing the notion that people know exactly what they are getting into with social
media platforms like Facebook.
Snowden focuses on the common-knowledge stuff to keep our attention away from mass Signals Interference (spoofing and blocking
messages, calls, and emails) and other shady programs.
Huxley's 'Ultimate Revolution' - a scientific dictatorship where the masses willingly submit to their own enslavement - is
here.
His 1962 UC Berkeley speech sums it all up. Orwell's 1984 depended on terror and force to maintain control. Much easier with
A Brave New World where the control is psychological and people 'know their place' in the world and willingly accept it.
Mass surveillance is useless if you can't organise such a huge data set into meaningful information, and what's meaningful
is always a matter of opinion. Those who paid the bazillions to build this thing must be starting to scratch their heads.
The real threat of a system like this is when some low level user with access exploits it for their personal advantage. Some
neighbor or co-worker who doesn't like you.
AI has a long way to go and in this case it just sounds like a poor excuse to keep feeding the big white elephant.
10 to 15 yrs from now, security services and police will intercept any person walking in a public place without some form
of smart device to identify who they are, and it is all being implemented by stealth, right before our eyes
Smart identification devices will become mandatory, everything in your life will be tracked, your travel, your spending,
your political affiliations, people will willingly give up their freedoms to the illusory safety of the security state, call
it slavery
I don't know but at least as it pertains to me, I think all the scare tactics aboput Artificial Inteligence is way overblown.
I don't even read the ads on the internet, and if I do happen to spend more than a nanosecond viewing them, its usually only
to getg the name of the company so I make sure NOTG to buy anything from them for invading my space.
SoI reallhydon't \care if some algorithm says I am likely to buy a certain kind of product, because they can bombard me with
ads all day and all night and it won't make a rat's *** bit of difference in whagt I decide to do. Same with politics...there's
nothing they can pipe intop my computer that will make me more or less likely to vote for a candidate. I have voted all over
the ballot in any election I ever voted in, and my selections were based on reading what the candidates said at debates or in
campaign speeches. Political advertising is a waste of money when itg comes to my voting.
In terms of spying, yes, I can understand how and why tech companies and the government engage in that kind of activity.
I surely don't like it, but it really doesn't bother me because I would never portray anything I do to an internet full of anonymous
people who may be collecting information. Most people are law abiding and the things they do that come close to criminal occur
so infrequently and are for such a relatively small amount of money compared to a criminal enterprise that the government probably
doesn't have time to bother with them. If you have nothing to hide than you have nothing to fear, and for the most part, most
people have nothing to hide.
In terms of drones surveilling everyone, I think they are great target practice. How often do you get the chance to fire
atga moving target outside of skeet shooting ? So if the government or some ahole company wants to spy on you with drones, have
fun shooting them out of the air. If enough people take this route, the practice will end because the cost of all those shot
up drones will be too expensive for the Peeping Toms to afford. And the government does not have the resources to prosecute
a hundred million people all shooting at drones.
Another point : when it comes to election time, go to the local Meet The Candidate forums where you live and ask the candidates
who has the balls to state they will vote against any government spying without warrants based on unimpeachable reasonable causes
? Only vote for the politicians who make such pledges, and if they break their promises vote them out of office the next time
they try to get elected. Democracy works when the people are willing to use it. So use it.
Then get off your dead *** and work to save what power the people have left. Are you that lazy physically and intellectually?
TV people own you enough to cave into deep apathy? The I hope you get FEMA camped in one form or another because that's where
this **** is headed unless you take to heart the previous poster.
I would have agreed with you 20 years ago. We're way past the point where voting matters. All politicians on both sides are
the worst pieces of **** you can imagine. They all support mass surveillance, slavery through fake Fed money, war, GMOs, vaccines
and any other evil **** their masters are trying to force on us.
I hope the voting rate in America goes under 10 percent so that 90 percent of us can say, "**** you! I didn't vote for that"
and have it be true. Because when it comes to all the important stuff, you did vote for that if you voted for one of these vile
wastes of protoplasm in DC.
"As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict
set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress. The air traveler is not free. In the future, life's
passengers will be even less so: they will travel through their lives fastened to their (corporate) seats."
I agree with Snowden's assessment of the human need to socially connect with others which is being exploited and morphed
into mass surveillance.
But .gov cannot be trusted to take any effective action against the likes of Faceache or Goolag because these outfits are
in bed with government (see recent ZH article on this very subject). Thus, government is a prime beneficiary of the mass surveillance
data being collected.
I actually disagree with Snowden. I think social media, from what people describe and what I observe, strokes people's egos
and self-esteem. The tragedy here is that social connection becomes redefined rather narrowly within the confines of ego and
self-esteem. I note, e.g., the strident and self-righteous tones in some of the posts throughout ZH here today. Along with the
hyper-massaging of ego/self-esteem comes hyper-emotionalism. Everything is cataclysmic. You're the "good guy," and everybody
and anybody who opposes you are the "bad guys." Stark, vivid black and white thinking propelled by emotions on steroids. Combine
ego massage with steroidal emotions, and you get people wearing the equivalent of horse blinders. People who are easily duped.
I was struck by Snowden's remarks about Huawei technology. He makes the claim that in the past 6 years our best minds with
unlimited resources had been unable to find Huawei back doors or kill switches, because otherwise we would know, they would
have announced it to the world
On the other hand we can assume that American servers and the software they use do have back doors and maybe kill switches
That means that a company, community or country that uses Huawei technology is protecting itself from the US-led international
system of surveillance and possible control. And the threats and demands that they stop using Huawei products is more about
keeping US control, not so much about blocking Chinese control
This reminds me of the urgency with which the US demands that countries buy Patriot missile systems, not S400's.
STASI was privatized - now, people volunteer their information, and the CIA-funded ABC and FaceBook aggregate and sell the
data back to Big Government.
He is right. When myspace, then facebook came out I thought, Cool, I can keep in touch with all these people. Then, when
I became obvious that is was being used to spy on everyone and sell their info, I was pissed at myself for being so naive to
think that an honest company could exist without stabbing everyone in the back and becoming a tool for for the same intelligence
groups that have been standing on our necks for a couple hundred years now. Today it is too much to ask for an honest company
and a government that does not victimize its citizens in about every way it can imagine. We can have a better world. It won't
come by voting. They locked that **** down. It is time for the rope.
I get the surveillance part, but the social control part is still in the wings. China's social credit system and US' "terrorism"
databases are all but inklings of what is to come: constant and ubiquitous 24/7 monitoring with AI drone "enforcement". So far
the powers that be feel constrained in using all the data they collect in criminal court - in part because there are not enough
prisons, and in part because they don't want a revolt. But: once AI, data collection and drone automation reach the tipping
point (not far off), those constraints will be gone: there will be no ability to revolt as the drones will wipe out the "seditionists",
and prison won't be a problem because they will use other means (no food, no transportation, or corporal punishment, all administered
by integrated sales, transportation and drone systems).
An interesting method of monitoring access to the particular WEB site or page by intercepting pages at the router and
inserting reference to the "snooping" site for example one pixel image) which collects IPs of devices which accessed particular
page. Does not require breaking into the particular Web site 00 just the control of provider router is is enough. That
makes it more understandable the attack on Huawei.
Notable quotes:
"... Said Mr. Snowden was at risk for extra ordinary rendition.. qualified him for application under refuge law. Said to claim refugee status Art. 33 of the refugee humanitarian grounds application is Intl Refuge Law, that those in control of governments are working to eliminate this long standing intl understanding. ..."
"... said we are experiencing the greatest and fastest and most pervasive redistribution of power since the Industrial revolution.Highly concerned that very few are going to benefit. ..."
"... Talked about Conspiracy , a group called 5 eyes (USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, and UK) and prism.. explained how it worked. basically a collaboration between big corporations and government ..."
"... Explained how these corporations and government (mostly government) could intercept web page request between user at home or in office and the target server, and replace generate a blank page that has surveillance hidden in the page, then blend hidden with the legitimate page delivered by the innocent server to the unknowing user. said it goes beyond collaboration and moves to proactive surveillance. ..."
"... Said law is needed to criminalize companies and governments that make useful network devices that people buy, into evil spyware. mentioned the NSO group can remember why?. .. classified "trade in hidden exploits". as evil relayed story about how such devices were used in Mexico to defeat political opposition ..."
Describes the incredible pressure governments are applying on anyone who steps forward to
help a whistle blower.
Said Mr. Snowden was at risk for extra ordinary rendition.. qualified him for application
under refuge law. Said to claim refugee status Art. 33 of the refugee humanitarian grounds
application is Intl Refuge Law, that those in control of governments are working to eliminate
this long standing intl understanding.
Explained the constitution of Equador was the most complex constitution on planet its due
process rights solid due process safeguard, has a very high threshold but. Morales decision
was arbitrary to strip Mr. Assange of his asylum. Said HK angry at Germany over two whistle
blowers
Snowden then speaks .. excellent talk..
1st point.. progress in science has been unprecedented, especially nuclear science, but
the nation states are using that new
knowledge to make nuclear weapons.. called the progress an "Atomic Moment" in Science
evolution. .
said we are experiencing the greatest and fastest and most pervasive redistribution of
power since the Industrial revolution.Highly concerned that very few are going to benefit.
2nd point Platforms and Algorithms are being used by those in power to "shift our
behaviors" accomplished covertly by user
contracts people are required to sign when joining something on line (<=he said no one
reads these things, but they are dangerous
Talked about Conspiracy , a group called 5 eyes (USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, and UK) and
prism.. explained how it worked.
basically a collaboration between big corporations and government
Explained how these corporations and government (mostly government) could intercept web
page request between
user at home or in office and the target server, and replace generate a blank page that has
surveillance hidden in the page, then
blend hidden with the legitimate page delivered by the innocent server to the unknowing user.
said it goes beyond collaboration
and moves to proactive surveillance.
said the legal means to spy on the populations existed long before 9/11, but it could not
find daylight to be adopted until 9/11.
Basically the government and massive in size corporations have all of the data on every
single person on the earth because they gather it everywhere all of the time. discussed
warrant_less wire tap, explained why whistle blower fair trial in he USA not likely,
Said everything single call or electronic communication made by citizens is captured
suggested monitoring calls was a felony many corporations committed before the FISA Act was
enacted to protect the listener.
Mentioned Signal by Open Whisper <= for encryption??
Said law is needed to criminalize companies and governments that make useful network devices
that people buy, into evil spyware. mentioned the NSO group can remember why?. .. classified
"trade in hidden exploits". as evil relayed story about how such devices were used in Mexico
to defeat political opposition.
But the big thing I got out of it, was how website contract agreements are not innocent.
Such agreements prey on human desire to [interact, connect, share and cooperate] these
desires have been modelled into a platform that allows government or private commercial
enterprises to manipulate, exploit and prey-on any human "interacting with a such
websites.
There were two last visits. During the first I was led in by a new young assistant, Ethan,
who was keen to agree with everything being said. Our conversation was mainly about Edward
Snowden. There are few subjects on which Julian would be reluctant to take what you might call
a paternalistic position, but over Snowden, whom he's never met but has chatted with and feels
largely responsible for, he expressed a kind of irritable admiration. 'Just how good is he?' I
asked.
'He's number nine,' he said.
'In the world? Among computer hackers? And where are you?'
'I'm number three.' He went on to say that he wondered whether Snowden was calm enough,
intelligent enough, and added that he should have come to them for advice before fleeing to
Hong Kong.
A fair reading of the situation might conclude, without prejudice, that Assange, like an
ageing movie star, was a little put out by the global superstardom of Snowden. He has always
cared too much about the fame and too much about the credit, while real relationships and real
action often fade to nothing. Snowden was now the central hub and Julian was keen to help him
and keen to be seen to be helping him. It's how the ego works and the ego always comes first.
Snowden, while grateful for the advice and the comradeship, was meanwhile playing a cannier
game than Julian. He was eager for credit, too, but behaving more subtly, more amiably, and
playing with bigger secrets. Julian said he hoped that others, I took him to mean the
Guardian and Glenn Greenwald, didn't claim too much credit for the flow of secrets. He
said he wanted me to help him get a film going, an account of what actually happened in Hong
Kong, how he helped Snowden. He said he had all the inside information and connections and it
would make a fantastic thriller. We discussed it at length and I told him the way to get movie
interest in such a thing was to get behind a big piece in Vanity Fair . He agreed and
said he would set aside time to get down to it. But I knew he wouldn't. It was odd the way he
spoke about Snowden, almost jealously, as if the younger man didn't quite understand what he
was about, needing much more from Julian than he knew how to ask for. I recognised the familiar
anxiety about non-influence: 'Snowden should have been with us from the beginning,' he said.
'He's flailing.' But they were now making up for lost time. As we spoke, Sarah was in Moscow
Airport, where Snowden was being held without a passport. 'I sent Sarah over,' said Julian in
his favourite mode. All he needed at that point was a white cat to stroke.
Snowden was everywhere in the news the last time I decided to drop in on Julian after I'd
been out in his neighbourhood. The embassy was quiet. I brought a couple of bottles of beer up
from the street and we sat in the dark room. It was a Friday night and Julian had never seemed
more alone. We laughed a lot and then he went very deeply into himself. He drank his beer and
then lifted mine and drank that. 'We've got some really historic things going on,' he said.
Then he opened his laptop and the blue screen lit his face and he hardly noticed me
leaving.
@wayfarer Good share wayfarer. January 10, 2014 *500* Years of History Shows that Mass
Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent *It's Never to Protect Us From Bad Guys*
No matter which government conducts mass surveillance, they also do it to crush dissent,
and then give a false rationale for why they're doing it.
"... It is literally the supreme act of projection for Max Boot to accuse anyone of lacking courage, as this particular think tank warmonger is the living, breathing personification of the unique strain of American neocon cowardice . Unlike Snowden -- who sacrificed his liberty and unraveled his life in pursuit of his beliefs -- the 45-year-old Boot has spent most of his adult life advocating for one war after the next, but always wanting to send his fellow citizens of his generation to die in them, while he hides in the comfort of Washington think tanks, never fighting them himself. ..."
"... All of that is just garden-variety neocon cowardice, and it's of course grotesque to watch someone like this call someone else a coward. ..."
"... It's not surprising that someone whose entire adult life is shaped by extreme cowardice would want to accuse others of lacking courage, as it distracts attention away from oneself and provides the comfort of company. Nor is it surprising that government-loyal journalists spew outright falsehoods to smear whistleblowers. But even neocon rags like Commentary shouldn't be able to get away with this level of blatant lying. ..."
"... Being a neocon coward means never having to admit error. ..."
In the neocon journal
Commentary , Max Boot today complains that the New York Times published
an op-ed by Edward Snowden . Boot's objection rests on his accusation that the NSA whistleblower is actually a "traitor." In
objecting, Boot made these claims:
Oddly enough nowhere in his article -- which is datelined Moscow -- does he mention the surveillance apparatus of his host,
Vladimir Putin , which far exceeds in scope anything created by any Western country. . . .That would be the same FSB that has
taken Snowden into its bosom as it has previously done (in its earlier incarnation as the KGB) with previous turncoats such as
Kim Philby. . . .
But of course Ed Snowden is not courageous enough, or stupid enough, to criticize the dictatorship that he has defected to.
It's much easier and safer to criticize the country he betrayed from behind the protection provided by the FSB's thugs. The only
mystery is why the Times is giving this traitor a platform.
It is literally the supreme act of projection for Max Boot to accuse anyone of lacking courage, as this particular think tank
warmonger is
the living, breathing personification of the unique strain of American neocon cowardice . Unlike Snowden -- who sacrificed his
liberty and unraveled his life in pursuit of his beliefs -- the 45-year-old Boot has spent most of his adult life advocating for
one war after the next, but always wanting to send his fellow citizens of his generation to die in them, while he hides in the comfort
of Washington think tanks, never fighting them himself.
All of that is just garden-variety neocon cowardice, and it's of course grotesque to watch someone like this call someone
else a coward. But it's so much worse if he lies when doing so. Did he do so here? You decide. From Snowden's NYT op-ed today:
Basic technical safeguards such as encryption -- once considered esoteric and unnecessary -- are now enabled by default in
the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private.
Such structural technological changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the
arbitrary passage of anti privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia.
The meaning of that passage -- criticisms of Russia's attack on privacy -- is so clear and glaring that it caused even
Time magazine to publish this today :
The first sentence of Time 's article: "Former CIA officer and NSA contractor Ed Snowden has taken a surprising swing at his new
home, accusing Russia of 'arbitrarily passing' new anti-privacy laws ." In other words, in the very op-ed to which Boot objects,
Snowden did exactly that which Boot accused him of lacking the courage to do: "criticize" the country that has given him asylum.
This is far from the first time Snowden has done exactly that which the Tough and Swaggering Think Tank Warrior proclaimed Snowden
would never do. In April, 2014, Snowden wrote
an
op-ed in The Guardian under this headline:
With Max Boot's above-printed accusations in mind, just re-read that. Did Boot lie? To pose the question is to answer it. Here's
part of what Snowden wrote in that op-ed:
On Thursday, I questioned Russia's involvement in mass surveillance on live television. . . . I went on to challenge whether,
even if such a mass surveillance program were effective and technically legal, it could ever be morally justified. . . . In his
response, Putin denied the first part of the question and dodged on the latter. There are serious inconsistencies in his denial.
In countless speeches, Snowden has said much the same thing: that Russian spying is a serious problem that needs investigation
and reform, and that Putin's denials are not credible. Boot simply lied about Snowden.
It's not surprising that someone whose entire adult life is shaped by extreme cowardice would want to accuse others of lacking
courage, as it distracts attention away from oneself and provides the comfort of company. Nor is it surprising that government-loyal
journalists spew outright falsehoods to smear
whistleblowers. But even neocon rags like Commentary shouldn't be able to get away with this level of blatant lying.
UPDATE : In typical neocon fashion, Boot first
replies by minimizing his own error to a mere innocent oversight, and implying that only hysteria could cause anyone to find
what he did to be problematic. Even then, the facts negate his self-justification. But
then he says he was actually right all along
and his "point stands":
Being a neocon coward means never having to admit error.
Correspondence with Edward Snowden, and
the key to freedom for Julian Assange
A member of our Belgian Jewish community is in touch with Edward Snowden in Russia, both
sharing the role of being significant global dissidents who used to live in the USA.
We are publishing here a copy of some of that correspondence between those two figures,
as it discusses the likelihood of how both Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are being betrayed
and actively harmed by the American lawyers and US-UK media companies claiming to 'represent'
them, including America's ACLU (America's Civil Liberties Union), the UK Guardian and New York
Times newspapers, and Glenn Greenwald.
All these groups and journalists, are apparently hiding thousands of pages of legal files,
about the corruption and bribery of US federal (national) judges who are the same judges who
would put Julian Assange or Edward Snowden on trial ... even though these lawyers and
journalists all know that exposing the crimes of the bribed US judges, is the quick key to
releasing Julian Assange from threats that confine him to his refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy
in London, and key to more safety and freedom for Snowden as well.
US Attorney General Eric Holder is accused of sponsoring criminal acts of deception against
the UK, Sweden, Russia and other countries, hiding 'smoking gun' evidence of US judge bribery,
in order to harm and destroy both Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Google Inc has agreed to
censor and hoax the internet and hide dozens of web pages about this.
This bribery is said to be funded by Britain's Pearson plc, with the Guardian and New York
Times accused of accepting Pearson-funded bribes to print fake 'news' to obstruct and pervert
justice so that the UK will not prosecute Pearson's bribery of US high judges and
government.
Mr Snowden is also facing the terrifying possibility that his name is being abused by
these parties, New York Times, Guardian and Greenwald, for the sake of entrapping other
dissidents and whistleblowers into 'trusting' these journalists, who might then convey
dissident names to the US regime in order to silence and murder them. It seems possible the
Guardian and New York Times have already given Snowden files back to the US regime.
The correspondence with Edward Snowden makes reference to the police file with several EU
countries, who are beginning investigations and prosecutions, starting in Finland, of the
CIA-tied Wikipedia website, for fundraising fraud ... that police file significantly discusses
the evidence of bribery of US federal judges who are the same judges who would put Edward
Snowden and Julian Assange on trial in America, and how Wikipedia, actually an American
CIA-controlled 'Trojan horse' for inserting lies on targeted topics, has been used to plant
lies about that judicial bribery - the police dossier text is here:
Here is a screenshot of a Google Inc 'search results' page, with tiny text at the bottom
admitting that Google is censoring a large number of search results, about Edward Snowden's
correspondent, a major witness to the crimes involving the same US judges who would put Edward
Snowden or Julian Assange on trial:
TASS reported that August 1 was the
five year anniversary of Edward Snowden's being granted temporary asylum in the Russian
Federation. This happened after his release of an enormous trove of information showing
clandestine and illegal practices being carried out by the US intelligence agencies to gather
information on just about anyone in the world, for any – or no – reason at
all.
Edward Snowden, 35, is a computer security expert. In 2005-2008, he worked at the
University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Study of Language sponsored by the National
Security Agency (NSA) and at the global communications division at CIA headquarters in
Langley, Virginia. In 2007, Snowden was stationed with diplomatic cover at the US mission to
the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2009, he resigned from the CIA to join the Dell
company that sent him to Hawaii to work for the NSA's information-sharing office. He was
particularly employed with the Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm.
In June 2013, Snowden leaked classified information to journalists Glenn Greenwald and
Laura Poitras, which revealed global surveillance programs run by US and British intelligence
agencies. He explained the move by saying that he wanted to tell the world the truth because
he believed such large-scale surveillance on innocent citizens was unacceptable and the
public needed to know about it.
The Guardian and The Washington Post published the first documents concerning the US
intelligence agencies' spying on Internet users on June 6, 2013. According to the documents,
major phone companies, including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint Nextel, handed records of their
customers' phone conversations over to the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
who also had direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Skype,
YouTube, Paltalk, AOL and Apple. In addition, Snowden's revelations showed that a secret
program named PRISM was aimed at collecting audio and video recordings, photos, emails and
information about users' connections to various websites.
The next portion of revelations , which was published by the leading newspapers such as
The Guardian, Brazil's O Globo, Italy's L'Espresso, Germany's Der Spiegel and Suddeutsche
Zeitung, concerned the US spying on politicians. In particular, it became known that the NSA
and Great Britain's Government Communications Headquarters intercepted the phone calls that
foreign politicians and officials made during the G20 summit in London in 2009. British
intelligence agencies particularly tried to intercept then Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev's phone calls. US intelligence monitored the phone calls of 35 world leaders,
including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
According to the disclosed information, the NSA regularly gathered intelligence at the New
York and Washington offices of the European Union's mission. The agency also achieved access
to the United Nations' internal video conferences and considers the Vienna headquarters of
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as one of its major targets for spying.
The leaks also uncovered details about the Blarney and Rampart-T secret surveillance
programs. Blarney, which started in 1978, is used to collect information related to
counter-terrorism, foreign diplomats and governments, as well as economic and military
targets. Rampart-T has been used since 1991 to spy on foreign leaders. The program is focused
on 20 countries, including Russia and China.
Snowden also let the world know that Germany's Federal Intelligence Service and Federal
Office for the Protection of the Constitution used the NSA's XKeyScore secret computer system
to spy on Internet users, monitoring their web activities. In addition, the NSA and Great
Britain's Government Communications Headquarters developed methods that allowed them to hack
almost all the encryption systems currently used on the Internet. Besides, the leaked
documents said that the NSA had secretly installed special software on about 100,000
computers around the globe that provided access to them and made cyber attacks easier. In
particular, the NSA used a secret technology that made it possible to hack computers not
connected to the Internet.
Portions of the information Snowden handed over to Greenwald and Poitras continue to be
published on The Intercept website .
According to edwardsnowden.com – a website commissioned by the Courage foundation
(dedicated to building support for Snowden), a total of 2,176 documents from the archive have
been published so far.
The NSA and the Pentagon claim that Snowden stole about 1.7 mln classified documents
concerning the activities of US intelligence services and US military operations. He is
charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense
information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information
to an unauthorized person. He is facing up to ten years in prison on each charge.
As can be seen, Mr. Snowden's work is of extreme importance now in the connected Internet
age. But how is his life in Russia now?
Anatoly Kucherena, Edward Snowden's lawyer, has revealed some details of the renowned
whistleblower's life to Sputnik. According to him, Snowden has found a job, is actively
traveling around Russia and is continuing to learn the language.
Kucherena added that Snowden receives visits from his girlfriend, Lindsey Mills, and his
parents. When asked about the whistleblower's favorite place in Russia, his lawyer said that
he likes St Petersburg "a lot."
"He is doing alright: his girlfriend visits him, he has a good job and he's continuing to
study Russian. His parents visit him occasionally. [They] have no problems with visas. At
least they have never complained about having any trouble," the lawyer said.
After Snowden released classified NSA documents, he fled first to Hong Kong, then, on June
23, 2013, arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong. The whistleblower remained in the transit zone of
Sheremetyevo Airport until he was granted temporary asylum in Russia, which was later
prolonged to 2020.
Disobedient Media previously opined on the dagger-in-the-back publication of a hit piece
against Wikileaks' Julian Assange just one day after a UK magistrate, with blatant conflict of
interest in the matter, shot down his legal representatives' attempt to finally free him from
the confines of the Ecuadorian embassy.
What that article did not address was the patently obvious terminal illness suffered by The
Intercept. That is, the outlet claims to publish "fearless, adversarial" reporting, while it is
funded by a billionaire. Ken Silverstein
, formerly employed at The Intercept and by Omidyar's First Look Media, has described endemic
problems at the outlet that have risen directly out of Omidyar's leadership or lack
thereof.
The fundamental problem facing The Intercept is not ultimately about how or why the outlet
published a smear specifically timed to cut support away from Assange, even though that is in
and of itself despicable. It's that doing so acts in support of the very deep state and
moneyed, military interests that The Intercept purports to critique "fearlessly."
Adding to a sense of betrayal of The Intercept's principals in the wake of the outlet's
hit-piece is the fact that a number of writers at the publication are by all accounts on good
terms with Assange, and have worked with mutual supporters including the superb Italian
journalist Stefania Maurizi. Maurizi collaborated with Wikileaks on the verification of
documents for many years, and worked with Glenn Greenwald on preparation for the disclosure of
the Snowden files.
Adding to the years of support Greenwald has shown Assange, the Wikileaks co-founder also
sent Wikileaks' own Sarah Harrison to
the aid of Snowden after he was marooned in Hong Kong in 2013, an act which Stefania Maurizi
revealed very likely cost the publisher his freedom.
After the publication of the Snowden files, the UK ceased any attempt to create a legal
process by which Assange might have been safely freed , and in the same year pressured
Sweden to continue its investigation after the country's authorities expressed their intent to
drop the matter. Likewise, in the wake of Assange's actions towards Snowden, the Obama White
House changed its stance from a reluctant acceptance that prosecution of WikiLeaks for
publishing might not be possible given that US publishers had also published the same
material.
Snowden's revelations also provided much of the impetus for the launch of The Intercept as
an outlet, after Glenn Greenwald departed from The Guardian . In this way, Assange's story and his fate in the
Ecuadorian embassy is inextricably linked with the origin of The Intercept's rise on the back
of the Snowden revelations.
Only a few months later, in October 2013 while Snowden was still stuck in a Moscow airport
and out of reach of US authorities and The Intercept was gearing up for launch, the UK made it
clear to the Swedish prosecutor that she should not drop her investigation and European Arrest
Warrant for Assange, even though Sweden's law on proportionality required her to do so.
In the wake of Snowden's escape to Russia, Assange remained trapped in 30 square meters of
an embassy and lost any hope that had existed earlier in 2013 that he would soon be released
from that space, where we now know he cannot receive even the most basic medical care.
Meanwhile, The Intercept has become what it set out to destroy.
The relationship between Assange and The intercept makes it impossible to see the
organization's publication of an intrinsically flawed smear piece aimed at Assange as anything
other than a deep betrayal.
Which brings us inevitably to Pierre
Omidyar . That the multi-billionaire Ebay founder despises Trump and would have preferred
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to assume the mantle of the Presidency is an
understatement, but to focus only on his political outlook also misses the point of the larger
issue facing The Intercept.
The billionaire's incoherent vision of the First Amendment
(disturbing for someone who funds journalistic endeavors) aside, the nature of The Intercept's
fatal catch-22 would remain if Omidyar woke up tomorrow to become a MAGA-hat wearing,
NRA-supporting conservative. That is, a media outlet cannot perform as an 'independent and
adversarial' entity when it is birthed within and nurtured by the very establishment it must
confront.
When USA
Today reported that Omidyar would contribute $250 million to pursue "independent
journalism," a genetic malfunction was written into the Intercept's DNA. One cannot operate in
an adversarial manner when one is supported directly by the same moneyed interests that require
the most scrutiny and transparency of all.
That the magnate's influence would seep, tide-like, into the reporting and editorial
decisions of The Intercept seems difficult to ignore, but it is that inevitable creep itself
and not the flavor of his beliefs which makes the situation so damning for The Intercept.
I've previously
written at length in an effort to describe the chilling uniformity that ultimately pervades
the plutocratic class. Being a billionaire makes Pierre Omidyar much more like one of the Koch
Brothers than any liberal without access to the same magnitude of wealth and influence in the
US political sphere. The fact that wealth translates to political influence was described in a
Princeton University study, indicating
that the United States operates as a plutocracy. In that light, it is the wealth that binds
Omidyar, the Kochs and their ilk, as opposed to political outlook.
When Omidyar made use of Citizens' United to supply
an anti-Trump super PAC with $100,000 in 2016, it's not the flavor of the political activism
that he bought – it's that he bought it at all. Omidyar is a power-player within the same
corrupt establishment that WikiLeaks and The Intercept – in principle – aim to
critique regularly.
Omidyar has also provided funds to
the Clinton Foundation. As indicated by Wikileaks via Twitter , the Freedom Of The Press Foundation recently made the
controversial decision to terminate processing of Wikileaks donations. The move represented an
end to the role that was a central cause for the Foundation's creation, according to a
statement by Assange.
Ironically, the initial financial
blockade that made the Freedom Of The Press necessary was in part initiated by Paypal,
which was a spin-off from Ebay, a company that Omidyar founded. Omidyar served on the board of the
company until last year.
Sarah Harisson expressed the conflict of interest that Omidyar's involvement with The
Intercept represents to German Press ,
saying: " How can you take something seriously when the person behind this platform went along
with the financial boycott against WikiLeaks?"
Here lies the gulf between an adversarial organization like WikiLeaks and a news outlet that
purports to be fearless while subsisting on the payroll of a member of the plutocratic
elite.
The issue here goes beyond Omidyar's politics and the petty, obsessively personal
derangement of The Intercept's Micah Lee towards Julian Assange. The crux of the terminal
illness suffered by The Intercept is that it cannot stand as an outlet that wishes to both
participate in adversarial, anti-establishment reporting while it also relies on the funds of a
billionaire – any billionaire.
The rough beast born of the marriage between Omidyar's funds and the yearning for freedom
that surrounded the release of the Snowden Files cannot help but spiral towards its inevitable
fate.
At The Intercept, the center cannot hold in the widening gyre between its best journalists
and its worst impulses.
Disobedient Media previously opined on the dagger-in-the-back publication of a hit piece
against Wikileaks' Julian Assange just one day after a UK magistrate, with blatant conflict of
interest in the matter, shot down his legal representatives' attempt to finally free him from
the confines of the Ecuadorian embassy.
What that article did not address was the patently obvious terminal illness suffered by The
Intercept. That is, the outlet claims to publish "fearless, adversarial" reporting, while it is
funded by a billionaire. Ken Silverstein
, formerly employed at The Intercept and by Omidyar's First Look Media, has described endemic
problems at the outlet that have risen directly out of Omidyar's leadership or lack
thereof.
The fundamental problem facing The Intercept is not ultimately about how or why the outlet
published a smear specifically timed to cut support away from Assange, even though that is in
and of itself despicable. It's that doing so acts in support of the very deep state and
moneyed, military interests that The Intercept purports to critique "fearlessly."
Adding to a sense of betrayal of The Intercept's principals in the wake of the outlet's
hit-piece is the fact that a number of writers at the publication are by all accounts on good
terms with Assange, and have worked with mutual supporters including the superb Italian
journalist Stefania Maurizi. Maurizi collaborated with Wikileaks on the verification of
documents for many years, and worked with Glenn Greenwald on preparation for the disclosure of
the Snowden files.
Adding to the years of support Greenwald has shown Assange, the Wikileaks co-founder also
sent Wikileaks' own Sarah Harrison to
the aid of Snowden after he was marooned in Hong Kong in 2013, an act which Stefania Maurizi
revealed very likely cost the publisher his freedom.
After the publication of the Snowden files, the UK ceased any attempt to create a legal
process by which Assange might have been safely freed , and in the same year pressured
Sweden to continue its investigation after the country's authorities expressed their intent to
drop the matter. Likewise, in the wake of Assange's actions towards Snowden, the Obama White
House changed its stance from a reluctant acceptance that prosecution of WikiLeaks for
publishing might not be possible given that US publishers had also published the same
material.
Snowden's revelations also provided much of the impetus for the launch of The Intercept as
an outlet, after Glenn Greenwald departed from The Guardian . In this way, Assange's story and his fate in the
Ecuadorian embassy is inextricably linked with the origin of The Intercept's rise on the back
of the Snowden revelations.
Only a few months later, in October 2013 while Snowden was still stuck in a Moscow airport
and out of reach of US authorities and The Intercept was gearing up for launch, the UK made it
clear to the Swedish prosecutor that she should not drop her investigation and European Arrest
Warrant for Assange, even though Sweden's law on proportionality required her to do so.
In the wake of Snowden's escape to Russia, Assange remained trapped in 30 square meters of
an embassy and lost any hope that had existed earlier in 2013 that he would soon be released
from that space, where we now know he cannot receive even the most basic medical care.
Meanwhile, The Intercept has become what it set out to destroy.
The relationship between Assange and The intercept makes it impossible to see the
organization's publication of an intrinsically flawed smear piece aimed at Assange as anything
other than a deep betrayal.
Which brings us inevitably to Pierre
Omidyar . That the multi-billionaire Ebay founder despises Trump and would have preferred
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to assume the mantle of the Presidency is an
understatement, but to focus only on his political outlook also misses the point of the larger
issue facing The Intercept.
The billionaire's incoherent vision of the First Amendment
(disturbing for someone who funds journalistic endeavors) aside, the nature of The Intercept's
fatal catch-22 would remain if Omidyar woke up tomorrow to become a MAGA-hat wearing,
NRA-supporting conservative. That is, a media outlet cannot perform as an 'independent and
adversarial' entity when it is birthed within and nurtured by the very establishment it must
confront.
When USA
Today reported that Omidyar would contribute $250 million to pursue "independent
journalism," a genetic malfunction was written into the Intercept's DNA. One cannot operate in
an adversarial manner when one is supported directly by the same moneyed interests that require
the most scrutiny and transparency of all.
That the magnate's influence would seep, tide-like, into the reporting and editorial
decisions of The Intercept seems difficult to ignore, but it is that inevitable creep itself
and not the flavor of his beliefs which makes the situation so damning for The Intercept.
I've previously
written at length in an effort to describe the chilling uniformity that ultimately pervades
the plutocratic class. Being a billionaire makes Pierre Omidyar much more like one of the Koch
Brothers than any liberal without access to the same magnitude of wealth and influence in the
US political sphere. The fact that wealth translates to political influence was described in a
Princeton University study, indicating
that the United States operates as a plutocracy. In that light, it is the wealth that binds
Omidyar, the Kochs and their ilk, as opposed to political outlook.
When Omidyar made use of Citizens' United to supply
an anti-Trump super PAC with $100,000 in 2016, it's not the flavor of the political activism
that he bought – it's that he bought it at all. Omidyar is a power-player within the same
corrupt establishment that WikiLeaks and The Intercept – in principle – aim to
critique regularly.
Omidyar has also provided funds to
the Clinton Foundation. As indicated by Wikileaks via Twitter , the Freedom Of The Press Foundation recently made the
controversial decision to terminate processing of Wikileaks donations. The move represented an
end to the role that was a central cause for the Foundation's creation, according to a
statement by Assange.
Ironically, the initial financial
blockade that made the Freedom Of The Press necessary was in part initiated by Paypal,
which was a spin-off from Ebay, a company that Omidyar founded. Omidyar served on the board of the
company until last year.
Sarah Harisson expressed the conflict of interest that Omidyar's involvement with The
Intercept represents to German Press ,
saying: " How can you take something seriously when the person behind this platform went along
with the financial boycott against WikiLeaks?"
Here lies the gulf between an adversarial organization like WikiLeaks and a news outlet that
purports to be fearless while subsisting on the payroll of a member of the plutocratic
elite.
The issue here goes beyond Omidyar's politics and the petty, obsessively personal
derangement of The Intercept's Micah Lee towards Julian Assange. The crux of the terminal
illness suffered by The Intercept is that it cannot stand as an outlet that wishes to both
participate in adversarial, anti-establishment reporting while it also relies on the funds of a
billionaire – any billionaire.
The rough beast born of the marriage between Omidyar's funds and the yearning for freedom
that surrounded the release of the Snowden Files cannot help but spiral towards its inevitable
fate.
At The Intercept, the center cannot hold in the widening gyre between its best journalists
and its worst impulses.
"... The promotion of the alleged Russian election hacking in certain media may have grown from the successful attempts of U.S. intelligence services to limit the publication of the NSA files obtained by Edward Snowden. ..."
"... In May 2013 Edward Snowden fled to Hongkong and handed internal documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) to four journalists, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian and separately to Barton Gellman who worked for the Washington Post . ..."
"... In July 2013 the Guardian was forced by the British government to destroy its copy of the Snowden archive. ..."
"... In August 2013 Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for some $250 million. In 2012 Bezos, the founder, largest share holder and CEO of Amazon, had already a cooperation with the CIA. Together they invested in a Canadian quantum computing company. In March 2013 Amazon signed a $600 million deal to provide computing services for the CIA. ..."
"... The motivation for the Bezos and Omidyar to do this is not clear. Bezos is estimated to own a shameful $90 billion. The Washington Post buy is chump-change for him. Omidyar has a net worth of some $9.3 billion. But the use of billionaires to mask what are in fact intelligence operations is not new. The Ford Foundation has for decades been a CIA front , George Soros' Open Society foundation is one of the premier "regime change" operations, well versed in instigating "color revolutions" ..."
"... It would have been reasonable if the cooperation between those billionaires and the intelligence agencies had stopped after the NSA leaks were secured. But it seems that strong cooperation of the Bezos and Omidyar outlets with the CIA and others continue. ..."
"... The Washington Post , which has a much bigger reach, is the prime outlet for "Russia-gate", the false claims by parts of the U.S. intelligence community and the Clinton campaign, that Russia attempted to influence U.S. elections or even "colluded" with Trump. ..."
"... The revelation that the sole Russiagate "evidence" was the so-called Steele Dossier - i.e. opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign - which was used by the intelligence community to not only begin the public assertions of Trump's perfidy but to then initiate FISA approved surveillance on the Trump campaign, that is truly astonishing. Instructive then that the NY Times, Washington Post, etc have yet to acknowledge these facts to their readers, and instead have effectively doubled down on the story, insisting that the Russiagate allegations are established fact and constitute "objective reality." That suggests this fake news story will continue indefinitely. ..."
"... What we see here is these bastions of establishment thinking in the USA promoting "objective reality" as partisan - i.e. there is a Clinton reality versus a Trump reality, or a Russian reality versus a "Western" reality, facts and documentation be damned. This divorce from objectivity is a symptom of the overall decline of American institutions, an indicate a future hard, rather than soft, landing near the end of the road. ..."
The promotion of the alleged Russian election hacking in certain media may have grown from the successful attempts of U.S. intelligence
services to limit the publication of the NSA files obtained by Edward Snowden.
In May 2013 Edward Snowden fled to Hongkong and handed internal documents
from the National Security Agency (NSA) to four journalists,
Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian and separately to Barton Gellman who worked for the
Washington Post . Some of those documents were published by Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian , others by Barton
Gellman in the Washington Post . Several other international news site published additional material though the mass of
NSA papers that Snowden allegedly acquired never saw public daylight.
In July 2013 the Guardian was
forced by the British government to destroy its copy of the Snowden archive.
In August 2013 Jeff Bezos
bought the Washington Post for some $250 million. In 2012 Bezos, the founder, largest share holder and CEO of Amazon,
had already a cooperation with the CIA. Together they
invested
in a Canadian quantum computing company. In March 2013 Amazon
signed a $600 million
deal to provide computing services for the CIA.
In October 2013 Pierre Omidyar, the owner of Ebay, founded
First Look Media and hired Glenn Greenwald and Laura
Poitras. The total planned investment was said to be $250 million. It took up to February 2014 until the new organization launched
its first site, the Intercept . Only a few NSA stories appeared on it. The Intercept is a rather mediocre site.
Its management is
said to be chaotic . It publishes few stories of interests and one might ask if it ever was meant to be a serious outlet. Omidyar
has worked,
together with the U.S. government, to force regime change onto Ukraine. He had
strong ties with the Obama administration.
Snowden had copies of some
20,000 to 58,000 NSA files . Only 1,182 have been
published . Bezos and Omidyar obviously helped the NSA to keep more than 95% of the Snowden archive away from the public. The
Snowden papers were practically privatized into trusted hands of Silicon Valley billionaires with ties to the various secret services
and the Obama administration.
The motivation for the Bezos and Omidyar to do this is not clear. Bezos is
estimated to own a shameful
$90 billion. The Washington Post buy is chump-change for him. Omidyar has a net worth of some $9.3 billion. But the use
of billionaires to mask what are in fact intelligence operations is not new. The Ford Foundation has for decades been
a CIA front , George Soros' Open Society foundation is
one of the premier "regime change" operations, well versed in instigating "color revolutions".
It would have been reasonable if the cooperation between those billionaires and the intelligence agencies had stopped after the
NSA leaks were secured. But it seems that strong cooperation of the Bezos and Omidyar outlets with the CIA and others continue.
The Interceptburned
a intelligence leaker, Realty Winner, who had trusted its journalists to keep her protected. It
smeared the President of Syria as neo-nazi based on an (intentional?) mistranslation of one of his speeches. It additionally
hired a Syrian supporter of the CIA's "regime change by Jihadis" in Syria. Despite its
pretense of "fearless, adversarial journalism" it hardly deviates from
U.S. policies.
The Washington Post , which has a much bigger reach, is the prime outlet for "Russia-gate", the false claims by parts
of the U.S. intelligence community and the Clinton campaign, that Russia attempted to influence U.S. elections or even "colluded"
with Trump.
Just today it provides two stories and one op-ed that lack any factual evidence for the anti-Russian claims made in them.
In
Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options the writers insinuate that some anonymous writer who
published a few pieces on Counterpunch and elsewhere was part of a Russian operation. They provide zero evidence to back that claim
up. Whatever that writer
wrote (see
list at end) was run of the mill stuff that had little to do with the U.S. election. The piece then dives into various cyber-operations
against Russia that the Obama and Trump administration have discussed.
A
second story in the paper today is based on "a classified GRU report obtained by The Washington Post." It claims that the Russian
military intelligence service GRU started a social media operation one day after the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was illegally
removed from his office in a U.S. regime change
operation . What the story lists as alleged GRU puppet postings reads like normal internet talk of people opposed to the fascist
regime change in Kiev. The Washington Post leaves completely unexplained who handed it an alleged GRU report from 2014,
who classified it and how, if at all, it verified its veracity. To me the piece and the assertions therein have a strong odor of
bovine excrement.
An op-ed in the very same Washington Post has a similar smell. It is written by the intelligence flunkies Michael Morell
and Mike Rogers. Morell had hoped to become CIA boss under a President Hillary Clinton. The op-ed (which includes a serious misunderstanding
of "deterrence") asserts that
Russia never stopped its cyberattacks on the United States :
Russia's information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here . But to get a sense of the
breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation
experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy.
The author link to this page which claims to list Twitter
hashtags that are currently used by Russian influence agents. Apparently the top issue Russia's influence agents currently promote
is "#merrychristmas".
When the authors claim Russian operations are "more numerous than can be listed here" they practically admit that they have not
even one plausible operation they could cite. Its simply obfuscation to justify their call for more political and military measures
against Russia. This again to distract from the real reasons Clinton lost the election and to introduce a new Cold War for the benefit
of weapon producers and U.S. influence in Europe.
If what you allege is true about Greenwald and the Intercept, then why hasn't Snowden spoken out about it yet? Surely he would
have said something about the Intercept and Greenwald keeping important stories buried by now. Yet, as far as I can tell, he has
a good relationship with Greenwald. I find it hard to believe hat a man who literally gave up everything he had in life to leak
important docs would remain silent for so long about a publishing cover up. I don't really like the Intercept and I think your
analysis of its content is accurate, but I do find it hard to believe that the NSA docs were "bought" back by the CIA.
If what you allege is true about Greenwald and the Intercept, then why hasn't Snowden spoken out about it yet?
_____________________________________________________
My understanding is that early on, Snowden placed his trove of documents in the exclusive care of Glenn Greenwald and his associates.
Although Snowden has since become a public figure in his own right, and his opinions on state-security events and issues are solicited,
as far as I know Snowden has no direct responsibility for managing the material he downloaded.
I haven't followed Snowden closely enough to know how familiar he may be with the contents of the reported "20,000 to 58,000
NSA files" turned over to GG/Omidyar. Snowden presumably took pains to acquire items of interest in his cache as he accumulated
classified material, but even if he has extraordinary powers of recall he may not remember precisely what remains unreleased.
FWIW, I was troubled from the first by one of the mainstays of GG's defense, or rationale, when it became clear that he was
the principal, and perhaps sole, executive "curator" of the Snowden material. In order to reassure and placate nervous "patriots"--
and GG calls himself a "patriot"-- he repeatedly emphasized that great care was being taken to vet the leaked information before
releasing it.
GG's role as whistleblower Snowden's enabler and facilitator was generally hailed uncritically by progressive-liberals and
civil-liberties advocates, to a point where public statements that should've raised skeptical doubts and questions were generally
passively accepted by complacent admirers.
Specifically, my crap detectors signaled "red alert" early on, when Greenwald (still affiliated with "The Guardian", IIRC)
took great pains to announce that his team was working closely with the US/UK governments to vet and screen Snowden's material
before releasing any of it; GG repeatedly asserted that he was reviewing the material with the relevant state-security agencies
to ensure that none of the released material would compromise or jeopardize government operatives and/or national security.
WTF? Bad enough that Greenwald was requiring the world to exclusively trust his judgment in deciding what should be released
and what shouldn't. He was also making it clear that he wasn't exactly committed to disclosing "the worst" of the material "though
the heavens fall".
In effect, as GG was telling the world that he could be trusted to manage the leaked information responsibly, he was also telling
the world that it simply had to trust his judgment in this crucial role.
To me, there was clearly a subliminal message for both Western authorities and the public: don't worry, we're conscientious,
patriotic leak-masters. We're not going to irresponsibly disclose anything too radical, or politically/socially destabilizing.
GG and the Omidyar Group have set themselves up as an independent "brand" in the new field of whistleblower/hacker impresario
and leak-broker.
Like only buying NFL-approved merchandise, or fox-approved eggs, the public is being encouraged to only buy (into) Intercept-approved
Snowden Leaks™. It's a going concern, which lends itself much more to the "modified limited hangout" approach than freely tossing
all the biggest eggs out of the basket.
GG found an opportunity to augment his rising career as a self-made investigative journalist and civil-liberties advocate.
Now he's sitting pretty, the celebrity point man for a lucrative modified limited hangout enterprise. What is wrong with this
picture?
@16 I just see no evidence of that aside from fitting the narrative of people who are convinced of a cover up in leaked docs.
Moreover, there is no way Russia would continue to offer Snowden asylum if he was gov agent. I'm sure Russian intelligence did
a very thorough background check on him.
@17 that's simply not true. He regularly tweets, gives online talks and publishes on his own. He has not used either Poitras
or Greenwald as a means of communication for years. And he has never dropped a single hint of being disappointed or frustrated
with how documents and info was published.
It just seems so implausible given the total lack of any sign of Snowden's dissatisfaction.
The revelation that the sole Russiagate "evidence" was the so-called Steele Dossier - i.e. opposition research funded by the
Clinton campaign - which was used by the intelligence community to not only begin the public assertions of Trump's perfidy but
to then initiate FISA approved surveillance on the Trump campaign, that is truly astonishing. Instructive then that the NY Times,
Washington Post, etc have yet to acknowledge these facts to their readers, and instead have effectively doubled down on the story,
insisting that the Russiagate allegations are established fact and constitute "objective reality." That suggests this fake news
story will continue indefinitely.
What we see here is these bastions of establishment thinking in the USA promoting "objective reality" as partisan - i.e.
there is a Clinton reality versus a Trump reality, or a Russian reality versus a "Western" reality, facts and documentation be
damned. This divorce from objectivity is a symptom of the overall decline of American institutions, an indicate a future hard,
rather than soft, landing near the end of the road.
G @ 1 and 18: My understanding is that Edward Snowden has been advised (warned?) by the Russian government or his lawyer in Moscow
not to reveal any more than he has said so far. The asylum Moscow has offered him may be dependent on his keeping discreet. That
may include not saying much about The Intercept, in case his communications are followed by the NSA or any other of the various
US intel agencies which could lead to their tracking his physical movements in Russia and enable any US-connected agent or agency
(including one based in Russia) to trace him, arrest him or kill him, and cover up and frame the seizure or murder in such a way
as to place suspicion or blame on the Russian government or on local criminal elements in Russia.
I believe that Snowden does have a job in Russia and possibly this job does not permit him the time to say any more than what
he currently tweets or says online.
There is nothing in MoA's article to suggest that Glenn Greenwald is deliberately burying stories in The Intercept. B has said
that its management is chaotic which could suggest among other things that Greenwald himself is dissatisfied with its current
operation.
@21 I'm not disputing that moneyed interests might have been leaned on by the CIA to stop publishing sensitive info. What I'm
disputing is the idea that people like Greenwald have deliberately with-held information that is in the public interest. I doubt
that, regardless of the strength of the Intercept as a publication.
@25 What interest would the Russian gov have in helping protect NSA? I assume Russia loves the idea of the US Intel agencies
being embarrassed. Snowden speaks his mind about plenty of domestic and international events in US. I have never seen him act
like he's being censored.
G @ 25: Moscow would have no interest in helping protect the NSA or any other US intel agency. The Russians would have advised
Snowden not to say more than he has said so far, not because they are interested in helping the NSA but because they can only
protect him as long as he is discreet and does not try to say or publish any more that would jeopardise his safety or give Washington
an excuse to pressure Moscow to extradite him back to the US. That would include placing more sanctions on Russia until Snowden
is given up.
There is the possibility also that Snowden trusts (or trusted) Greenwald to know what to do with the NSA documents. Perhaps
that trust was naively placed - we do not know.
b, a big exposition of facts, rich in links to more facts.
This is important material for all to understand.
Snowden is "the squirrel over there!" A distraction turned into a hope.
Compared to Assange, who is being slow-martyred in captivity, Snowden is a boy playing with gadgets.
Why did not Snowden make certain a copy of his theft went to Wikileaks? That would have been insurance.
Since he did not, it all could be just a distraction.
What is known about the Snowden affair is we received proof of what we knew. Not much else. For those who didn't know, they
received news.
And ever since, the shape of things from the Deep State/Shadow Government/IC has been lies and warmongering against American freedoms
and world cooperation among nations.
Fascism is corporate + the police state. The US government is a pure fascist tyranny that also protects the Empire and Global
Hegemony.
We connect the dots and it's always the same picture. It was this way in the 60s,70s,80s,90s, 00s, and this forlorn decade.
Fascism more bold each decade. Billionaires and millionaires have always been in the mix.
Sorry I can't help with your questions, but I concur with your hunches about the creation
of Intercept.
Your reference to Intercept being set up "to block the inquiry into or exposure of
special access Intel operations during or prior to 9/11 which would blow up entirely the
official narrative of that epochal event" touches a nerve.
I was a regular reader and commenter at Glenn Greenwald's (GG) "Unclaimed Territory" blog,
which was absorbed into the progressive-liberal lite Salon site. I even had a few brief but
cordial e-mail exchanges with GG, since I diligently sent him (requested) private e-mail
alerts to grammatical and syntactic errors in his prolific posts.
I sympathized with GG's early attempts to deal fairly with aggressive 9/11 Truthers
monopolizing the comments; he personally moderated, and participated in, his comments
threads. At first, GG's stance was "agnostic" towards 9/11 "Truther" theories, but he
reasonably insisted that 9/11-related comments not be allowed to hijack every discussion.
But GG himself was not much of a 9/11 skeptic, and I soured on GG when he proved to be
what I call a "Trutherphobe".
Before long, he became openly censorious and began removing both comments and commenters
who insisted on mentioning 9/11, even if the 9/11 reference was germane to the topic. (Not
me; I knew better than to push his buttons.) Also, GG adopted, or independently reached, what
I call the "Chomsky Bubble" stance-- essentially, a sophisticated rationalization that
amounts to "nothing to see here, move along."
Eventually, despite his efforts to seem nominally open-minded towards 9/11 skeptics, it
became clear that to GG, pursuing 9/11 truth was both a distraction and a nuisance. 9/11
truth is simply not part of GG's agenda.
When GG acquired apparently exclusive stewardship of the Snowden trove, one of my first
thoughts was, "If there's anything in Snowden's documents that contradict or cast doubt upon
the official 9/11 narrative, Glenn will be careful to put it on the bottom of the pile and
keep it there." I still believe this.
It's too late to blithely conclude "In short...", but all this to say that if you're
correct, GG is just the person to put in charge of a modified limited hangout
operation that, in part, suppresses 9/11 inquiry and truth.
"... I have always been flabbergasted about the naivety of the general public in regards to the abilities, capabilities and determination of the so called 'establishment' - aka Plutocracy, when it comes to the choice of means to achieve their psychopathic goals. What is out of reach, or undoable to those that willingly accept the death of millions of innocent people in the ME and the world over? ..."
"... The utter destruction of sovereign Nations that don't fall in line? Organizing coup d'etats like local fundraisers for soup kitchens? Looking at the track record of the American establishment, nothing, absolutely nothing is ever off the table. ..."
"... I'm always wary of talk about limited hangouts. A case can usually be made that such talk is itself intended for the same purpose - to lull the recipient into despair and passivity. ..."
"... And it WAS a secret weapon. It took a long time for this to become obvious. We see the media all along has been completely mediocre, but since it has long given wall-to-wall coverage, it never had to get very good in order to send the daily propaganda message. Come the Internet, everyone sees how sloppy the media's work is. But does this raise the quality of the media lies? It seems not - the opposite in fact, the readers get far smarter than the writers. ..."
"... The greatest trick the Devil pulled was not convincing the world he didn't exist, it was convincing the world that evil was clever, when in fact it's very mediocre. Evil performs badly. It will continue to perform badly. It can be resisted and overcome. This takes time. ..."
Snowden went to established journalists because he wanted the story to get out. He also
wanted them to be cautious and conservative, to redact whatever seemed damaging to operations
or his country.
In my opinion, what the journalists did worked. And Snowden destroyed his own access to
the materials.
My guess - purely a guess - is that Snowden was, and remains, quite satisfied with what
happened and what got published. He never wanted operational FACTS to get out so much as he
wanted the SCALE of what the US was doing to get out. In this matter, I'd call his entire
effort a tremendous success.
Snowden's face and story went around the world and shook things up. Paradigms came
crashing down. In my own personal case, the Snowden material showed me the scale of US
adventurism, and the vast audacity of its criminality. It made it clear, in philosophical
terms rather than evidentiary terms, that 9/11 could easily be an inside job. It took a
change in the paradigms of the scale of corruption to open up that possibility for me. I'm
sure it's done similar things for millions of people. Snowden was one of the few events I can
think of that actually played out in the mainstream before anyone figured out how to shut it
down - and the genie was out of the bottle.
We don't know what we've lost by not having the missing pages released. But I find it hard
to think they could change paradigms any more than has already happened. There's a
diminishing return here. Wikileaks publishes troves of material, but what paradigms get
changed unless it plays in the mainstream? Manning with the video of the mercs shooting the
civilians was the last time this happened, I think.
When it comes to seeing what's behind the curtain - which is precisely what the
information war is about - the words and the details of the stories matter far less than the
way that people's thinking gets changed.
~~
At Christmas I socialized with ordinary people. I learned that they believe the Russians
interfered in the US election, and planted Trump. Bummer, but on the other hand, I could talk
to everyone about the NSA getting my Facebook feed or my phone data, and there's full
agreement, or at least no disagreement.
Snowden went into the culture. Russiagate is still playing out, and we don't yet know who
will be the big loser in the belief system of the culture. I'm still willing to bet it's the
mainstream media.
~~
Putin has said that Snowden didn't reveal anything that Russian intelligence didn't
already know. Russia didn't want to harbor Snowden, but the US State Department forced the
issue by revoking his passport while he was in the air terminal in Russia. The current asylum
granted is for a 3-year period. I see no reason to make any change in this. It will be
reviewed when it expires, and if Snowden is still a stateless political refugee, which seems
very likely, than I imagine it will be renewed. Russia is a nation of laws.
Russia has little to do with Snowden. And even less to do with the US elections. Russia
doesn't want confrontation, between anyone. Russia wants a world of no conflict, and every
action it takes pursues this end. Russia will easily forego a cheap victory in order to gain
a valuable cessation of hostilities. I believe Putin when he says that who won the US
election was of no great importance to Russia - they would deal with whomever was there.
It's always important to understand that Russia is not playing a zero-sum game, nor is she
playing to "win" against any other nation in geopolitics. Russia wins when other nations stop
fighting. The lat thing she wants to do is interfere with the internal order of other
countries. But she is rooting for the orderliness of each country.
Thanks for your nice long comment and its excellent observations. And Happy Holidays since
I haven't wished them on you yet this year!
For me, Snowden's revelations were nothing new as I had already learned about Project Echelon , which by the end
of the 1980s was global girding and mostly intent on industrial espionage as this summary at
the link informs:
"The ECHELON program was created in the late 1960s to monitor the military and diplomatic
communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War, and was
formally established in 1971.[5][6]
"By the end of the 20th century, the system referred to as "ECHELON" had allegedly evolved
beyond its military and diplomatic origins, to also become ' a global system for the
interception of private and commercial communications' (mass surveillance and industrial
espionage)."
Indeed, the extent of Echelon was available to the public--sort of--but there were very
few publications about it, although that changed as the internet grew during the 1990s. So
for me, Snowden's actions becoming headline news was more important than the content of his
revelations as the slumbering public got slapped upside its collective head.
Another historical factoid of interest is FDR's meeting with media CEOs a few days prior
to 7 Dec 1941, of which no transcript exists to my knowledge, although what was said can be
inferred by subsequent actions by all the actors involved--there was no, zero, deviation from
the official government line about the Day of Infamy, which was a prelude to media portrayal
on 911.
Fundamentally, the bottom line is whenever interests between national governments diverge
from those of their public, governments will lie every time--those two sets of policy HRC
admitted she had for public versus private consumption. Although it's too soon to be certain,
it appears that the leadership of Russia and China have learned the difficult lesson that the
best policy is for the national government to be in sync with the interests of its citizenry,
thus the philosophical adoption of Win/Win versus the Outlaw US Empire's Zero Sum game, which
forms the basis for our ongoing Hybrid Third World War.
Pe entities at work that are not under the control of the Russian secret services. Here is a
link to an article on RT.de about US
Special Forces at the Russian Border
All we can do is assume.
@karlof1 #37
My favorite pet peeve is Bernays. Even those who are aware of his deplorable actions,
seldom grasp just how devastating his selling out of the human psyche to corporations and the
NSA/CIA really turned out to be. The man hated the masses and short of calling them 'useless
eaters', he saw them solely as means to corporate profits.
His legacy is a citizen without any other rights than that to "go shopping".
Go
Ask Alice tells us the latest story about how much the surveillance has advanced. The
article is about some content provider with unknown identity. The core message though is
about the NSA/FBI/CIA going after anybody that comments on the internet, provided certain
keywords are triggered. While that has been known since Snowden, the masses suffer from short
term memory loss. Any dissent to the establishment is noted. This proves that there is no
more rule of common law and nothing resembling a democracy by a far shot. A Plutocratic
dictatorship determined to destroy anybody that poses a threat to its existence.
@66
"What would be the most sinister scenario in regards to Snowden and the NSA leak?"
That General Hayden gets his wish and kills Snowden. That's the most sinister.
If you meant, intrigue, double agent or useful idiot sort of thing, well, Snowden had no
intention of running to China and definitely not to Russia.
The Intel Agencies would have loved if he ran straight to Moscow. But it didn't happen. So,we
sort of know he wasn't "used". He was "allowed" because they had it covered when he handed
off the purloined data.
What sort of encrypted communication did he use on that trip to Hong Kong? They knew what
he was doing.
They tried for it to be an out-and-out treason case. Remember that they insisted the Chinese
in Beijing had it all?
They they tried to generate the same with Russia and Putin when he landed in Moscow.
I find him to be a useful tool for everyone who wants something out of his adventure.
People who think he's a hero have their hero. People who want him dead probably have some
contract out on him. And others want him to be returned and prosecuted like Timothy McVeigh
and executed.
Grieved indicated above @57, Snowden was in our culture now. He's an asterisk. Compare him
to Daniel Ellsberg. You cannot. Ellsberg forced the country against the war machine, forced
the NYTimes to grow a set of balls and publish the Papers, and he won against the Deep State
who tried to destroy him. All the while he stood like a man of courage and didn't scurry
around and lateral the papers off. They got published. He faced down the system and won a
huge First Amendment battle.
I chalk up the differences as Snowden is a kid with a keyboard. Assange and Ellsberg are
men. The latter really matter. Snowden is a very light symbol, at best. He embarrassed NSA
and only exists today because of Putin and Russian values.
I guess Vietnam was the great Evil, and surveillance just doesn't match up against what
that charnel house of napalm, carpet bombing, white phosphorus, Agent Orange and Agent Blue,
Phoenix Program assassinations became.
Ellsberg was a true hero. I named my first son after him.
The original 3 TV Networks were started by Intelligence figures. When the Church Committee
documented that all 3 were controlled by the Rockefellers, Senator Nelson Rockefeller was
able to limit the GPO printing of the report to less than 100 copies.
Time Warner was govt & military intelligence controlled since its founding in 1923 by
Henry Luce, a Yale Skull & Bones guy from an intelligence family. His father was a spy in
China pretending to be a missionary.
The German journalist Udo Ulfkotte wrote a book, Bought Journalists, in which he reported
that every significant European journalist functions as a CIA asset.
It became even worse during the Clinton regime when six mega-media companies were
permitted to acquire 90% of the US print, TV, radio, and entertainment media, a concentration
that destroyed diversity and independence. Today the media throughout the Western world
serves as a Propaganda Ministry for Washington. The Western media is Washington's Ministry of
Truth.
At the top it isn't the case that the CIA controls the media; rather that the board of
directors is named by the banksters and mega-rich. Like all the mega-corps, they are
thoroughly controlled by the Usurpers. The CIA has always been their private police force for
intell & enforcement at home and abroad.
To rule a world requires control of military force, of money, information, energy, and the
elimination of private property. Everything else is distraction. Probably the end of net
neutrality is important. The coming global digital money is catastrophic. Agenda 21 is the
global dictatorship, and is already decreasing private property-- among other things.
https://geopolitics.co/2015/04/09/the-true-purpose-of-agenda-21/
I recommend the video within it.
@73 Mark - I cannot understand why Snowden doesn't have another copy to give to
Wikileaks.
This is a crucial point. Edward Snowden chose not to possess the files after he had handed
them off to the journalists. He wiped out his copy when they started to publish them. This
was a deliberate choice, and part of an entire ethical view that Snowden held of the
situation he was in, and the situation he had created.
If you can't understand why he held this view, then you have to ask him, or study his
words. But rest assured that he didn't simply "fail" to have a backup copy in case his
journalists chickened out or sold out their commitment. He was a geek. He wasn't a
journalist. He wanted sensible journalists to handle the lifetime scoop that he was holding.
In my view, he made an incredibly good choice.
Put yourself in his shoes. The path he had already walked just to get those files to those
real-world journalists in Hong Kong was already a thousand times longer than anything that
could possibly lie in front of him. All this talk about assets - like you can keep this kind
of thing going: the man lived a lifetime in a few short years and did the best thing he could
ever have conceived of.
He earned the space to delete the files and sit back for a while and watch things happen.
He said he wanted the public to know, and the public to discuss - if he was wrong, so be it,
but it was for the public to discuss, he always said.
Everything I've written here may not be true. But if it is true, then on the basis of this
narrative of events, no one has any right to ask anything more of Snowden. He was the
messenger who put his body in the circuit to complete the signal. We all gained. He gained
nothing, except satisfaction of mission accomplished.
For me that's where his story ends. Greenwald, Intercept, oligarchs, slavery - these are
all another story, and one that I'm focused on. But I choose to honor Snowden for the bravery
of what he seems to have done, and if true that achievement scored so high that no amount of
falling short can diminish it.
Snowden confirmed the NSA files held by shadow brokers as genuine. How many years after
destroying his copies? Snowden worked in US intelligence, perhaps just as a geek, but I don't
see him destroying the only weapon he has against them.
I haven't read here any discussion of the movie, SNOWDEN, produced by Oliver Stone. I saw
it when it first came out. Is it on Netflix or other outlets yet? As movies go it fell short
of a documentary. That said, it provides yet another potential thin-edge-of-a-wedge thought
for the zombies that live among us.
The neurofeedback treatment that I am up to 132 session of has healed many people like
Edward Snowden (with his reported epilepsy) and I hope he gets such soon in his life; us old
folks are harder to heal. One of neurofeedback earliest successes was a woman with epilepsy
who after being healed went out and got a drivers license.....can't find the source but this
was 30-40 years ago
I consider Snowden to be a true American patriot. The American values that I was taught
are in stark contrast to those exhibited by the God of Mammon cabal in control today. I don't
believe that we are a bad species but sorely misdirected by something that can be "easily"
changed. Look at the progress we have made as a species. Why do we let ourselves be limited
in our development by centuries old conventions about who controls the tools of finance? How
many wars would there be if money was a public utility?
What more revelations of Snowden's archive could possibly make any difference? It is already
basically understood that the NSA, its contractors, and 5 eyes agencies "collect it all"
illegally, with no meaningful oversight, to the degree that social media became their
accomplice and extension, that they abuse this power and the constitution proudly and with
impunity for any purposes and justifications they see fit, and so on, and the vast majority
of citizens cower, or delude themselves with some comforting trust that it won't be used
against them.
It has only proven that nothing will snap the majority ignorance from its coma.
No one with any voice - even those involved seem able to comprehend how vastly and deeply
this will effect the free will of people, culture, and society - for that matter how it
already has progressed to do so.
In the wake of the retroactive telcom immunity (which by definition is an admission of
blatant criminality and conspiracy by and between both government and telcom corporations)
The Snowden revalations couldn't have been more explicit, signifiacnt, or urgent. The people
did nothing. Those minor percentage of us who bother to read and understand what is happening
can chatter and pontificate all we want, because the ignorant majority hasn't the interest or
energy to question the status quo. (they absoloutely have not the attention span to read a
single Greenwald article) So really I can understand why there is no point releaseing the
rest.
Snowden was the one upholding his oath to the constitution, against whose who
systematically violated it, and he is called a traitor.
As far as RussiaGate being some sort of distraction from this - no more than a distraction
from any other meaningful information that SHOULD be on people's minds.
Regrettably, Moon of Alabama has not spotted what all major government intelligence agencies
have known for a couple of years now ... European intel agency report - 'Edward Snowden &
Glenn Greenwald are CIA frauds'
...
[copy of a Veterans Today nonsense piece deleted - b.]
Snowden didn't "destroy" anything. He gave it all to Greenwald in Hong Kong.
That way, nobody could coerce or otherwise intimidate him; as there were no files in his
possesion.
Snowden himself clearly stated this fact.
That he landed in Russia is entirely the fault of the U.S. government (such as it is) by
cancelling Snowden's passport enroute; this becomes ancient history in today's world...
Oh mercy; this is getting just too weird and woo, woo, for this one; later will
be greater...
Posted by: V. Arnold , Dec 27, 2017 4:16:44 AM |
85
Oh mercy; this is getting just too weird and woo, woo, for this one; later will be greater...
Posted by: V. Arnold | Dec 27, 2017 4:16:44 AM |
85 /div
the Snowden('snowed in') saga is yet to be written, or perhaps, like much verity, will NEVER
be written. eluding the intelligence hounds for a couple of weeks while shooting a nice HD
video with a couple of prominent journalists never passed my smell test...
,,,
...and what might seem a minor quibble with Grieved's:
Manning with the video of the mercs shooting the civilians was the last time this
happened, I think
I agree that the Snowden info was the paradym changer that showed to me in unmistakable
imagery,
that my country was an outlaw nation hellbent on economic empire and had shifted from liberty
to total
Control mechanisms.
The Snowden info together with the missing 28 pages from the 911 committee findings sent
me on a
truth mission; reading everything from "CIA Rouges Killed JFK, Russ Baker's book on the
Bush
family, to Fahrenheit 911.
This former Neocon keeps trying to wash himself in the pure waters of the truth but cannot
wash clean his guilt
for once voting for and defending such trash.
So I continue reading sites like MOA and others seeking the truth and speaking out to
those in my life.
I agree that the Snowden info was the paradym changer that showed to me in unmistakable
imagery,
that my country was an outlaw nation hellbent on economic empire and had shifted from liberty
to total
Control mechanisms
Brabantian @ 83, Yes, the huge amount of publicity given Snowden was an obvious tip-off that
he is a hoax. All other whistleblowers get no publicity at all. Plus, everything that Snowden
"disclosed" was already known. Perhaps he's out there to give credibility to lies as yet
untold. Already his "asylum" promotes the fiction of East vs West opposition. It is a play
and we are the audience, stuck in Plato's cave.
'Snowden says he took no secret files to russia', NYSlimes 10/13
He argued that he had helped American national security by prompting a badly needed public
debate about the scope of the intelligence effort. "The secret continuance of these programs
represents a far greater danger than their disclosure," he said. He added that he had been
more concerned that Americans had not been told about the N.S.A.'s reach than he was about
any specific surveillance operation.
" So long as there's broad support amongst a people, it can be argued there's a level
of legitimacy even to the most invasive and morally wrong program, as it was an informed and
willing decision," he said . "However, programs that are implemented in secret, out of
public oversight, lack that legitimacy, and that's a problem. It also represents a dangerous
normalization of 'governing in the dark,' where decisions with enormous public impact occur
without any public input."
Pffffft.
Zo, will congress renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 when they're
back in town?
There's a lot going on in this post and comment thread. I have no strong opinion about the
disputed status/role of either Snowden or Greenwald that are being discussed above, but I do
think it very likely that the Intercept was originally started as what is often referred to
(I believe following the Nixon tapes) as a "limited hangout" operation.
It was intended to "expose" certain truths the CIA/NSA knew were already implied by
earlier revealed and published documents and by this means was to distract the public (as if)
and journalists (all three of them) from probing more deeply into the history, scope, and
current operations of these and related programs. I would not be surprised if it turned out
somehow that the real objective of this was to block the inquiry into or exposure of special
access Intel operations during or prior to 9/11 which would blow up entirely the official
narrative of that epochal event.
But I would like to bring up one fact that bears on the ongoing discussion of Snowden and
Greenwald but has not been mentioned yet (I believe) in this thread. That is the NSA's
reported identification of (I believe) at least two other possible leakers or whistleblowers
simultaneous with or just after Snowden. I recall there being several reports about the
arrest or possible detainment of one possible leaker in particular whose identity has never
(to my knowledge) come to light. Does anybody remember better than I do this intriguing but
often forgot facet of the NSA / Snowden affair?
The existence, identity, and (unknown?) fate of this possible NSA leaker bears on the
questions being asked above about Snowden and Greenwald in obvious ways. If there really was
such a leaker or potential leaker who had at the time not yet been apprehended by the NSA,
then it is at least certainly possible that Snowden's own leaks were co-opted (willingly or
not) by the CIA/NSA to render the revelations of the other not-yet-identified leaker
anticlimactic and redundant. In this way, it is possible that Snowden's leaks, as filtered
through Greenwald, the Guardian, and the Post, were themselves a kind of limited hangout
operation.
Note what they produced: Obama admitted a discussion was needed, Clapper was dutifully
brought before Congress, lied to them, and was not punished at all for it, and some
peripheral laws were tweaked (and then untweaked) to give the impression that something had
been discovered, discussed, and addressed, with the hope that now everybody would stop
thinking too much about the NSA etc. This is exactly what happened, and it's exactly what
limited hangouts are designed to do.
I would be interested in hearing more information from others here about those one or two
other unidentified NSA leakers. What ever happened with that story? Was the identity of both
leakers ever revealed?
As many other here stated, what WAS revealed, to was already known to a large degree. What
WAS revealed, did not stir up the public sentiment beyond a ripple. It is the absence of any
whatsoever consequence to his revelations that does not make sense. For the first part, of
his living here in Hawai'i and subcontractor work for the NSA via Booz Allen Hamilton, reads
like a cheap version of a spy b-picture. Compared to the surrounding circumstances of Daniel
Ellsberg, Snowden's story appeared to be staged - if only to me. The more became known, the
less did people pay attention to Libya and Syria. The distractive value of the unfolding
Snowden whistle blowing was enormous.
I have always been flabbergasted about the naivety of the general public in regards to the
abilities, capabilities and determination of the so called 'establishment' - aka Plutocracy,
when it comes to the choice of means to achieve their psychopathic goals. What is out of
reach, or undoable to those that willingly accept the death of millions of innocent people in
the ME and the world over?
The utter destruction of sovereign Nations that don't fall in line? Organizing coup
d'etats like local fundraisers for soup kitchens? Looking at the track record of the American
establishment, nothing, absolutely nothing is ever off the table.
A staged NSA leak story that turns out to become more inconceivable and more suspicious by
the day. And it matters not. Not more than Assange spending his days in an Ecuadorian exile
until the plot line demands to change.
Therefore, the most sinister scenario includes a wholly staged Snowden storyline, with the
participation of Russia. This is not to say that this is the way it is, but not discounting
the possibility that it could be. On more than one occasion, Russian behavior, be it either
reactionary, or proactive has been inconclusive. A fool who would think that it is all just
theater on the expense of millions of innocent people and humanity as a whole.
No one has ever been able to predict the future in detail. Mankind is left to make sense
of the present and with constant misinformation and distraction, that appears to be
impossible.
Thanks to You and the other knowledgeable commenters.
There is a good case that both Snowjob and Assange are Limited Hangouts. Each has exposed
little beyond that which was already known. Neither offers any criticism of Israel's
occupation of Palestine and the Yinon Plan.
What they have done is to get the worlds' citizenry to understand that domestic
surveillance is a normal condition which should be expected and accepted.
@126 What they have done is to get the worlds' citizenry to understand that domestic
surveillance is a normal condition which should be expected and accepted.
This could also be stated as, "What they have done is to get the worlds' citizenry to
understand that domestic surveillance is a normal condition which should be expected and
guarded against ."
I think the world has changed since Snowden. Within the IT community, the sense of
security and its requirements has been changed. What's missing so far is a discernible
response. Wait a few more short years, until Chinese computing oustrips western encryption by
an order of magnitude, and sooner than that when Russian hardware and software made for the
consumer market is invulnerable to NSA technology. There's no sense trying to protect oneself
from NSA at present because it will only draw attention. But when the Russian kit is on the
market, let's just see who in the west buys it. I predict large sales.
I'm always wary of talk about limited hangouts. A case can usually be made that such talk is
itself intended for the same purpose - to lull the recipient into despair and passivity.
When we say that we've all been gamed by theater, it's another way of saying not to fight
back. But the Devil doesn't get it all his way all the time. And the rulers of the Earth
always have to work through agents, and they are so frigging human that plans often go
slightly, or greatly, awry.
We see more botched conspiracy action than seems credible. So a case can be made that the
carelessness itself is part of the subliminal message that resistance is futile. But is it
really intentional, or is it simply making the best of a bad job? Was Kennedy really gunned
down in daylight as a message to all of us that we'd better not resist, because the power was
total? Or was it just the way the state criminals think, that the way to kill a president is
the same playbook that always worked before, and still they botched the hit with all kinds of
missed shots and clumsy actions? Their secret weapon was media complicity - this allowed a
multitude of sins, and without it we'd have known 50 years ago who killed Kennedy.
And it WAS a secret weapon. It took a long time for this to become obvious. We see the
media all along has been completely mediocre, but since it has long given wall-to-wall
coverage, it never had to get very good in order to send the daily propaganda message. Come
the Internet, everyone sees how sloppy the media's work is. But does this raise the quality
of the media lies? It seems not - the opposite in fact, the readers get far smarter than the
writers.
The greatest trick the Devil pulled was not convincing the world he didn't exist, it was
convincing the world that evil was clever, when in fact it's very mediocre. Evil performs
badly. It will continue to perform badly. It can be resisted and overcome. This takes
time.
I always enjoy the words of fictional Lazarus Long: "Of course the game is rigged. But
don't let that stop you playing. If you don't play, you can't win."
Here is my little experience with the surveillance state: I am a user of the Mathematica
computer program developed and sold by Wolfram Research Inc. They have a web site for users
to exchange information called Wolfram Community. It is mostly about asking and answering
questions about the use of Mathematica or sharing Mathematica tricks. About a year ago a
series of about half a dozen ads for programmers appeared which were clearly link to
expanding the surveillance state. Here is one of them:
I replied by quoting the U.S. Constitution 4th Amendment and saying "Yes it was relevant
to the advertisement."
Within 10 minutes my reply was deleted. I received an email from Wolfram Research saying:
"We work very hard to foster positive environment on Wolfram Community and cannot allow any
discussions outside the Wolfram Community guidelines. This means discussions that stray way
beyond Wolfram Technologies topics."
So what is positive about advertisements on a community forum for the surveillance state
and what is negative about the 4th Amendment? And the advertisements had little direct
relevance to Mathematica. But I suppose they had their reasons.
"Aaron Barlow: The Russian hacking nonsense is a tin foil hat conspiracy right up there with Reptilians
and Aliens."
Notable quotes:
"... Snowden is a patriot. Only an individual that has integrity can do what Snowden did. He saw something that was wrong and blew the whistle on it, it was as simple as that, he knew the consequences very well. ..."
this guy is smart. well informed, super intellectual capacity. He chooses his words very wisely
and well calculated. His interview is brain enlightening.
This right here.. is a fucking man... he gave up allllll the high life gave up allllll the
money. all the BS to give the people what the fuck they needed to hear
Snowden is a patriot. Only an individual that has integrity can do what Snowden did. He
saw something that was wrong and blew the whistle on it, it was as simple as that, he knew the
consequences very well.
She is anti-trump. She is sent from the elite. She don't give a damn about him. 100% she is
untrustworthy. Snowden is a threat to the deep state. Her questions clearly are from the democrats.
The "journalist" who is interviewing Edward is a freedom hating, elitist worshipping mainstream
media harlot.
Those who are ignorant of history are bound to repeat it. The people who founded this country
left Britain due to a corrupt, tyrannical government. The US government is far more corrupt today
then England was in the 1700s.
The 4th amendment has been butchered by the tyrannical, elitist dictators who are running this
broken country. Today, the mainstream media is firmly controlled by a few, highly deranged elitists
who are in league with the rancid, stinking pieces of fecal matter who run the US. The republic
that was created by English "traitors" was supposed to be a sanctuary for freedom and human rights.
The republic they created is dead and gone. It may look the same on the surface, but this country
is much too far gone to ever recover. It never ceases to amaze me just how ignorant of history
and the Constitution the average American is. The citizens are ignorant, bordering on stupid.
The evidence is everywhere, yet millions of weak-minded sheeple cannot see what lies directly
in front of their eyes. The level of cognitive dissonance displayed by the average American is
pitiful, and I will feel no pity when they realize that they were living in a country whose leaders
were following the same game plan as Adolph Hitler... to the letter.
People believe that their political party, the party to which they give their allegiance, is
the "good" party. Republicans and Democrats are one and the same. The two party system is simply
a two headed snake that will lead the US into tyranny. The US is hated around the world because
it has assumed the role of the world's arrogant, renegade cop. A country that was not to be "entangled
in foreign affairs", now has military bases in nearly every corner of the earth. Those who open
their mouths to defend the snakes in power will be taught a great lesson once the elitists' plans
come to fruition. It's difficult to feel sorry for the people who believe the endless lies that
are spoken by those in power.
These fools won't see the truth until their heads lie under the blade of the guillotine. Anyone
who puts security before freedom and privacy deserves to be placed behind concrete walls and barbed
wire, where they will remain "safe" from the fictitious enemies who cause them to pathetically
cower in fear. The destiny of this country is that of Rome. Unfortunately, the masses do not know
or understand the true history of this world. The putrid stench of ignorance covers the majority
of the American populous. Snowden exposed the government's evil secrets, helping preserve freedom
and liberty in the United States. Those who chastise Snowden deserve what is coming: The death
of freedom under the hands of evil tyrants.
Watching Gen. Clapper state, UNDER OATH, that the NSA was not and is not indiscriminately reading,
storing, and intercepting the private communications of every American citizen, made me feel physically
ill.
The fact that he chose to tell a straight-out lie (in light of the information supplied to
us by Edward Snowden, who exposed this illegal and unconstitutional internal spying program) -
watching him choose to speak a brazen lie, spoken in complete disregard for his office, the NSA's
mandate (and its limits), his military career leading to his appointment as head of the NSA, the
Constitutional trust placed in him, and the laws which make a direct lie - under oath - to a Senate
Intelligence Committee (composed of the people WE elected to represent us) a FELONY - mean that
Gen. CLAPPER should be in prison for Perjury.
This is the applicable Constitutional U.S. Code, section 1621: "§ 1621. Perjury generally:
Whoever! (1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case
in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify,
declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or
certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes
any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or (2) in any declaration, certificate,
verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28,
United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe
to be true; - is guilty of perjury and shall, except as other-wise expressly provided by law,
be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. This section is applicable
whether the statement or subscription is made within or without the United States."
Five years in prison, for lying to Congress about your indiscriminate spying on innocent U.S.
citizens, Gen. Clapper, and then your filthy, despicable use of the U.S. Constitution (and our
rights to privacy within it), as toilet paper when you lied directly to Senator Ron Wyden
@ 61:00 under oath, when he asked "Does the NSA collect ANY type of data - at all - on millions,
or hundreds of millions of Americans?" and you answered, with no hesitation or remorse, "No sir,"
you committed Perjury, by any definition of the above U.S. code.
Attempting to clarify, senator Wyden asked, "It does not?," and you answered, "Not wittingly.
There are cases where they might inadvertently collect, but NOT WITTINGLY."
Could the lie have been any more damning, or abhorrent in a supposed Democracy? Is it any wonder
why people like Gen. Clapper want Snowden - who PROVED that this was a lie, and exposed a completely
illegal and unconstitutional program which Clapper was then in charge of - thrown in prison, and
silenced permanently? Trump speaks of "draining the swamp." He could start with the NSA, and all
of it's illegal activities, and work his way through every Intelligence Agency and the Military/Industrial
Organizations and Corporations which together, represent the greatest threat ever to our liberties
and to the Constitution - which is just hanging by a thread because of people and programs like
this, and work his way down.
But he won't. Why? Because he, like the rest of us, has seen the Zapruder film. It's much easier
- and safer - to kill the messenger. This is what makes Snowden, in today's world, a hero who,
unlike the rest of these cowards and traitors, will be remembered well by history - for whatever
that is worth to the man now. Thank God there are still people willing to sacrifice "their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honor" for the purpose of protecting what remains of the tattered
remnants of our Constitutionally-protected freedoms from government, and tyranny.
The US probably still surveys innocent everyday Americans by the millions. Not to prevent terrorism,
but to have political and economic control, as Snowden has said. Watch the movie Snowden. Very
enlightening.
I really liked this interview, and have much love for my fellow American Edward Snowden. He
did the right thing. Whoever posted this video under the title "EDWARD SNOWDEN EXPOSES DONALD
TRUMP" is kind of a dumbass. One tiny opinion is not equivalent to an expose', and this had nothing
to do with Trump. Quit making click bait asshole
have to say .... balls of steal. left his own life behind to let "us" know what its really
like. we were not there he was.. i love my country but dont think U.S.A. is not doing these things.
First time in my 45 years i question things like this...he makes an amazing point....if someone
questions they go to jail. Thats BS. questions make us a better Democracy. A better country...god
bless you Edward i hope it works out for you brother.
SHOCKING - TRUELY SHOCKING HOW UNBELIEVABLE DUMB THIS WOMAN IS. Is she really the best American
journalism could send? I have to critisize Snowden too - for once (excuse me Eddy!): Why did he
agree to meet such a ridiculous dummy? The interview - at least this dumb gooses part . was bodering
on being comical. If Snowden`s intellegence were given the factor 100 - nobody would be able to
give this truely uneducated, superficial and naive woman a number higher than room-temperature.
In Celsius, that is! Hard to watch and difficult to understand why Snowden agreed to meet a completely
shallow elderly Mom!
SHOCKING - TRUELY SHOCKING HOW UNBELIEVABLE DUMB THIS WOMAN IS. Is she really the best American
journalism could send? I have to critisize Snowden too - for once (excuse me Eddy!): Why did he
agree to meet such a ridiculous dummy? The interview - at least this dumb gooses part . was bodering
on being comical. If Snowden`s intellegence were given the factor 100 - nobody would be able to
give this truely uneducated, superficial and naive woman a number higher than room-temperature.
In Celsius, that is! Hard to watch and difficult to understand why Snowden agreed to meet a completely
shallow elderly Mom!
This is a very interesting interview to be sure, and I personally, have great admiration for
this man, as I'm sure much of the world does, and all the more so after watching the movie concerning
his life in which we see how the CIA made his life a living hell for many years if not a decade
or so, and may have even, brought this condition with his seizures and everything, assuming this
movie was an accurate portrayal of his life, but there is precious little here about trump.
I was hoping he had some juicy info he was going to share but that does not seem so. Regardless,
the man should be pardoned and allowed to get on with his life.
Government must know that it can never be all powerful and do whatever it damn will pleases,
at home or abroad either. So for that reason the man is a hero for sure. He says; "we will not
torture you." Wow. Not sure if he's joking there or serious but if he's serious then that is extremely
disturbing indeed. Respectfully. All My Best. Out.
Edward Snowden's activities beginning in June of 2013 are very well known-from the first leak
of classified information to his stay in Russia. But his motivations, the system vulnerabilities
that enabled him to access highly classified information, and his stated goals are continuing points
of heated discussion.
Hailed as a hero or decried as a traitor, his actions have reopened the issue of privacy for people
and for nations. Dr. Mary Manjikian, Associate Dean of the Robertson School of Government, Regent
University, and author of Threat Talk: The Comparative Politics of Internet Addiction will reveal
how her research into organizations offers a new way of looking at Snowden and all those leakers/whistleblowers/heroes/
traitors who came before.
The Intercept reports that in the aftermath of the NSA's sweeping surveillance of three
French presidents, French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira thinks National Security Agency
whistleblower
Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange might be allowed to settle in France.
Taubira was asked about the NSA's surveillance of three French presidents, disclosed by WikiLeaks
this week, and called it an "unspeakable practice."
Whistleblower Edward Snowden says he has been working harder and doing more significant things
while in exile in Russia than he did while being a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA).
"The fact is I was getting paid an extraordinary amount of money for very little work [at
the NSA] with very little in the way of qualifications," Snowden said via satellite link during
an event at Stanford University on Friday.
In Russia, "that's changed significantly," the former NSA contractor, who revealed the
agency's vast and controversial surveillance activities in the US and abroad, said.
"I have to work a lot harder to do the same thing. The difference is that, even though I've
lost a lot, I have a tremendous sense of satisfaction," the whistleblower said, as cited by
Business Insider.
However, he did not reveal exactly what he has been working on, saying that he is the type of
person who believes in being judged on the final result.
Snowden also addressed the ethics of whistleblowing, reminding his audience that he never published
a single document himself, but always worked alongside journalists.
The involvement of reporters also allowed the employment of a system of checks and balances while
making the revelations, he said.
According to the whistleblower, there was no way for him to leak the files to the press anonymously
as it could have led to a witch-hunt within the NSA, putting his former colleagues under threat.
"Whistleblowers are elected by circumstance. Nobody self-nominates to be a whistleblower because
it's so painful. Your lives are destroyed whether you are right or wrong. This is not something people
sign up for," he stressed.
Snowden added that he is neither a hero nor a traitor, but only a man, who reached a critical
moment, after which he just couldn't remain silent.
"We all have a limit of injustice, of incivility, of inhumanity in our daily life that we
can kind of accept and ignore. We turn our eyes away from the beggar on the street. We also have
a breaking point and when people find that, they act," he explained.
"You have to have a greater commitment to justice than a fear of the law," Snowden added.
The comments came a week after a US federal appeals court ruled that the NSA's bulk collection
of American citizens' telephone records was illegal.
In a unanimous decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York called the bulk phone
records collection "unprecedented and unwarranted."
The ruling, which Snowden described as "extraordinarily encouraging," comes as Congress
confronts a June 1 deadline to renew a section of the Patriot Act that allows the NSA's bulk data
surveillance.
With the NSA's bulk surveillance ruled illegal, the debate on the Patriot Act should be reinvigorated
– with Edward Snowden free to join in
... ... ...
The final debate is one that is unlikely to happen, but should: the US needs to start considering
the privacy and freedom of foreigners as well as its own citizens. The US public is rightly concerned
about its government spying on them. But citizens of countries around the world, many of them US
allies, are also rightly concerned about the US government spying on them.
Considering Americans and foreigners alike in these conversations would be a great moral stance
– but pragmatically, it should also help Americans. If the US doesn't care about the privacy of other
countries, it shouldn't expect foreign governments to care about US citizens. There's something in
this for everyone.
These are the debates we could be having, and should be having. The judiciary has spoken. The
legislature is deliberating. The public is debating. And all of it is enabled thanks to information
provided by Edward Snowden.
He should be free to join the conversation, in person.
ekkaman -> Kitty Grimnirs 8 May 2015 19:07
Maybe I spoke too soon, funny how two show up to make comments and it is almost word for word
the same thing. One takes the Russians are bad okay stance the other that it is real life and
he should not mess with the big boys. You guys are so easy to see right through it would make
for a good comedy, you can call it "the government troll squad".
GKJamesq -> Isadore Stumrumple 8 May 2015 16:34
If Snowden "did good this time" (albeit "accidentally"), what makes him a "traitor"? Who decides
whether he's in fact a traitor? What "whole lot of damage" has he done? What's the evidence for
the assertion that he begged China for asylum? And what, exactly, makes him an "apparatchik" as
opposed to, say, an IT professional who did work for the US government as a contractor?
Thomas Drake tried the official channels, please read his story. Also, Hong Kong is not an
enemy of the US.
He only ended up in Russia as his passport was revoked while he was in transit.
Daniel Bird -> Isadore Stumrumple 8 May 2015 16:13
NO COUNTRY can have low level apparatchiki determining what is right or wrong in a countries
security."
That's the job of other organs of the democracy e.g. Congress, right? Except that NSA director
James Clapper lied under oath to congress that NSA weren't collecting data on millions of US citizens.
DrKropotkin -> Isadore Stumrumple 8 May 2015 16:08
The NSA and the politicians who support them have made a mockery of your constitution, they
are the traitors. Mr. Snowden has given you the evidence and you turn on him. Please re-read your
countries founding document and ask yourself again who needs to go to jail.
NYbill13 8 May 2015 15:36
Catch 22 Again And Again
"Catch 22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing." That's
how Joseph Heller puts it in his superb comic novel about World War II bomber crews.
And yes, it's a staggering coincidence that Snowden, a gunner on the main character's B-17,
is the novel's premiere human sacrifice.
More pertinent to the real Snowden is the warning shouted to the main character, Yossarian,
when he goes AWOL. To escape murderous lunatic commanders, Yossarian is prepared to row a rubber
dinghy from Italy through the Strait of Gibraltar to Sweden.
As he runs for his raft, his pal cries out, "They'll bend heaven and earth to catch you."
Tragically, Mr. Edward Snowden, they will. Just as tragically, the rest of us probably won't
be able to stop them.
Thank you again, Mr. Snowden. No kidding.
George Cantrell 8 May 2015 14:40
As a U$A citizen, I am proud of Edward Snowden and consider him to be a true patriot. I wish
more whistle-blowers would come forward with details/proof of illegal/unconstitutional acts being
committed by supposedly 'public servants' against private citizens.
Unfortunately, so many of my fellow countrymen have been reduced to fear-mongered bed-wetters
who engage in the religion/idolatry of flag worship/ultra-nationalism to the point of where they
are blind to the principles/rights our country was founded on.
Isadore Stumrumple -> libbyliberal 8 May 2015 12:57
Are you actually equating the present atmosphere and reality of living in the US as the equivalent
of Nazi Germany? If so then you understand neither.
Isadore Stumrumple -> ekkaman 8 May 2015 12:56
Americans feel proud? Last time I checked not everyone approves of his brand of Lone Ranger
moralism. He not only outed the NSA, but also stole and shared much more sensitive information
with this countries enemies in order to get asylum. That is no hero to any thinking person that
really cares about their countries security. Any "good" that he did is far overshadowed by the
damage he caused up to and including the lives of agents and operatives throughout the world.
This is no game of Risk or cheesy adventure movie, this is deadly serious business.
Isadore Stumrumple -> GKJamesq 8 May 2015 12:52
and what evidence do you have for your assertions?
Isadore Stumrumple 8 May 2015 12:49
I'm relieved to hear that what snowden did was okay. Now every other low level twerp that disagrees
with the way that the US keeps itself safe can also defect to another country. That is if they
bring loads of other sensitive data to sweeten the pot and ensure that they have a place to lay
their heads. Snowden was a traitor, is a traitor and needs to pay for his act of espionage. NO
COUNTRY can have low level apparatchiki determining what is right or wrong in a countries security.
He accidentally did good this time but also a whole lot of damage. Putin would have had him shot
if he was a Russian attempting the same thing and the Chinese, whom he first went begging to for
asylum, would have done the same.
NYbill13 8 May 2015 12:03
Let The Experiment Continue, Please
Rule by brute force has been the norm for a long, long time. No quibble there, right?
But during the stifling summer of 1789, a few ex-British colonists met in Philadelphia to codify
a new type of government, one run by the people it governed.
Grabbing ideas from Europeans and some long-dead Greeks, those studious, entirely serious young
men made impressive progress.
When slavery and obdurate financial power threatened to derail discussion, they were set aside.
The colonies had to unite; Great Britain wouldn't be fighting France forever.
I can't think of anything more antithetical to the principles of self-government extolled in
that first constitutional convention than today's all-powerful spook agencies.
With limitless finances, impenetrable secrecy and de facto immunity from all laws, they
are now high-tech baronies, autonomous, self-isolated and profoundly opposed to popular sovereignty.
If the NSA, CIA or any of America's other spy dynasties had been around in 1787, those brilliant
men in buckled shoes and stockings would never have made it home alive.
kalbus -> Kitty Grimnirs 8 May 2015 10:47
Everyone with any kind of heart and soul cares deeply for a good outcome for Mr. Snowden who
has risked his life to reveal our fascist-becoming government.
GKJamesq -> Kitty Grimnirs 8 May 2015 10:37
Snowden tried to get the issue raised through the standard channels, with predictable results.
As for your allegation that he "headed straight for America's enemies and tried to bargain with
them," what evidence do you have?
Lafcadio1944 -> mike miller 8 May 2015 10:08
Snowden will never be allowed back in the USA the Empire will hound him to his grave.
Strong verifiable end to end encryption individually installed and open source. Some methods
of protection are already starting to appear and more will come.
libbyliberal -> libbyliberal 8 May 2015 05:33
When I was a little girl and I heard how horrible Hilter was, I asked why people didn't overtake
him when he went to sleep.
I was so naive and thought Hitler alone was evil and doing evil things and did not appreciate
the massive collusion with his evil of so very many.
All the CRONYISM OF EVIL OF HIS PATRIARCHAL MILITARY AND ENABLING FROM STOCKHOLM SYNDROMED
CITIZENRY. Many of the German people were enthralled with him, and convinced themselves his regime
of massive evil was serving "exceptional" them as his beloved children
libbyliberal 8 May 2015 05:28
Authoritarian followers insist unethical laws be followed, and conscientious objectors to unethical
laws be punished. Too bad these lemmings can't seem to grow a conscience no matter what evidence
is presented to them of institutionalized mass murder and criminality. Stockholm syndrome mass
pathology.
Aryu Gaetu 8 May 2015 05:20
Based on the premise that everything in the US, especially with politicians, is based on personal
greed, if the NSA has the phone records of people, it must have the records of corporations. If
the business or any of its officers makes an international call, then they can legally monitor
the content of the call. I wonder how many billion$ that is worth to a competitor and if there
is just 1 person in the NSA that can't resist that potential windfall from that information.
Will the last person to drop the Constitution into the shredder, please, water the plants and
turn out the lights before you leave. Thank you.
Littlemissv 8 May 2015 05:00
The court of appeals judges very deliberately chose not to consider the constitutionality of
NSA bulk surveillance programs, as such questions are currently before Congress...
The court simply wimped out. It should ruled them to be unconstitutional and demanded their
immediate cessation.
Since the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appoints the judges on the secret (FISA) court,
he is already an accessory before the fact in various constitutional felonies. The Supremes will
rubber-stamp NSA, displaying all the wisdom and integrity that they did in Bush v. Gore (2000).
libbyliberal 8 May 2015 02:41
Excellent and inspiring article. Thank you!!
Jeffrey_Harrison -> David Edwards 8 May 2015 02:03
And your inane comment is exactly why governments must not be allowed to just make any old
thing secret. They should not be able to make most of what they do make secret, secret.
Martin_C 8 May 2015 01:40
Laws that require the highest scrutiny of all are laws that benefit all politicians and government
at the expense of the people they supposedly serve, because the intrinsic protections of the adversarial
nature of politics breaks down. Normally, if a right-wing party tries to pass something overly
right-wing, the left-wing party kicks up a stink and vice versa. The party opposing the legislation
becomes the de facto advocate for the people being cheated, and the debate must then be carried
on under the scrutiny of the people.
But when politicians pass legislation that enables all politicians to spy on all citizens,
the citizens have no advocate. The pollies are all in on it. We can't even exercise our only faintly
effective prerogative of changing our vote, because in this type of law change, all snouts are
in the trough.
The Patriot Act was and is terrible legislation. Australia's recently passed East-German-style
data retention bill: terrible legislation. Britain's pathetic attempts at forcing encryption keys
to be yielded to the government: terrible legislation. No government should have tabula rasa permission
to spy on its own citizens. These are our lives they are trying to spy on! We cannot throw that
away for the 'safety' of living in a permanent mass surveillance state.
To prevent these dreadful laws being passed requires 1) principled lawmakers who can step away
from the feeding trough; 2) vigorous, ethical and independent media; and 3) citizens willing to
stand up and demand better from their elected representatives.
Edward Snowden says he laughed at Oscar host Neil Patrick Harris' joke at his expense last night,
adding that he didn't think it was meant as a political statement.
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session with "Citizenfour" filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist
Glenn Greenwald, Snowden addressed questions about privacy, surveillance and the documentary's win
at last night's Academy Awards ceremony.
"The subject of 'Citizenfour,' Edward Snowden, could not be here for some treason," Harris joked
to a nearly silent audience after winners Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky left the stage
with Greenwald and Snowden's girlfriend Lindsay Mills.
"To be honest, I laughed at NPH," Snowden told Reddit users, using an acronym for Neil Patrick
Harris. "I don't think it was meant as a political statement, but even if it was, that's not so bad.
My perspective is if you're not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don't
care enough."
The Edward Snowden documentary "Citizenfour" won Best Documentary at the Oscars on Sunday night.
Director Laura Poitras accepted the award with Glenn Greenwald and Lindsay Mills, Snowden's girlfriend,
by her side.
"The disclosures that Edward Snowden reveals don't only expose a threat to our privacy but to
our democracy itself," Poitras said in her acceptance speech. "When the most important decisions
being made, affecting all of us, are made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers that
control. Thank you to Edward Snowden, for his courage, and for the many other whistleblowers. I share
this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth."
The film tells the story of Snowden's 2013 National Security Agency leaks. Poitras traveled to
Hong Kong to meet with Snowden. "Citizenfour" analyzed the impact of the surveillance documents he
revealed, as well as his role as a public figure threatening to eclipse the story he unmasked.
"When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I'm
grateful that I allowed her to persuade me," Snowden said in a statement released by the American
Civil Liberties Union. "The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition
it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired
by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world."
"Citizenfour" beat out "The Salt of the Earth," "Last Days in Vietnam," "Virunga" and "Finding
Vivian Maier" for the honor.
Re: This is one of those "Only in America thingies" isn't it?
I wish I could says "yes".
Unfortunately, in the USA, "Omnipotent State" is a Religion for some.
You also find this kind of individual in various other uniform-loving countries, sects, houses
for the insane and government buildings.
Identity
Re: This is one of those "Only in America thingies" isn't it?
True that in these here Benighted States, anyone can sue anyone for anything. Often that means
only extra stress, more crowded court calendars and richer lawyers. In this case, if this guy
has standing, I'll eat my hat. (Fortunately, I don't wear one...)
Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects
The case for Retroactive birth control
It isn't genetics. Certain people find a relatively simple man and use him as a puppet.
Rich people get used to deference -even servitude. It give them all an unfortunate sense of
omnipotence. And every country suffers from the ideals of rich people. Take for example Lord Rothermere,
part owner of the Daily Mail in the 1930's. Excusing Nazi treatment of Jews and Hitler and Mussolini's
'petty crimes' in favour of their overall usefulness. That same mind-set wanted the judgement
of all those young men who had had to fight the bastards over-ruled when they voted for socialism
in the 1940's and kicked out the incumbents.
I have banged this drum before but only because that man's company was salaciously determined
to rule the Empire to protect Britain from the British. The USA has had similar devotees such
as the cadre behind the Presidunce George the Thicketh. So it is perfectly clear that it isn't
genes but money.
Power does indeed corrupt and absolute power has no absolution. It hurts everybody.
Anonymous Coward
Re: Ironic, given the furore over The Interview.
"If he stopped leaking"
AFAIAA Snowden gave *all* the info in one go. It is the journalists that are drip feeding the
info to keep it in the headlines.
DiViDeD
Re: Ironic, given the furore over The Interview.
"the US kept tabs on the dictators Assad and Putin." And Angela Merkel, David Cameron, in fact,
leading political figures in pretty much every country friendly to the US, as well as the citizens
and corporations of those countries. So I guess your definition of 'dictator' is everyone except
you?
"Try criticizing the government, or get in a legal spat with an official while you're there.
Because it seems as if you think you're being oppressed, living in the UK."
Sorry but that logic, as old as it is, doesn't work ever.
My headache is not smaller because somebody in Russia has a stronger one. If I am fat then
I am not less fat even if somebody in Mexico is fatter. Tell a under payed Britt he is actually
well payed as there are people who get less in China. That (lack) of logic is probably from the
stone age if not older.
Anonymous Coward
Re: For profit?
> But if so, one wonders when dear Horace will sue Sony, current owners of the James Bond franchise.
If he succeeds in this lawsuit it sets a precedent whereby any film that depicts any form of
crime could be considered profiteering from that crime.
Consider how many films that would effect...
Simon Lyon
That would be a little known suburb of Berlin known as "Hollywood" then?
The film was shot in Hong Kong, Western and Eastern Europe incl the UK, Brazil and a few other
places. It was edited in, and released from, Berlin - where Laura Poitras now lives since she's
gotten fed up with being harassed by US customs every time she flies back to her own country.
This long before she ever met Snowden - she's been targeted by the US government for years
due to her habit of throwing light on their warlike activities in film. Which is of course why
he chose to contact her.
I've liked every American I've ever met, truly, but it's a country of extremes. And that means
that they unfortunately host some of the most idiotic twats on the planet. Case in point.
Attempts by opposition parties in Germany to bring
Edward Snowden to
Berlin to give evidence about the NSA's operations have been thwarted by the country's highest court.
The Green and Left parties wanted the whistleblower to give evidence in person to a parliamentary
committee investigating espionage by the US agency, but Germany's constitutional court ruled against
them on Friday.
The government has argued that Snowden's presence in
Germany could impair relations
with the US and put it under pressure to extradite him.
It has suggested sending the committee – which consists of eight MPs – to interview him in Moscow,
where Snowden is living in exile. Snowden has said through a lawyer that he is prepared to speak
to the panel only if permitted to do so in Germany.
Opposition MPs have been vocal about their wish for Snowden to be granted asylum in Germany, where
anger towards the NSA and sympathy for the whistleblower has been particularly high.
If Snowden were to be allowed to enter Germany, the clamour for him to be able to stay would be
strong and resistance from the government would be likely to be met with civil unrest.
Support for Snowden in Germany reached a peak after allegations came to light that Angela Merkel's
phone was bugged. But Germany's top public prosecutor announced this week that an investigation had
so far failed to find any firm evidence for the claim.
Harald Range, who launched an investigation in June, did not rule out that it could be true, but
said: "The document presented in public as proof of an authentic tapping of the mobile is not an
authentic surveillance order by the NSA. There is no proof right now that could lead to charges that
Chancellor Merkel's phone connection data was collected or her calls tapped."
Range said the investigation would continue. He said that neither Snowden, the reporter for Spiegel
magazine who was in possession of a document that appeared to be evidence of tapping, nor Germany's
foreign intelligence agency, the BND, had presented him with any other details.
The affair caused considerable tension between Berlin and Washington. German attempts to secure
a no-spying agreement with the US were unsuccessful. Washington did not seek to deny the charges
and assured Merkel that it would not tap her phone in future.
Moscow-exiled US whistleblower Edward Snowden and British Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger are
to receive the Right Livelihood Award. They're among five persons awarded Sweden's "alternative Nobel
prize."
The Stockholm-based Right Livelihood Award Foundation on Wednesday praised Snowden, a former US
intelligence agent, for "revealing the unprecedented extent of state surveillance."
It said Rusbridger, the editor in chief of Britain's The Guardian newspaper, also won the award
for "responsible journalism in the public interest.
"None of them could have done what they did without the other, " said foundation director Ole
von Uexkull.
The announcement, originally set for Thursday, was brought forward, after a leak by Swedish broadcaster
SVT.
Foundation denied access
Von Uexkull, the nephew of Jacob von Uexkull who founded the prize in 1980, said all winners had
been invited to a December 1 award ceremony in Stockholm.
Discussions on "potential" travel arrangements for Snowden, who remains exiled in Russia, would
be held with the Swedish government, von Uexkull said.
He added that the foundation had been denied access to the Swedish foreign ministry's media room,
where award ceremonies have been held since 1995.
Three other winners
Snowden, who is wanted by the US for exposing mass data collection by the US National Security
Agency (NSA) and Rusbridger are honorary winners, meaning they will not receive the award's customary
500,000 kronor (54,500 euros).
The other three prize winners, named to receive the monetary award, are Pakistani human rights
lawyer Asma Jahanger, Sri Lankan rights activist Basil Fernando and US environmentalist Bill McKibbben.
Jahanger is a human rights lawyer who has defended women, children, religious minorities and the
poor in Pakistan, the award citation said.
Fernando, originally from Sri Lanka, led the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission for
nearly two decades and now serves as its director of policy and programs.
McKibben is founder of 350.org, a grass-roots environmental movement aimed at spurring action
to fight climate change.
Edward Snowden answers the questions of "L'Espresso" from his refuge in Russia, the country which
has granted temporary asylum. It is easy to say "Do not give up". But it is an illusion. He does
not think that it will be an easy path to put a brakes on the NSA spying: "The defenders of the state
of surveillance in the Washington Congress will never give up on their own initiative a program if
they believe that this gives them an advantage. They will not do so even if the program violates
the Constitution"
... ... ...
The problem is how to defeat a technological Leviathan that now operates for more then a decade:
how nuclear weapons systems for the global control can be dismantled and removed. A government will
never give up such sophisticated instruments, in which it has invested colossal sums. Snowden agrees,
but also thinks that "the surveillance is not like nuclear weapons, because it can be fought directly
and even with modest financial resources, using technology which is completely free." He does not
go into detail about exactly which technologies will help to overcome the mass surveillance, but
most times he has spoken publicly about it is the encryption is the key to protect your privacy in
the era of total control, the same technology which was entrusted to deliver his secrets.
Yet despite the scandal raised by his revelations, after a year still has not arrived to concrete
reforms. "It's an important moment for reform," he replies, "but today it seems clear that the only
court that has tried to tackle seriously the problem is that of European Court of Justice ." Which
"invalidated" the EU directive requiring telecommunications companies to retain for two years the
telephone traffic data and Internet for all citizens, without discrimination. This was an important
ruling, but two months after the decision of the judges of Strasbourg, it is still unclear to what
extent the European states will really appreciate it. Faced with this uncertainty and inaction, however,
Snowden cautions that "if governments fail to protect the rights of citizens, they will lose much
more than they earn." He adds: "When people lose trust in authority, they have a tendency to create
their own solutions." How? Once again refers to the ability to protect privacy through encryption
mechanisms, "strengthening our rights through the higher laws of science and technology."
How this situation can be challenged? Based on his experience in the most powerful intelligence
apparatus in the world, he believes that in the future the network will become a tool to strengthen
democracy or a system of absolutism, the enabler of new forms of tyranny
"It depends on us. Internet is an extraordinary power amplifier, but amplifies both the power
of individuals and the States. Strengthening of the super-states, already-powerful and ultra-organized,
has restricted the domain of our freedoms seriously, because such states already had much more power
than any single individual, "he says," but if we consider the aggregate power of the community civilians
that are formed on the Internet for solidarity with a cause, without national barriers - a digital
community than never before had existed in history - there is reason for hope. The states are powerful,
but this united community is even stronger and the potential energy of a global technical community,
organized but without national borders, also makes even the most powerful States feel isolated and
vulnerable. "
In the USA, something similar is happening. A nation has to face the strong mobilization of the
entire world public opinion, outraged by the revelations of mass espionage : a spontaneous protest,
which did not need the stimulus of political parties, lobby or traditional movements. And that has
prompted governments such as Germany to take tougher positions against Washington. One of the issues
advanced by the defenders global intelligence that has been repeated very often: the United States
does neither more nor less then Russia and China. "The Russians, the Chinese, and every other nation
that we consider in the "naughty list" can only dream about the capabilities of the NSA, unable to
spend seventy-five billion dollars a year for intelligence programs," says Snowden, "I think it is
reasonable to say that the United States is, in some key aspects, guided by the best intentions,
but we Americans have lost our way in setting national policy.
Mass surveillance of entire countries and people who are not suspected of any crime or illegality
is a clear violation of human rights and should never have been authorized. The government itself
recognizes this, having freely signed up to Article 12 of the Declaration of Human Rights, which
prohibits this type of arbitrary interference in our private lives. "
The interview with Snowden closes with a reflection on the organization that saved him: WikiLeaks.
"They are absolutely fearless in putting principles above politics. WikiLeaks, by the mere fact of
its existence, has hardened the backbone of institutions in many countries, because the editors of
the newspaper knows that if you are intimidated and do not publish a story important but controversial,
then you are likely to end up burned by a global alternative individual national newspapers (that
is WikiLeaks, ed.) Our policies may be different, but their efforts to build a culture without boundaries
of transparency and the protection of sources are extraordinary: they take the biggest risk. And
in a time when government control on information can be ruthless, I think they represent a vital
example of how to preserve the old freedoms in new age "
Last summer, Snowden had already secured the recognition of the German advocates, receiving the
2013 Whistleblower Award. And in October, a group of US whistleblowers presented Snowden with the
Sam Adams Award for 'Integrity in Intelligence' during a secret meetingin Moscow.
READ MORE: 'Courage is contagious': Whistleblowing Fantastic Four talk 'Snowden effect' on RT
The 31-year-old, who has been living in Russia for almost a year after being granted asylum from
US prosecution, is a key figure in the ongoing German probe into NSA spy scandal that monitored millions
of Germans and its Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Members of the German legislative committee, appointed to investigate the NSA's snooping of Chancellor
Merkel's phone, were planning to visit Moscow to meet the whistleblower.
Snowden earlier claimed that he is ready to testify about American wrongdoings and has even sent
a letter to the German authorities, requesting a meeting. However, he has reportedly turned down
the offer to meet German MPs in Russia. His lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck said Snowden believes at this
point there is "no room or need for an oral, 'informal' meeting in Moscow" and that substantial testimony
would only be possible in Germany.
Recent reports suggest that Germany has become one of the National Security Agency's most important
centers for data collection and surveillance operations in Europe.
The rejection may come as a temporary relief to the German government, which warned the committee
that Snowden's testimony might cause "negative consequences" on Germany's relations and cooperation
with the US.
Snowden Anniversary One year after The Guardian opened up the trove of top secret American
and British documents leaked by former National Security Agency (NSA) sysadmin Edward J Snowden,
the world of data security and personal information safety has been turned on its head.
Everything
about the safety of the internet as a common communication medium has been shown to be broken. As
with the banking disasters of 2008, the crisis and damage created - not by Snowden and his helpers,
but by the unregulated and unrestrained conduct the leaked documents have exposed - will last for
years if not decades.
Compounding the problem is the covert network of subornment and control that agencies and collaborators
working with the NSA are now revealed to have created in communications and computer security organisations
and companies around the globe.
The NSA's explicit objective is to weaken the security of the entire physical fabric of the net.
One of its declared goals is to "shape the worldwide commercial cryptography market to make it more
tractable to advanced cryptanalytic capabilities being developed by the NSA", according to top secret
documents provided by Snowden.
Profiling the global machinations of merchant bank Goldman Sachs in Rolling Stone in 2009,
journalist Matt Taibbi famously characterized them as operating "everywhere ... a great vampire squid
wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells
like money".
The NSA, with its English-speaking "Five Eyes" partners (the relevant agencies of the UK, USA,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada) and a hitherto unknown secret network of corporate and government
partners, has been revealed to be a similar creature. The Snowden documents chart communications
funnels, taps, probes, "collection systems" and malware "implants" everywhere, jammed into data networks
and tapped into cables or onto satellites.
The evidence Snowden has provided, by the bucketload, has shown that no country, no network,
no communications system, no type of communication has been too small or trivial or irrelevant to
attract attention and the ingestion of data into huge and enduring archives - under construction
at NSA headquarters and already in operation at its new Utah Data Center.
Operations have ranged from the systematic recording of every mobile telephone call in the tiny
380,000 population Bahamas, through Angry Birds, World of Warcraft, Second Life,
intimate Yahoo webcam images and direct cyber attacks on the data centre networks of Google (carried
out by British allies at GCHQ from bases in the UK). Under the covernames of WINDSTOP and MUSCULAR,
GCHQ data from UK cable taps, including direct intercepts of US email providers and ISPs, is provided
wholesale to NSA. NSA has also deployed two overseas Remote Operations centres for malware management
at Menwith Hill Station in Yorkshire and at Misawa, Japan.
There are parallels to the banking world, too, in the pervasive and longstanding networks of influence
that have been created with the aim of influencing and controlling policymakers, and which have assured
minimal political change when damage is done. Merchant banks like Goldmans have long worked hard
to have their alumni in positions of political power and influence, in control at vital times.
Last month, accompanying his new book Nowhere to Hide, journalist Glenn Greenwald has published
180 new Snowden documents that lay out the NSA's global reach - 33 "Third Party" countries, 20 major
access "choke points" accessing optical fibre communications, 80 "strategic partner" commercial manufacturers,
52 US, UK and overseas satellite interception sites, more than 80 US Embassies and diplomatic sites
hosting floors packed with surveillance and monitoring equipment, and over 50,000 "implants" - malware
and tampered hardware that has rendered most commercial VPN systems and software transparent to the
NSA and its partners.
In GCHQ and NSA Sigint (signals-intelligence) jargon, common or garden "hacking" is never talked
about: the insider term for such activity is "CNE" - Computer Network Exploitation.
NSA's access to optical fibre cables worldwide can be "covert, clandestine or co-operative," according
to one of the leaked slides. The covert operations described in the Snowden documents include secret
taps on other companies' cables installed by employees of such firms as AT&T and BT.
The published Snowden documents have not yet described NSA's special activities to get into cables
even their overseas and corporate partners cannot access. For more than ten years, an adapted nuclear
submarine - the USS Jimmy Carter - has installed underwater taps on marine cables, "lifting
them up", installing taps and then laying out "backhaul" fibres to interception sites, according
to a former Sigint employee. Cable companies have speculated that the submarine tapping activity
may be connected to a rash of unexplained cable cuts in recent times affecting fibre cables in the
Middle East and South Asia; the cable breaks could serve to prevent operators noticing as taps were
installed elsewhere on the same cable.
One
previously unrevealed outstation of Britain's secret internet tapping programme has been operating
for almost five years in the autocratic Persian gulf state of Oman, according to documents obtained
by Snowden in Hawaii. The station, known as Overseas Processing Centre 1 (OPC-1) is part of GCHQ's
massive £1bn project TEMPORA, which GCHQ wants to use to harvest all internet communications it can
access and hold that data for up to 30 days.
This is not an Orwellian act (meaning, yes, of course, it is)
The damage created to IT security is deliberate, sustained and protected even inside the agencies'
compartmented planning cells by arcane contrivances of language. Breaking the safety and value of
crypto systems, in sigint speak, is "enabling". Deliberately sabotaging security, in the inverted
Orwellian world of the sigint agencies is said to be "improving security".
According to the leaked, detailed current US intelligence budget provided by Snowden, NSA's "Sigint
Enabling Project ... actively engages the US and Foreign IT industries to covertly influence and/or
overtly leverage their commercial products' designs. These design changes make the systems in question
exploitable through SIGINT collection ... with foreknowledge of the modification. To the consumer
and other adversaries, however, the systems' security remains intact."
Despite apologists' denials, the language of this major US government document is unambiguous
in describing broken crypto and hardware and software "backdoors" as a much-desired NSA goal.
More than 80 companies supporting both missions
Tricking a company like RSA Security into promoting backdoored and sabotaged algorithms for default
use in security products is "enabling". Physically sabotaging Cisco routers while they are being
shipped out of the US to commercial customers - a serious crime when committed by anyone but the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the NSA - is "enabling".
Ensuring that communications security encryption chips "used in Virtual Private Networks and Web
encryption devices" secretly ship with their security broken open, as specified in the current US
"cryptologic capabilities plan", is "enabling". In the coming year, NSA's budget for such Sigint
"enabling" is $255m.
Who plays in this corporate "enabling" game?
Since the days of Watergate in the 1970s, and the subsequent US Congressional investigations,
AT&T - the world's 23rd largest company - has been identified as providing US government access to
all its customers' communications passing in and out of the US. The intercepted communications passed
on long ago included communications of 1960s US antiwar dissidents.
AT&T's secret role intercepting Americans' communications in a programme dubbed SHAMROCK was flushed
out by Congressional enquiries in 1975, and largely stopped as illegal - for a few years. But it
all began again in 1978 when a new US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed. SHAMROCK
was reborn, the Snowden archive reveals, as BLARNEY. In the bizarre and boastful world of show-off
Powerpoints that NSA geeks prepare for their colleagues, BLARNEY even has its own logo.
The identity of NSA's and GCHQ's corporate industrial and international partners are amongst the
Sigint agencies' most closely guarded secrets. There are strict internal prohibitions in the US and
the UK against revealing the true corporate identities behind covernames like FAIRVIEW or STORMBREW,
both identified as providing "upstream" (meaning fibre cable tap) access to Microsoft, Yahoo, Google,
and many other companies' internet communications.
More than once, the Snowden documents have revealed that siginters' NSA braggadocio can let cover
slip. Among the new Snowden documents published last month by Greenwald is a potentially devastating
slide listing NSA commercial "Strategic Partnerships".
The slide displays, with corporate logos, the names of major US IT companies who are listed under
NSA's vaunted "alliances with over 80 Major Global Corporations". The companies identified are said
to be "supporting both missions": that is, both Sigint attacks on global communications networks,
and the more acceptable public face of collaboration - cyber defence activity.
The roll call of names and logos on the slide include most of the US's IT industry giants: Microsoft,
HP, Cisco, IBM, Qualcomm, Intel, Motorola, Qwest, AT&T, Verizon, Oracle and EDS.
This document and many more like it shine a spotlight on the invidious position in which major
US corporations have found themselves. Their trust has been compromised, with share valuations now
tumbling to follow. Cisco, despite being reported as "supporting missions" in the classified slides,
was reportedly devastated when last month Greenwald published photographs taken by NSA's hacking
department of "interdicted" Cisco equipment, stolen in transit and then put back in the delivery
system after being tampered with to open the kit up for NSA remote control.
The US corporations have also helped spy on their communications partners, both overtly and covertly,
according to the documents. FAIRVIEW, a corporate partner "with access to int. cables, routers, switches",
according to one recently published note "operates in the US, but has access to information that
transits the nation and through its corporate relationships provides unique accesses to other telecoms
and ISPs".
It is also "aggressively involved in shaping traffic to run signals of interest past our monitors".
For these and other services, according to the classified US Intelligence budget leaked by Snowden
to the Washington Post, FAIRVIEW will receive $95m from NSA in the current year.
Get paid to play: cash, technology - whadda you want?
According to another slide Greenwald has published this month, STORMBREW operates seven "choke
points" on international communications on the US eastern and western seaboards, each covernamed
for leading US ski resorts.
FAIRVIEW and STORMBREW are the covernames for the US's communications giants, AT&T and Verizon.
In the UK, BT (GCHQ covername "REMEDY") and Verizon/Vodafone (GCHQ covername "GERONTIC") are described
as actively intercepting their own and other companies' fibre networks, and linking them to GCHQ's
processing sites at Cheltenham and Bude, Cornwall. BT and Verizon are also lavishly remunerated by
GCHQ for their work in providing access to communications links in the UK, receiving payments of
tens of millions of pounds annually, according to documents copied by Snowden.
In one of the most alarming slideshows, NSA's successes in smashing basic general internet cryptography
security is described in classic style as "improving security". NSA's project BULLRUN was described
thus:
For the past decade, NSA has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet
encryption technologies ... Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of
encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable. Major new processing
systems ... must be put in place to capitalise on this opportunity.
Listeners at this talk were also warned that the "groundbreaking capabilities" were "extremely
fragile ... do not ask about or speculate on sources or methods". "Indoctrination" - special security
briefings and signing new warnings - was required for access to information about how BULLRUN techniques
work.
In the creation of such arcane rituals of access to sacred secrets that no-one may know and to
the power they are believed to bestow, working life inside Sigint communities can seem to resemble
nothing so much as the medieval churches. Like Latin chanted by medieval priests, NSA and GCHQ's
extraordinary lexicons of "covernames" revealed by Snowden are all in fact unclassified - even BULLRUN.
The ordinary mortal may hear them, but must never know their meanings, which are protected behind
layers of secrecy beyond Top Secret: in the US, ECI for Extremely Compartmented Information, in the
UK, STRAP 1, STRAP 2 or STRAP 3.
In another Snowden document prepared by NSA's Cryptanalysis and Exploitation Services unit in
2010, Project BULLRUN is described as involving "multiple sources, all of which are extremely sensitive.
They include CNE [Computer Network Exploitation], interdiction, industry relationships, collaboration
with other IC [Intelligence Community] entities, and advanced mathematical techniques".
The covert nature of NSA's relationships and their power to influence policy and compromise internet
security technologies was unguardedly summarised in a chatty top secret blog provided by NSA's Foreign
Affairs Directorate in 2009 and leaked by Snowden.
"What are we after with our third party relationships?" asked the spies.
In summary, the answer is that they get to wiretap their own countries and their neighbours, places
to which NSA and GCHQ otherwise could not legally reach.
Approved third parties with four of the Five Eyes and others
In return, collaborating allies may get high tech toys to impress their own masters - and better
ones if they are willing to break rules or laws. According to the Foreign Affairs Directorate blog:
"NSA might be willing to share advanced technologies in return for that partner's willingness
to do something politically risky."
The Third Party relationships with other nations' spooks and/or secret police are often kept secret
even from the foreign governments in question, according to the blog:
"In many of our foreign partners' capitals, few senior officials outside of the defence-intelligence
apparatuses are witting to any SIGINT connection to the USA/NSA."
Documents provided by Snowden show that GCHQ particularly prizes the data they get from Sweden,
Israel and India.
A year past the first revelations, the US has begun a debate, as Snowden hoped, and changes and
restrictions affecting American citizens' communications have started. But for foreigners, there
is nothing. In the UK and across Europe, there has been much anger but little change. The new Snowden
documents provide some of the answer, showing that virtually every EU member state has a covert surveillance
"Sigint Exchange Agreement" with NSA. None of these agreements have been reported to or agreed by
national parliaments.
The only European countries apparently not signed up to help break the internet are Luxembourg,
Switzerland, Monaco, and Ireland. And Iceland.
That is the reach of the embrace of the internet's vampire squid. ®
YES, traffic dilution is one of the only available legal anti-5-eyes strategy
(not that I'm completely anti 5-eyes, I'd just like to join-in the privacy/security balance debate,
whilst that is still allowed)
So - DO: widely share implausible Main Stream Media stories about ex-MI6 5-eye activist having
affair with ex-TV-glamour-lady such as
[DailyMail] you couldn't make this up!
A widespread smattering of TOR can't hurt either. Especially if used for those things you're
not really interested in or trying to keep secret... like FB
"what sweden has to offer the US"
Which is the central plot point of the Larsson books - in which (spoiler alert) the Swedish
security agency has one Russian defector whose information they can trade with the US, and proceed
to commit a series of murders and illegal imprisonments in order to protect their source. I thought
when I read it that it was rather far-fetched, but since then it's dawned on me that our "security
services" are indeed mainly concerned with their own jobs and power, and any real involvement
in actual national security is presumably just enough to persuade the politicians that they are
getting value for money. Anonymous Coward
Not just Russia.
Sizable chunks of European data are deliberately routed through Sweden giving plausible
deniability to the the telcos in the originating countries.
Lapun Mankimasta
Re: "what sweden has to offer the US"
"the Swedish security agency has one Russian defector whose information they can trade with
the US"
Every time I see the word "defector" I find myself substituting "defecator". It seems to
fit with the sh*tload of garbage certain Iraqis fed everybody prior to the last imperial cockup
in Iraq, of just a decade or so ago.
hammarbtyp
Bronze badge Lets not forget who is to blame
It is easy to characterize the NSA and GCHQ as some sort or Orwellian super power out of control
targeting at removing our freedoms. But actually they are more an expression of our fears and
anxieties. The reason these programs were setup in the 1st place was because we the people demanded
it after events like 9/11 and 7/7 when it became clear that organisations like al-qaeda were using
things like the internet to co-ordinate their followers. After 9/11 questions were asked why the
CIA, NSA FBI etc did not see it coming and the answer was because they did not have the capabilities
to monitor mass communication. So they built it.
Now you could argue that they went way over there brief, but that is fault with the oversight
not the organisations themselves. Then again with the fear and paranoia following those events
it would be a brave politician who would put their career on the line who would limit powers which
might stop the next 9/11. We also would be clamoring to now why our security services had let
us down if another event like that happened.
In a naive world populated by Edward Snowdens, the transgressions look inexcusable, but in
the real world these organisations daily stop us getting killed or injured by the forces out there.
The question therefore is not whether these powers should exist, but how they are overseen, the
range of their use, and when they should be used.
Silver badge
People did not "demand" this
Politicians were (and still are) deathly afraid of getting blamed for making a wrong decision,
and trying to make us safer is seen as the "safest" political choice, so they can claim they did
something.
Look at the Benghazi situation, and how much worry (granted mostly partisan) there is over
a handful of deaths (not to dismiss them, but it hardly compares to 9/11) Imagine what would have
happened to Bush if there had been another big attack several years after 9/11, or to Obama if
there had been/will be another during his administration?
They keep these programs secret because if there's a big attack, they can release some details
and say "look at everything we've been doing, but even then the terrorists got around it, its
not our fault!"
Lapun Mankimasta
Re: Lets not forget who is to blame
"It is easy to characterize the NSA and GCHQ as some sort or Orwellian super power out of control
targeting at removing our freedoms."
Such as the right to anonymously support political parties, candidates, positions, etc, which
are usually out-of-favour with the party in power? Unless of course you can buy the watchers off,
in which case the only political and civil rights left belong to the rich.
"But actually they are more an expression of our fears and anxieties."
Fears and anxieties that have been deliberately fostered and developed over the past half-century,
based as it happens on a set of fears and anxieties that have been fostered for over a millenium
in Western Europe. I don't like being manipulated, sorry.
"The reason these programs were setup in the 1st place was because we the people demanded it
after events like 9/11 and 7/7 when it became clear that organisations like al-qaeda were using
things like the internet to co-ordinate their followers.:
Did we? I don't remember being asked, at any point. And I certainly didn't express any such
wish to be surveilled a la the KGB, the Stasi, and the various forms of uselessness that permitted
the likes of the French Revolution to occur.
"After 9/11 questions were asked why the CIA, NSA FBI etc did not see it coming and the answer
was because they did not have the capabilities to monitor mass communication. So they built it."
When in truth they had been keeping an eye on Al Qaeda for a fair few years. They just did
not have the elementary HUMINT to understand Al Qaeda. Which they still don't. The "non-intervening"
intervention in Libya has spread Al Qaeda affiliates all across North Africa - someone everybody
else at the time could see. Just not the doofuses in charge.
"Now you could argue that they went way over there brief, but that is fault with the oversight
not the organisations themselves."
When you have an organization tasked with two completely self-contradictory tasks - the NSA
- namely securing the networks, and breaking the networks, that line of reasoning shows up as
just an empty excuse.
"Then again with the fear and paranoia following those events it would be a brave politician
who would put their career on the line who would limit powers which might stop the next 9/11."
Why are we paranoid? Paranoia's a medical condition, in case you were unaware, and paranoid
schizophrenia - where the brain disconnects from its environment and sees threats everywhere -
is one of the more dangerous of the mental illnesses. If we as a group of people are paranoid
enough, then we should undergo a medical examination and probably, undergo a course of medication.
"We also would be clamoring to now why our security services had let us down if another event
like that happened."
We are clamouring to find out why our security services now consider everybody to be guilty.
Or at least I am.
"In a naive world populated by Edward Snowdens, the transgressions look inexcusable, but in
the real world these organisations daily stop us getting killed or injured by the forces out there."
Or rather, they set up policies and environments that we understand only too well, are precursors
to repression.
"The question therefore is not whether these powers should exist, but how they are overseen,
the range of their use, and when they should be used."
Let me tell you about the lady who rode a tiger. A very exciting ride, but she could never
sleep and she could never dismount. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Evidently since
we're not paying such a price, we don't have freedom, only a simulcra of it.
Anonymous Coward
Re: "Menwith Hill was being used to monitor trans-Atlantic traffic *decades* before 9/11"
Many thanks for the correction.
T_o_u_f_ma_n
Black Helicopters
Hilarious
Ah sure Ireland is safe from all that... If the country had strong trade ties with the UK,
some form of historical dissidence within its population or was hosting several US IT multinationals
then yeah I would be concerned.
Hang on...
Steeev
"The only European countries apparently not signed up to help break the internet are Luxembourg,
Switzerland, Monaco, and Ireland. And Iceland."
Well I'd imagine Ireland has nothing to offer which the NSA can't already get from either the
UK or a multinational. Otherwise we'd be eagerly bent over the desk with the rest of them.
JimmyPage
"Enabling"
A word that *so* desperately wants to be paired with "Act"
The third word :( -->
Anonymous Coward
Re: "Enabling"
Possibly tangential - but a certain "Enabling Act" was passed by a democratic political elite
with the best of intentions. Purely intended as a precautionary contingency against extremists'
disruption. The extremists then formed a minority in a coalition government - and their leader
invoked the Enabling Act to rule by his dictatorial decree. The rest - as they say - is history.
Very bloody history.
Jim 59
Outrage
Yes, it is a personal outrage that the NSA/GCHQ is spying on you.
Unfortunately, the techniques you and I use to keep our secrets (encryption) are the same techniques
used by those who would plan your demise. So there is a problem - how to break one while respecting
the other ? It can't be done. There is no way of intercepting (say) an email from Boko Haram giving
the location of the Nigerian girls, without intercepting everybody else's email as well.
Can anybody suggest a way of spying on baddies while not looking over goodies' shoulders too
?
DropBear
Re: Lets not forget who is to blame
"...the transgressions look inexcusable..."
That's probably because they are.
Anonymous Coward
Re: Lets not forget who is to blame
Menwith Hill was being used to monitor trans-Atlantic traffic years before 9/11
"design bots to generate yottabytes of garbage for topics you're not really interested in"
So that explains all the cats, then!
Mike
Re: Outrage
Yes. Good old-fashioned human intel.
The alternative - what we have at present - is far, far too amenable to misuse, however benign
the proclaimed intentions, however laudable the alleged purposes.
Intelligence work has to be based on capabilities - what your adversary CAN do to you, not
what you think they WANT to do to you. And it's very clear, the security state has become the
adversary here, and what they CAN do to ALL of us has gone so far over the line that the line
is now a dot on the horizon.
"1984 was a WARNING, not a bloody INSTRUCTION MANUAL!"
Chris G
Re: Outrage
In 1973 I passed by the Old Bailey bomb about 15 minutes before it went off, I also worked
for a Daily Newspaper in the early '70s that was outspoken against the IRA, we received bomb threats
on an almost daily basis, some real some not.
Nobody I worked with was particularly fazed by them just took sensible precautions.
I also served with the British Army at a time when the Red Brigade and the Bader Meinhoff group
were running around .
Not then nor at any time since would I agree to our government or any other having the carte
blanche right to spy on all of us in the hope that they could thereby catch a few discontents.
If the intelligence services (or you) really believe they can win the so called war against terrorism
by such methods, they have become such lard arsed, lazy fools that the whole thing should be disbanded
and started again.
Any serious terrorist is not going to be using any communications that can be hacked, tapped
or otherwise easily intercepted, the old fashioned field craft practiced during the cold war using
cells and dead letter boxes worked then and arguably ( given the ridiculous levels of electronic
interception and the reliance thereupon) works as well or better now.
Benjamin Franklin wrote this in 1755, it still has as much value today:
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither
Liberty nor Safety.
While the files exposing limitless global NSA spying speak for themselves, the man behind the
leaks has also had much to say. One year after his first leaks were published, RT picks some of the
standout quotes from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
'The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything'
In June 2013, Snowden
revealed
to the world that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been using a sophisticated and warrantless
web surveillance system to gather and analyze
Americans'
and foreign nationals'
online and phone communications.
"The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this
capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting.
If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get
your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards," Snowden
said.
Snowden painstakingly picked the NSA files from a trove of classified documents and distributed
them among some of the trusted world journalists, making sure that the flow of explosive leaks would
be unstoppable.
"All I can say right now is the US government is not going to be able to cover this up by
jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped," he
said.
In his rare public addresses since fleeing the US for Hong Kong, and then finding temporary asylum
in Russia, Snowden pointed out that the proverbial Orwellian state is "nothing compared to"
the NSA's methods, urging the citizens of the world to fight for their right for privacy.
"A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know
what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought," the
whistleblower
said.
To US govt: 'The people will not be intimidated'
Snowden sent a strong message to the US government, saying he believes the people "will not
be intimidated," and that one would not want to live in a world without a private space.
"I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and
basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly
building… I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual
exploration and creativity," Snowden
said.
While the US government and its media machine has immediately started painting a picture of Snowden
as a traitor, some even
suggesting
he ended up "in the loving arms of FSB," the whistleblower stressed he had a much stronger
motive for his actions – patriotism.
"I'm neither traitor nor hero. I'm an American" Snowden
said.
"I can do more good outside of prison… This country is worth dying for," he
added.
'Made stateless & hounded for act of political expression'
Snowden has questioned why he was persecuted despite carefully avoiding materials posing a national
security threat and revealing only those he was sure are in the public interest. The whistleblower
believes that
the US government annulled his passport and chased him for his "act of political expression."
"I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the
light of day, and I asked the world for justice," Snowden said, adding that he does not regret
his decision. "While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues
that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal
affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be
done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law."
'MSM doesn't challenge govt for fear of being seen as unpatriotic'
The former CIA employee said that White House-supportive strategy employed by the American media
establishment had "ended up costing the public dearly."
"After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to
power – the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government – for fear of being
seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism," Snowden
said.
NSA presentation files leaked by Snowden contain a world heat map
showing the scale of the US surveillance. According to the map, American communications are being
monitored by the NSA even more actively than Russian ones.
"We watch our own people more closely than anyone else in the world," Snowden said via
a video link to Washington as he was receiving the Ridenhour Award for 'Truth-Telling'.
"When Clapper raised his hand and
lied to the American
public, was anyone tried? Were any charges brought? Within 24 hours of going public, I had three
charges against me," the whistleblower said, greeted by a standing ovation from the US audience.
'No question US is engaged in economic spying'
The American spying agency is not only responsible for national security, but also spies on foreign
industrial entities in US business interests, Snowden revealed.
If an industrial giant like Siemens has something that the NSA believes "would be beneficial
to the national interests, not the national security, of the United States, they will go after that
information and they'll take it," the whistleblower
said.
'Merkel Effect'
Following Snowden's leaks on US spying activities in Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel justified
the surveillance – until she learned she was on NSA's
radar herself.
Snowden has viewed such stance as hypocrisy, even coining a phrase in honor of Merkel.
"It's clear the CIA was trying to play 'keep away' with documents relevant to an investigation
by their overseers in Congress, and that's a serious constitutional concern. But it's equally if
not more concerning that we're seeing another 'Merkel Effect,' where an elected official does not
care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly
it's a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them," Snowden said, referring
to the statements
of US Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Snowden said he was disillusioned with Obama who, instead of restricting the surveillance programs,
has "closed the door on investigating systemic violations of law, deepened and expanded several
abusive programs." However, he
believes Obama
has not yet reached the point of no return and "has plenty of time" to stop the warrantless
surveillance of the NSA.
'NSA pressured EU into 'European bazaar' of spy networks'
"One of the foremost activities of the NSA's FAD, or Foreign Affairs Division, is to pressure
or incentivize EU member states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance," Snowden said
in a testimony delivered
remotely from Russia. "Lawyers from the NSA, as well as the UK's GCHQ, work very hard to search
for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate,
dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorized by lawmakers."
"The result is a European bazaar, where an EU member state like Denmark may give the NSA access
to a tapping center on the [unenforceable] condition that the NSA doesn't search it for Danes, and
Germany may give the NSA access to another on the condition that it doesn't search for Germans. Yet
the two tapping sites may be two points on the same cable, so the NSA simply captures the communications
of the German citizens as they transit Denmark, and the Danish citizens as they transit Germany,
all the while considering it entirely in accordance with their agreements," Snowden said.
Snowden fears that with the help of the NSA, the US is turning into a "turnkey tyranny,"
justified by stories of the external threats that the people would swallow.
"The great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that
nothing will change. [That people] won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight
to change things," Snowden
shared.
'Encryption works'
Despite sophisticated programs and tactics employed by the NSA, former spy Snowden does not believe
that end-to-end encrypted communication is "a lost cause." The problem is the endpoint security,
which the people should be improving, he says.
"Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you
can rely on," Snowden
said.
"We need to think about encryption not as this sort of arcane, black art. It's a basic protection,"
Snowden added.
"Let's put it this way. The United States government has assembled a massive investigation team
into me personally, into my work with the journalists, and they still have no idea what documents
were provided to the journalist, what they have, what they don't have, because encryption works."
At the outset of Glenn Greenwald's communications with the "anonymous leaker" later identified
as 29-year-old former NSA employee
Edward Snowden, Greenwald
– a journalist, blogger and former lawyer – and the film-maker Laura Poitras, with whom he is collaborating,
are told to use a PGP ("pretty good
privacy") encryption package.
Only then will materials be sent to him since, as Snowden puts it, encryption is "not just for spies
and philanderers". Eventually Greenwald receives word that a Federal Express package has been sent
and will arrive in a couple of days. He doesn't know what it will contain – a computer program or
the secret and incriminating US government documents themselves – but nothing comes on the scheduled
day of delivery. FedEx says that the package is being held in customs for "reasons unknown". Ten
days later it is finally delivered. "I tore open the envelope and found two USB thumb drives" and
instructions for using the programs, Greenwald writes.
His account reminded me of the time, nearly a decade ago, when I was researching Britain's road
to war in Iraq, and went through a similar experience. I was waiting for an overnight FedEx envelope
to reach me in New York, sent from my London chambers; it contained materials that might relate to
deliberations between George Bush and Tony Blair (materials of the kind that seem to be holding up
the Chilcot inquiry).
A day passed, then another, then two more. Eventually, I was told I could pick up the envelope at
a FedEx office, but warned that it had been tampered with, which turned out to something of an understatement:
there was no envelope for me to tear open, as the tearing had already occurred and all the contents
had been removed. FedEx offered no explanation.
As Greenwald notes, experiences such as this, which signal that you may be being watched, can
have a chilling effect, but you just find other ways to carry on. FedEx (and its like) are avoided,
and steps are taken to make sure that anything significant or sensitive is communicated by other
means. In any event, and no doubt like many others, I proceed on the basis that all my communications
– personal and professional – are capable of being monitored by numerous governments, including my
own. Whether they are is another matter, as is the question of what happens with material obtained
by such surveillance – a point that this book touches on but never really addresses. Greenwald's
argument is that it's not so much what happens with the material that matters, but the mere fact
of its being gathered. Even so, his point is a powerful one.
This is the great importance of the astonishing revelations made by Snowden, as facilitated by
Greenwald and Poitras, with help from various news media, including the Guardian. Not only does it
confirm what many have suspected – that surveillance is happening – but it also makes clear that
it's happening on an almost unimaginably vast scale. One might have expected a certain targeting
of individuals and groups, but we now know that data is hovered up indiscriminately. We have learned
that over the last decade the NSA has collected records on every phone call made by every American
(it gathers the who, what and when of the calls, known as metadata, but not the content), as well
as email data. We have learned that this happens with the cooperation of the private sector, with
all that implies for their future as consorts in global surveillance. We have learned, too, that
the NSA reviews the contents of the emails and internet communications of people outside the US,
and has tapped the phones of foreign leaders (such
as German chancellor Angel Merkel), and that it works with foreign intelligence services (including
Britain's GCHQ), so as to be able to get around domestic legal difficulties. Our suspicions have
been confirmed that the use of global surveillance is not limited to the "war on terror", but is
marshalled towards the diplomatic and even economic advantage of the US, a point Greenwald teases
out using the PowerPoint materials relied on by the agencies themselves. Such actions have been made
possible thanks to creative and dodgy interpretations of legislation (not least the Patriot Act implemented
just after 9/11). These activities began under President Bush, and they have been taken forward by
President Obama. It would be a generous understatement to refer to British "cooperation" in these
matters, although Greenwald's intended audience seems to be mostly in the US, and he goes light on
the British until it comes to the treatment of his partner, David Miranda, who was detained in the
UK under anti-terror legislation.
When the revelations first came out, in the summer of 2013, Snowden explained that he "had the
capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications". That meant "anyone's
communications at any time", he added, justifying the public disclosure on the grounds that this
"power to change people's fates" was "a serious violation of the law". Snowden's actions, and the
claims he has made, have catalysed an important debate in the US, within Congress (where views have
not necessarily followed party lines) and among academics and commentators. Views are polarised among
reasonable individuals, such as
New Yorker legal writer Jeff Toobin ("no proof of any systematic, deliberate violations of law"),
and the
New York Review of Books's David Cole ("secret and legally dubious activities at home and abroad"),
and in the US federal courts. In Britain, by contrast, the debate has been more limited, with most
newspapers avoiding serious engagement and leaving the Guardian to address
the detail, scale and significance
of the revelations. Media enterprises that one might have expected to rail at the powers of Big
Government have remained conspicuously restrained – behaviour that is likely, over the long term,
to increase the power of the surveillance state over that of the individual.
With
the arrival of secret courts in Britain, drawing on the experience of the US, it feels as if
we may be at a tipping point. Such reluctance on the part of our fourth estate has given the UK parliament
a relatively free rein, leaving the Intelligence and Security Committee to plod along, a somewhat
pitiful contrast to its US counterparts.
The big issue at stake here is privacy, and the relationship between the individual and the state,
and it goes far beyond issues of legality (although Snowden's fear of arrest, and perhaps also Greenwald's,
seems rather real). It is in the nature of government that information will be collected, and that
some of it should remain confidential. "Privacy is a core condition of being a free person," Greenwald
rightly proclaims, allowing us a realm "where we can act, think, speak, write, experiment and choose
how to be away from the judgmental eyes of others".
Snowden's revelations challenge us to reflect on the ideal balance between the power of the state
to know and the right of the individual to go about her or his business unencumbered, and this in
turn raises fundamental questions about the power of the media, on which Greenwald has strong views,
usually (but not always) fairly articulated. He makes the case for Snowden, and it's a compelling
one. One concern with WikiLeaks
acting independently was the apparently random nature of its disclosures, without any obvious filtering
on the basis of public interest or the possible exposure to risk of certain individuals. What is
striking about this story, and the complex interplay between Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras and the
Guardian, is that the approach was different, as the justification for the leaks seems to have been
at the forefront of all their minds. In his recent book
Secrets and Leaks Rahul Sagar identified a set of necessary conditions for leaks. Is
there clear evidence of abuse of authority? Will the release threaten public safety? Is the scale
of the release limited? Many people, though not all, see these as having been met in the Snowden
case.
Britain needs a proper debate about the power of the state to collect information of the kind
that Snowden has told us about, including its purpose and limits. The technological revolution of
the past two decades has left UK law stranded, with parliament seemingly unable (and perhaps unwilling)
to get a proper grip on the legal framework that is needed to restrain our political governors and
the intelligence services, not least in their dance with the US. "The greatest threat is that we
shall become like those who seek to destroy us", the legendary US diplomat George Kennan warned in
1947. In response, revelations can be made, Greenwald's book published, and a
Pulitzer prize awarded. Long may it go on.
• Philippe Sands QC is professor of law at University College London. To order No Place to
Hide for £15 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to
guardianbookshop.co.uk
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State
Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian have been the only source for this information in the UK,
which is a disgusting state is affairs. The timidity of our media is striking, embarrassing and
scary.
Information needs to be collected by security agencies within reason. Indiscriminate harvesting
is information corrupts democracy indescribably.
Incumbent powers can, and will, use private information to quell legitimate protest and debate,
and protect their own interests at the expense of justice for their own citizens, and the innocent
citizens of foreign countries. They will use it to bribe public servants and corrupt democracy.
Innocent information can still be used against you. It is a failure of intellect and imagination
to doubt this, and proclaim the old, untrue mantra, "nothing to hide, nothing to fear".
This cannot be disputed, and so those who continue to defend the actions of our governments
are either blind, ignorant or working in tandem.
Thank you Ed Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian.
Keep this story alive. It's almost the only one that matters.
mirageseekr, 23 May 2014 11:45am
While I agree that personal privacy is important and needed I think the bigger concern is
what happens to democracy when people in authority can be blackmailed. The important
thing about Snowden was that he confirmed what Tice and Binney have been saying all along and
just lacked the actual evidence.
What I see with some of the rulings from the courts and laws from congress is puppets on
a string. They know their argument fails to hold water and yet the feverishly stand by and
defend it. The only reasonable answer for that is someone has the goods on them and is using it,
just as Russ Tice has been saying for years. So the major question and one I hope Snowden and
Greenwald have the answer to is, who is the puppet master?
Our societies have only the charade of democracy. Now the proverbial curtain has been pulled
back and we must look to see the truth. Tice has said he saw the orders for surveillance of Obama
and Supreme court justices as well as top brass. So who is it exactly that this very expensive
system paid for by our tax dollars is used for. We know the "terrorism" is a lie or possibly a
distraction for workers they may worry about having a conscious. They claim it is not for industrial
espionage, but I am willing to bet some people have made lots of money from having access to information
that was stolen. To me the tin foil hat club had it right all along. The people calling the shots
are the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and Bilderbergs. And if that
is true then we have a few global elite of un-elected people determining economies, wars, policy
for us all and doing it in violation of sovereignty laws. I wish The Guardian would report more
on the military state the USA has become, daily the police beat and kill people here. The DHS
has been loading up on ammunition that is not used for target ranges and is against the Geneva
convention, the TSA, just ordered weapons and ammunition. The State Department just got a few
tons of explosives even the post office has a SWAT team. We have allowed them to build a standing
army within our country in direct violation of our constitution. The FEMA camps are up and running
and NDAA ensures you can be quietly taken away in the night with absolutely no rights and no charges
and even gives them the right to kill Americans. This is not a partisan issue, the bill passed
84-15. So how much more will it take for Americans to realize that the only difference between
the US right now and Nazi Germany is that they haven't started loading the trains yet. The US
also learned from the Germans mistakes, they will most likely not go house to house with weapons
at first. It will be some false flag to make the population willingly go. Maybe it will be like
the drills they have had (one in Denver) where they took the schoolchildren to the football arena
for a FEMA/DHS "drill" except they forgot to make any mention to the parents about it. The puppet
masters need to be exposed now, there is not much more time to wait to see how this is going to
work out.
MiltonWiltmellow, 23 May 2014 11:48am
Recommend: 52
Snowden's revelations challenge us to reflect on the ideal balance between the power of the
state to know and the right of the individual to go about her or his business unencumbered, and
this in turn raises fundamental questions about the power of the media, on which Greenwald has
strong views, usually (but not always) fairly articulated.
These sorts of understatements represent a sort of passive acceptance. (e.g., "Let's debate
about the tigers dragging our children to the jungle where it devours them. Tiger's have legitimate
needs too. Maybe if we stake goats, the tigers will devour the goats instead of our children ...
" )
The entire relationship between State and individual changes when the State takes it upon
itself to monitor the everyday activities of its citizens.
This isn't an academic question which august authorities like yourself can debate among themselves
for the next ten or twenty years.
This is a fucking tiger in the nursery.
Either the citizen has basic human rights (the right to freely interact with others) or the
citizen turns into a subject -- a potential threat to State security and thus a suspect.
The question isn't "how much secret surveillance should be allowed" but rather "how can this
secret surveillance be stopped?
AhBrightWings -> MiltonWiltmellow, 23 May 2014 12:41pm
Brilliant Milton. Couldn't agree more, and love your metaphor. Just because it's crouched under
the dust-ruffle doesn't mean it isn't there. If you've watched footage of tigers hunting, they
often freeze for long periods of time to lull their prey into a fall sense of well-being.
As you said so well: This is a fucking tiger in the nursery.
LostintheUSMiltonWiltmellow, 23 May 2014 1:26pm
Recommend: 16
And it is not just about reading our emails, etc. Or listening into phone calls. I mentioned
an obscure book to my husband (in the same room) that has been out of print for 34 years one day
while working on my computer and a short while later there was an ad for that book that popped
up on gmail.
Think about that.
And NONE of this is about "protecting" us. The Boston Marathon bombers were all over the radar
for their previous activities and the NSA was paying them no mind. This web is to protect the
oligarchy from us peasants. We are living in 17th century France...the aristocracy pay no
taxes and we are being taxed and worked to death.
Levi Genes -> LostintheUS, 24 May 2014 11:44am
The Boston Marathon bombers were all over the radar for their previous activities and the
NSA was paying them no mind. This web is to protect the oligarchy from us peasants.
It's much more violently proactive than simple 'protections' from potential opposition.
The reason they appear now on the 'radar' is because the so-called Boston 'bombers' were deeply
run by the FBI for the same nefarious reasons as are all other patsies in the parade of US false
flag operations: deflection from public investigation identifying the actual terrorist perpetrators
/ plausible deniability for the public to bite on to facilitate the desired effect of implemented
programs of public terror. The evidence of state sponsored terror is there if one chooses to look.
The recent, violent murder in Florida of an associate / witness to that FBI operation by an
FBI agent / interrogator, tasked with insuring that associate / witness's compliance to the prescriptive,
government narrative of the Boston event as force fed to the public by compliant / co-opted mass
media, is but yet another thinly but effectively veiled, social conditioning manipulation of public
consciousness reinforcing the enabling myth of just who is the actual threat to public peace and
safety.
Boston was an exercise in social conditioning to martial law where no civil rights exist. They
shut the city down in contrived pretext and stormed through whatever private domain they chose
as a show of force in exercise of police state power over all constitutionally based constraints.
All on a desperate, audacious and unthinkable lie.
You will do exactly what you're told to do, when you're told to do it, by heavily
armed masked men in black, storming through your house without your invitation, ostensibly in
pursuit of and protecting you from the terrible phantoms created by their masters.
Bagdad, Boston, London, Kiev, no matter. Same game of violent control from the same power cabal
while draining the hard earned wealth and civil power of the masses by the same boom/ bust / state
terrorist means. All of it, an horrific extension of covert enablement by forced public pacification
to Operation Gladio and its drive to global dominion.
NATO / NWO intent is defined by its break-away elitist culture of absolute authoritarianism
by absolute systemic corruption in absolute secrecy. Snowden and his journalist associates are
providing a glimpse of its all encompassing scope. Our individual response, or lack thereof, will
determine our fate as either citizens with rights based in moral principles and economic equity,
or as mere commodities for use as needed by hidden powers.
A stark choice, as the presumptive enemies of the state that we in fact are.
guest88888epinoa, 24 May 2014 3:29am
Baubles handed out - nothing changed.
Agreed. Ultimately, despite their good intentions, I feel as though both Greenwald and Snowden
aren't pushing the case against dragnet surveillance hard enough. We don't need a debate. This
is fascism pure and simple, and they are spying on us because they fear the day that we revolt
against their putrid austerity and the general failure of capitalism.
The Grauniad of course possesses no perspective whatsoever. Seriously Mr. Sands, we need a
debate? You find out the majority of the world is being spied on and violated, and you are actually
think that a few cosmetic changes will make a difference?
There will be no debate, and you know it. But I suppose that while you are wealthy and
safe from economic deprivation, who cares if the NSA tramples on the freedoms of common people,
all in defense of the ultra-rich, right?
KilgoreTrout2012, 23 May 2014 12:14pm
"NSA has collected records on every phone call made by every American (it gathers the who,
what and when of the calls, known as metadata, but not the content), as well as email data."
I don't buy it's just metadata, since the US and are allies have the technology to do so, the
content is also being "saved". Most likely US "content" is collected in Great Britain to give
the NSA plausible deniability that they are not collecting content. And the US probably has Great
Britain's "content".
The NSA may not have the technology to truly read all that data today but someday it will all
be collated, analyzed, and used to put each citizen into national security classifications. Your
travel, jobs prospects, etc. will be limited based on where you fall in their assessments.
guest88888 -> KilgoreTrout2012, 24 May 2014 3:34am
I don't buy it's just metadata,
Of course I agree with you sentiment that the US and its cronies are lying through their teeth
about everything, but I want to point out that metadata collection is far more intrusive than
just regular wiretapping.
Greenwald gave a great example. To paraphrase:
If I call an AIDS clinic, and you monitor the content of my call, I may never bring up the
actual disease in most of my conversations. I might say, let's meet at this time, or book an appointment,
or make small talk etc.
But, if you have the metadata, you can know that I've been calling an AIDS clinic repeatedly.
You can know where I'm calling from. You can find out where I've been getting meds (from the pharmacy).
In short, you can rapidly figure out if I have AIDS, what I'm doing about it, even how I may
have got it. Much easier with metadata than simple wire-tappping.
Not that much analysis needed, since you need much less data.
AhBrightWings, 23 May 2014 12:35pm
Recommend: 16
Not sure I agree that the debate has been "more limited" in Great Britain. The Guardian is,
after all, a British publication and it has had ten times (conservatively) more coverage than
any other journal I know of, and continued congratulations for doing so.
The problem in the US is that we can't get any traction on the revelations that kicks over
into judicial action to end this crime spree. Congress is ossified, the populace is mummified,
and so we march on, becoming the United States of Zombieland, where the only signs of sentient
life are in the MIC and its many tentacles and claws.
Snowden's sacrifice and Greenwald's work only have value if people wake up and use what we've
learned. The mystery is what we are all waiting for. The trajectory from UPS hold-ups to being
held-up in a cell is shorter--when things truly take a dire turn (and we may get lucky and they
may not, I fully concede that)--than many want to concede. The rise of every despot and tyrant
has illustrated that arc well. Why do we think we'll be the exception to that pattern?
Our exceptionalism appears to have blinded us in more ways than one.
Theodore McIntire, 23 May 2014 12:54pm
In addition to revealing how invasive and law/truth twisting big governments / organizations
(of any orientation and denomination) are likely to behave, the Snowden revelations also showed
how much the media and public are/were disengaged from reality and blindly trusting of big governments
/ organizations.
Except for those poor souls who live in fear or live off the fear of others... They are very afraid
and angry about the Snowden revelations and any other disruptions to their fear based animal herd
behavior.
CraigSummers, 23 May 2014 1:32pm
Mr. Sands
I find it interesting that you don't mention even once in your review the potential ramifications
of compromising US intelligence. This is an extremely important consideration in the debate (at
least to some concerned citizens). In addition, the released information goes far beyond civil
liberties in many instances. One can certainly question the motives of Greenwald. Greenwald has
a body of written work from Salon, the Guardian and others which indicate he was not motivated
entirely by a debate about "privacy" and civil liberties.
The release of information that the NSA spied on universities in Hong Kong coincided with Snowden's
arrival in the special administrative region of the People's Republic of China. This was hardly
a coincidence - and shows the level of planning used by Snowden before illegally stealing tens
of thousands of top secret documents.
".......The big issue at stake here is privacy, and the relationship between the individual
and the state, and it goes far beyond issues of legality (although Snowden's fear of arrest.......seems
rather real)...."
Jesus, ya think?
Leondeinos -> CraigSummers, 23 May 2014 4:26pm
The ramifications are simply that the NSA has been caught in its full incompetence and arrogance.
Snowden did the world a great favor. Greenwald's book is a good read that does expose and explore
those ramifications for the world.
The version of the Defense Intelligence Agency's assessment of damage done by Edward Snowden's
leaks released by the US (here on the Guardian website) contains no information about the potential
ramifications of compromising US intelligence. This "redacted" version consists 12 pages of blanks
out of a total of 39 pages in the original. What you see is what you get. A year after Snowden's
revelations, it is a pathetic, contemptible defence of a vast waste of money, people, and diplomatic
reputation by the US government.
Breathtaking level of incompetence within NSA. Get some popcorn... Quote: "While the organization
built enormously high electronic barriers to keep out foreign invaders, it had rudimentary protections
against insiders."
WASHINGTON - Intelligence officials investigating how Edward J. Snowden gained access to a huge
trove of the country's most highly classified documents say they have determined that he used inexpensive
and widely available software to "scrape" the
National Security Agency's networks, and kept at it even after he was briefly challenged by agency
officials.
Using "web crawler" software designed to search, index and back up a website, Mr. Snowden "scraped
data out of our systems" while he went about his day job, according to a senior intelligence official.
"We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material
in sequence," the official said. The process, he added, was "quite automated."
The findings are striking because the N.S.A.'s mission includes protecting the nation's most sensitive
military and intelligence computer systems from cyberattacks, especially the sophisticated attacks
that emanate from Russia and China. Mr. Snowden's "insider attack," by contrast, was hardly sophisticated
and should have been easily detected, investigators found.
Moreover, Mr. Snowden succeeded nearly three years after the
WikiLeaks disclosures, in which military and State Department files, of far less sensitivity,
were taken using similar techniques.
Mr. Snowden had broad access to the N.S.A.'s complete files because he was working as a technology
contractor for the agency in Hawaii, helping to manage the agency's computer systems in an outpost
that focuses on China and North Korea. A web crawler, also called a spider, automatically moves from
website to website, following links embedded in each document, and can be programmed to copy everything
in its path.
Mr. Snowden appears to have set the parameters for the searches, including which subjects to look
for and how deeply to follow links to documents and other data on the N.S.A.'s internal networks.
Among the materials prominent in the Snowden files are the agency's shared "wikis," databases
to which intelligence analysts, operatives and others contributed their knowledge. Some of that material
indicates that Mr. Snowden "accessed" the documents. But experts say they may well have been downloaded
not by him but by the program acting on his behalf.
Agency officials insist that if Mr. Snowden had been working from N.S.A. headquarters at Fort
Meade, Md., which was equipped with monitors designed to detect when a huge volume of data was being
accessed and downloaded, he almost certainly would have been caught. But because he worked at an
agency outpost that had not yet been upgraded with modern security measures, his copying of what
the agency's newly appointed No. 2 officer, Rick Ledgett, recently called "the keys to the kingdom"
raised few alarms.
"Some place had to be last" in getting the security upgrade, said one official familiar with Mr.
Snowden's activities. But he added that Mr. Snowden's actions had been "challenged a few times."
In at least one instance when he was questioned, Mr. Snowden provided what were later described
to investigators as legitimate-sounding explanations for his activities: As a systems administrator
he was responsible for conducting routine network maintenance. That could include backing up the
computer systems and moving information to local servers, investigators were told.
But from his first days working as a contractor inside the N.S.A.'s aging underground Oahu facility
for Dell, the computer maker, and then at a modern office building on the island for Booz Allen Hamilton,
the technology consulting firm that sells and operates computer security services used by the government,
Mr. Snowden learned something critical about the N.S.A.'s culture: While the organization built enormously
high electronic barriers to keep out foreign invaders, it had rudimentary protections against insiders.
"Once you are inside the assumption is that you are supposed to be there, like in most organizations,"
said Richard Bejtlich, the chief security strategist for FireEye, a Silicon Valley computer security
firm, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "But that doesn't explain why they weren't
more vigilant about excessive activity in the system."
Investigators have yet to answer the question of whether Mr. Snowden happened into an ill-defended
outpost of the N.S.A. or sought a job there because he knew it had yet to install the security upgrades
that might have stopped him.
"He was either very lucky or very strategic," one intelligence official said. A new book, "The
Snowden Files," by Luke Harding, a correspondent for The Guardian in London, reports that Mr. Snowden
sought his job at Booz Allen because "to get access to a final tranche of documents" he needed "greater
security privileges than he enjoyed in his position at Dell."
Through his lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Snowden did not specifically
address the government's theory of how he obtained the files, saying in a statement: "It's ironic
that officials are giving classified information to journalists in an effort to discredit me
for giving classified information to journalists. The difference is that I did so to inform
the public about the government's actions, and they're doing so to misinform the public about
mine."
The headquarters of Booz Allen Hamilton, one of Edward J. Snowden's
former employers, in McLean, Va. He had broad access to National Security Agency files as a
contractor in Hawaii. Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency
The N.S.A. declined to comment on its investigation or the security changes it has made since
the Snowden disclosures. Other intelligence officials familiar with the findings of the investigations
under way - there are at least four - were granted anonymity to discuss the investigations.
In interviews, officials declined to say which web crawler Mr. Snowden had used, or whether he
had written some of the software himself. Officials said it functioned like Googlebot, a widely used
web crawler that Google developed to find and index new pages on the web. What officials cannot explain
is why the presence of such software in a highly classified system was not an obvious tip-off to
unauthorized activity.
When inserted with Mr. Snowden's passwords, the web crawler became especially powerful. Investigators
determined he probably had also made use of the passwords of some colleagues or supervisors.
But he was also aided by a culture within the N.S.A., officials say, that "compartmented"
relatively little information. As a result, a 29-year-old computer engineer, working from a
World War II-era tunnel oOahu and then from downtown Honolulu, had access to unencrypted files that
dealt with information as varied as the bulk collection of domestic phone numbers and the intercepted
communications of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and dozens of other leaders.
Officials say web crawlers are almost never used on the N.S.A.'s internal systems, making
it all the more inexplicable that the one used by Mr. Snowden did not set off alarms as it copied
intelligence and military documents stored in the N.S.A.'s systems and linked through the agency's
internal equivalent of Wikipedia.
The answer, officials and outside experts say, is that no one was looking inside the system in
Hawaii for hard-to-explain activity. "The N.S.A. had the solution to this problem in hand, but they
simply didn't push it out fast enough," said James Lewis, a computer expert at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies who has talked extensively with intelligence officials about how the Snowden
experience could have been avoided.
Nonetheless, the government had warning that it was vulnerable to such attacks. Similar techniques
were used by Chelsea Manning, then known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was convicted of turning documents
and videos over to WikiLeaks in 2010.
Evidence presented during Private Manning's court-martial for his role as the source for large
archives of military and diplomatic files given to WikiLeaks revealed that he had used a program
called "wget" to download the batches of files. That program automates the retrieval of large numbers
of files, but it is considered less powerful than the tool Mr. Snowden used.
The program's use prompted changes in how secret information is handled at the State Department,
the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, but recent assessments suggest that those changes may
not have gone far enough. For example, arguments have broken out about whether the N.S.A.'s data
should all be encrypted "at rest" - when it is stored in servers - to make it harder to search and
steal. But that would also make it harder to retrieve for legitimate purposes.
Investigators have found no evidence that Mr. Snowden's searches were directed by a foreign power,
despite suggestions to that effect by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative
Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, in recent television appearances and at a hearing last week.
But that leaves open the question of how Mr. Snowden chose the search terms to obtain his trove
of documents, and why, according to James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence,
they yielded a disproportionately large number of documents detailing American military movements,
preparations and abilities around the world.
In his statement, Mr. Snowden denied any deliberate effort to gain access to any military information.
"They rely on a baseless premise, which is that I was after military information," Mr. Snowden said.
The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, told lawmakers last week
that Mr. Snowden's disclosures could tip off adversaries to American military tactics and operations,
and force the Pentagon to spend vast sums to safeguard against that. But he admitted a great deal
of uncertainty about what Mr. Snowden possessed.
"Everything that he touched, we assume that he took," said General Flynn, including details of
how the military tracks terrorists, of enemies' vulnerabilities and of American defenses against
improvised explosive devices. He added, "We assume the worst case."
Edward Snowden,
the whistleblower who prompted a worldwide debate when he leaked a cache of top secret documents
about US and UK spying, has recorded a Christmas Day television message in which he calls for an
end to the mass surveillance
revealed by his disclosures.
The short film was recorded for
Channel 4, which has 20-year
history of providing unusual but relevant figures as an alternative to the Queen's Christmas message
shown by other UK broadcasters. It will be Snowden's first television appearance since arriving in
Moscow.
The address, to be broadcast at 4.15pm on Christmas Day, was filmed in
Russia – where Snowden is living
after being granted temporary asylum – by Laura Poitras, a film-maker who has closely collaborated
with him on the NSA stories.
In excerpts from the address released by Channel 4, Snowden says George Orwell "warned us of the
danger of this kind of information" in his dystopian novel, 1984.
Snowden says: "The types of collection in the book – microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch
us – are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that track
us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the
privacy of the average person.
"A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what
it means to have a private moment to themselves an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that's a problem
because privacy matters; privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be."
Snowden says: "The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place
both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. Together we can find
a better balance, end mass surveillance and remind the government that if it really wants to know
how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying."
The latter comment
echoes a sentiment expressed by Snowden during a series of interviews in Moscow with the
Washington Post, another paper that
has carried revelations based on documents leaked by him. In this, Snowden said the effect of his
actions had meant that "the mission's already accomplished".
In the newspaper interview, he added: "I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to
work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to
change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.
"All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed."
The bloke next door is a facist, granted, but was the only f***er to give a damn when Snowden
was on the run.
Europe as one big block refused him asylum, a very shamefull event.
The only country with the courage to say b**ll**ks to the US and its undercover cronies, was
Russia, like it or not.
Do you read at all?
hollywoodvine66 -> Morat
Think about the United States of America have military bases in 130 Nations around the world
including almost every European country . The United States of America is a Empire and only China
and Russia have the balls to stand up to them. I would love it if Europe offered Snowden asylum
but that's not going to happen.
photosymbiont -> asilly
Snowden has no aspirations to hero-hood. In fact, people who rely on heroes are just too lazy
or frightened to do the difficult work themselves. Basically, Snowden said the public deserved
the right to an informed debate on what the NSA was actually up to, since he knew they were lying
to the public about the true nature of their activities. So now we can have that debate, can't
we?
Of course people who've been paying attention knew that the NSA was up to this kind of thing,
look back at the Mark Klein revelations about the NARUS splitters installed at key fiber optic
cables within the United States back in 2005, which allowed the NSA to collect all domestic traffic
using "general warrants" in violation of the 4th amendment to the US Constitution.
Remember, everyone who works for the U.S. government takes an oath to uphold the Constitution
first and foremost - so Snowden was just doing his job. That doesn't make him a hero - but does
make all those who went along with the NSA program guilty of dereliction of duty.
The Constitution is not "just a piece of paper."
OurPlanet
Amazing how people go straight away for the ego button. Everybody has an ego , including those
who have obviously abused theirs, like those who run the NSA , GHSQ , Cameron, Obama ad nauseum.
People like Snowden do not seek any accolades like our so- called elected politicians who have
their own self serving agendas.
IronCurtain
is the NSA paying people to come on these message boards and bang out the Party Line?
he's a traitor, hes a Republican, he's and ego maniac.
The guy has exposed the dangerous hypocrisy at the heart of the US & UK Governments, for all
their pontificating about Freedom & Liberty they have created the most intrusive and all encompassing
surveillance infrastructure in human history, all done in secrecy, without meaningful oversight
and meant to give them the capability to spy on EVERYONE, the Guy is a fucking hero as far as
im concerned,
RabidMale
Maybe because there is SO much electronic information flying about via voice, computer, Tv,
Radio etc etc, by the very fact it CAN be monitored, it is. A strange logic, but the shear abundance
of info spread real time and the speed that which reaction can be rallied into huge movements
quickly is probably instilling huge paranoia. All states are probably fearful of others getting
the upper hand and not having a finger on the zeitgeist. The more we spread, the more we will
be listened to. Fight it? Get rid of mobiles, email, web usage and talk and use carrier pigeons!
John Nagel
Perhaps Snowden thinks that the mission is accomplished, but | beg to differ.
Because today, our entire bodies are SIGINT, with technological innovation meaning that even
our brains are subject to unregulated monitoring, surveillance and manipulation using psychotronic
weaponry (considered a WMD).
A human rights complaint will be filed in 2014 before the Organization of American States Human
Rights Commission, alledging electronic torture and enslavement by the Obama administration of
an American civilian due to his knowledge of the administration's organized crime ties.
In a world increasingly jam-packed with walking dead or solely intent on consuming and being
consumed by the frivolous, this man provides a breath of fresh air.
Those with their head in the sand and their arses in the air will no doubt have a Happy Christmas
anyway, and in their own way.
It's hard work constantly distinguishing between the artificial and the vital, as far as human
dignity is concerned, because the pressures of oppression are relentless.
Thanks Mr Snowden, and may the new year keep you out of harm's way.
Mmmoke -> veroniquksvackra
What the UK gendarmes did when they invaded the Guardian's offices with instructions from the
NSA, and SMASHED Hard Drives, Laptops and other material is pure NAZISM. That is the New World
Order. Thanks NSA.
PetrusAlazar
Snowden should never receive a Nobel Prize. It has been degraded since Obama had it.
Instead, I suggest the creation of a new prize, funded with donations from people on the internet.
The most suitable name would be: FRODO PRIZE.
Anyway, haven't the "Big Eye" and the "Palantiri" been exposed?
Only that the destruction of this "Sauronic" evil can only be carried out by the peoples of
the world and not Snowden.
RaphNZ
Dear Edward,
I cannot thank you enough, honestly from the bottom of my heart, you have done a great service
to humanity as a whole! Many of us have known for a long time where things were going but thanks
to you now we know where they are already.
You are honestly & obviously the bravest man that has worked for the NSA. I hope you inspire
generations of others to put the Constitution of the United States first when working for the
US Government or military.
I too am away from my family at Christmas but could fly home tomorrow if I felt like it, however
I feel a little of how you must also feel. I hope your family is as proud of your sacrifice as
so many of us here are.
As the world celebrates and families meet together many will be talking of the revelations
that have been released due to you having conscience, their thoughts will be varied and mixed
but they will be talking of something they would not have otherwise. This is thanks to you.
Generations of thinkers will know your name, although I'm sure you did not want that, you deserve
the thanks of all generations to come as we fight for what is right.
Again my thanks, peace and Merry Xmas!
Raph
PuWeiTa
Snowden has done his part. It is now up to the rest of us to decide what we want our society
to be.
If we like it the way it has been, then silly Snowden for sticking his neck out and for nothing.
But that was the chance he took.
If we like a change - oh well!!!!
We in the US wanted to vote those scumbags out for many many election cycles now. Yet the approval
rating of Congress has been dropping election after election.
But "I like the scumbag in my district", "it is the scumbags elsewhere I want out".
You see, that's the way "they" got us!
Your next Christmas present will be dropped at your door step by a drone. Year after that?
It will be dropped at your foot step - wherever you are, whatever you're doing! The person who
gives you the gift has only to spend the money - "they" already know what you want, your size
and your color preference. Neato! This doesn't even involve NSA!
The verdict is already out as to what we want collectively!
Btw, if you use RSA to email it only attracts attention.
"A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all."
.
Once people accepted big, centralized government into their lives... they gave up their privacy
and that happened long, long ago.
.
I will quote a politician from 70 years ago:
No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could
afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would
have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.
And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it
would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately
pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer
civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk – the common people, as they like to call them
in America – where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?"
Need I identify the man who said this?
.
Snowden, you ran.
dleung
Ed Snowden, you are nothing short of a hero. No matter what may happen to you, no matter what
people believe from propaganda, you have done the country, and the world, a huge service. Thank
you for giving up everything and everyone you love in your life in order to give us the chance
of claiming back the subtle parameters which define who we are.
banthem
The guy shows to the other world, what is great about America and Americans even now, besides
science and technologies - personal freedom, not bombs.
PetrusAlazar
Those who blame Snowden cannot be aware of the kind of power involved in this.
Never has the world been closer to a form of absolute power than now. It means political, economical,
social power. And more...
If you don't know how much absolute power corrupts, you know really little, but the first Roman
Emperors can give you an idea.
Some will say: "But the western civilisation is a good one". Come off it! Do you really think
that a Nixon, a Franco, a Salazar, a Hitler and the likes or worse are not possible? Not to mention
eastern mass murderers, for if the techonology exists it is likely to spread and advance.
armado
How many companies are tracking us on this very website, please?
banthem armado
Everyone of them.
"Competition".
modreef
Welcome to the free West.
BigBear63
It's always amusing to read comments from the anti-whistlebower camp. One has to question their
motives. What can be so wrong with revealing that our security services are spying on us, not
because something terrible may happen, but because they simply can?
Are they apathetic? Resided to government intrusion for whatever reason a politician or civil
servant deems appropriate.
Are they pro-intrusion? Believing surveillance of everyone is essential to protect everyone.
Are they content in their ignorance, which, when removed, increases their fear and anxiety,
irrational or not?
Are they concerned about this particular case because there is a potential for some severe
consequences. Agents in the field being killed, terrorists foiling our defences, our security
networks being crippled?
Are they members of the establishment, political class, or security services, simply supporting
what they do for a job, or countenance in our name?
I've no idea which of these motives predominates with the anti-Snowdon brigade. In my mind
nothing justifies unfettered access to anyone's private life unless it can be justified. But who
decides what is justified? We need to decide who we are happy to have that power. Do they need
strong oversight? How can we be sure the information gathered will never be used nefariously or
for illegal purposes? Until these questions are addressed, I for one, would rather have guys like
Snowdon around than some, so called, patriotic zealots.
ECUADOR has asked the Kremlin for talks over the fate of fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward
Snowden, a Russian state-owned broadcaster says.
Snowden, who is believed to be holed up in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport,
has applied for asylum in the South American country.
He flew to Russia from Hong Kong last Sunday.
Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino made the request, Rossiya 24 reported.
Ecuador has said Snowden would need to be on the country's territory to be granted refugee status.
But experts say this could also include the Ecuador embassy in Moscow.
To get there, the US citizen would have to pass through Russian border controls.
US authorities, however, have cancelled Snowden's passport and are demanding his extradition from
Russia.
Russian parliamentary foreign affairs committee chairman Alexei Pushkov called the case "tragic".
"The idealist Snowden was apparently convinced that it would be like in a Hollywood movie: he
would blow the whistle, and democracy would prevail," he wrote on Twitter. "But life and the US are
harder."
And just in case there were any doubts of what Ecuador was telling the Obama Administration, the
nation's Communications Secretary, Fernando Alvarado, announced $23 million in Ecuadoran aid
to the United States to provide "human rights training" to combat torture, illegal executions and
"attacks on peoples' privacy."
Strange how Edward Snowden seems not to appreciate being safe, protected by Vladimir Putin
from being jailed and tortured in America
Instead he is acting like a spoiled American kid, shopping for a different amusement park for
himself ... he seems to be playing games with both the media and with governments
The financially-troubled UK Guardian is devious too ... Guardian desperate for funds and are
trying to stretch out the Snowden story to sell more Google ads on their website
If real, Snowden should dump and publish everything he was intending to publish, so that is
behind him and accomplished ... and then thank God and Putin for his safe refuge ... and start
a new life, speaking Russian, drinking good vodka and meeting Russian girls
---
Guidelines for Edward Snowden and Anyone Escaping from the USA Seeking Asylum
(1) Recognise that it is basically difficult, and in general, no country wants any asylum seekers
from anywhere, aside from
(a) High-profile political defections in the case of current conflict with an adversary
(b) Countries like the US that have had somewhat 'easy' asylum as a back-door way of allowing
immigration, in order to increase the labour pool, depress worker wages, and increase the number
of citizens who are politically docile
(2) There is nothing special about an oppressive country or a tinpot dictatorship. Maybe half
the countries in the world or more, are oppressive to some groups, and there are at least a billion
people who would like to escape to more freedom. Therefore, US oppressed people ... welcome to
the club along with tens of millions of Africans etc. You are just like them now, not 'more special'
than them because it is the US dictatorship oppressing you.
(3) Especially, almost no one desires asylum seekers from the US because of
(a) Hostility and revenge by the US government
(b) Now that the US is a tinpot dictatorship, the number of oppressed, wrongfully accused
etc US citizens who would want asylum could be a million or more, and no one wants to be flooded
with arriving upset Americans
(c) The traditional arrogance of Americans, seen when they travel, they tend to feel they
are 'exceptional', a 'chosen people', 'special' ... they tend to have an attitude of arrogance
toward other cultures, wanting things 'their way' rather than trying to fit in
(4) What is really crazy is to treat 'asylum' as if picking restaurants to visit. Countries
do not want to go out of their way to 'invite' asylum candidates from 3rd countries who are 'shopping'.
This goes double if you are from the USA.
(5) As an asylum seeker, you should take the attitude of some poor Asian or African ... you
are lucky to be in a place where you are not imprisoned, tortured, or facing a fake political
trial. Be grateful, and try to adjust to where you are. Do not be arrogant with your hosts or
imagine you can be 'shopping' for a place you like better. Thank God you are not in US custody.
(6) A lot of traditional asylum avenues are secretly or openly closed to USA victims.
Canada is now a US poodle, it is not like in Pierre Trudeau's day accepting Vietnam War objectors.
They give asylum seekers back to the US. Ditto the UK. And organisations like Amnesty International
have a secret deal with the US, to not help USA victims, so they can get CIA and US-based funding.
There is little 'help' out there
(7) Countries have in fact accepted US asylum seekers who have already arrived in certain places,
but basically quietly and without fanfare, trying to avoid openly provoking the US bully ... and
the media and Google Inc also co-operate in hiding the fact these events are occurring. Papers
are given using various 'cover' mechanisms (employment etc) rather than open direct political
asylum. A big media storm changes the game, however, and makes this more difficult.
(8) The basic strategy for an American asylum seeker is to arrive and already be in a place
where you will, in practice, be difficult to dislodge by legal means, because the local legal
system has enough integrity and independence, to not ship you back to the USA. In retrospect,
for Edward Snowden, France or Italy might actually have been the best choice - but only if Snowden
was there already.
(9) The whole thing with Julian Assange in Britain, fearing extradition to the US from
Sweden, never made any sense at all. Not because Sweden would not do it, but because Britain
itself has a special 'easy extradition' treaty with the USA, requiring little or no evidence.
When Assange was roaming around the UK, in fancy rich people's houses, before being in the Ecuador
embassy, the US could have asked the UK to grab Assange and ship him out, easier than with any
other country in the world. Something seems fishy.
(10) You are not even safe when you think you are safe - Refugee from US, wanted on criminal
charges for 'illegally' playing chess in a country targeted by US sanctions (!), the anti-Zionist
Jew Bobby Fischer, finally got refuge in Iceland after being jailed for a time in Japan. Shortly
afterwards, Fischer was mysteriously dead, perhaps a victim of assassination by CIA-Mossad medical
disease spray. Iceland is a Nato country where Nato and CIA agents can roam freely. The CIA has
admitted that Western Europe is the only sector of the planet they hesitate to kill people - but
they still do it here. A country like Russia or China or Cuba, where CIA agents cannot roam freely
or hire assassins, is probably best from a securiy viewpoint
(11) Recommendations for Mr Snowden, if you are genuine: Be grateful for Russian hospitality,
do not insult the only people who may be keeping you alive and out of prison. Be cautious about
Assange and Wikileaks, and the sometimes highly-corrupt UK Guardian. Stop playing teasing media
games with the Guardian, to draw out your leaks so they can sell Google Ads - the Guardian is
desperate for cash. Instead, dump and publish everything you were going to publish, right now,
leaving aside only your 'insurance' part to help keep you alive, and thus you can satisfy Mr Putin's
condition about not causing more international problems for him. You are in Russia and Putin says
you can stay. Thank him, profusely. Take a few quiet weeks, start learning Russian, maybe drink
some Green Label Russian vodka with some attractive female Russian FSB agents. Calm down in safety.
After a few weeks, as the media storm rolls over and dissipates, you will have wiser perspective,
and can start your new life. You have a new home, treat it with respect. Many Russians are great
people. Living there, working there, and still being free 5 years from now when maybe the US empire
collapses, will be a great triumph.
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Tue, 07/02/2013 - 09:30 | 3713565 ziggy59
The inmates are truly running this asylum....
Lets_Eat_Ben
The Snowden revelations have not failed. If you were expecting the world to change the day
the Telegraph published the disclosure, you may be disappointed with the lack of meaningful change.
But, that's not how things work.
The world doesn't change in a day in drastic and obvious ways. Rather, it's a process that
takes time. I like to think of applying a consistent and unrelenting pressure that weighs on a
thing, and over some time, can truly change the world.
Snoweden didn't initiate the pressure, he simply increased it, just as all the attention and
public outcry he sparked have done; just as all the other recent whistleblowers have done and
all the future whistleblowers will do, and just as we do here.
Don't get discouraged. Keep applying pressure. As it continues to build, change will come.
The established power will give, inch by inch (just as they incrementally take) like a pressure
relief valve, so the whole machine doesn't explode. Either way we win, and the oppression of our
age will be lifted.
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Tue, 07/02/2013 - 09:43 | 3713641 Temporalist
The debate provoked by Edward
Snowden's revelations
is drawing new battle lines in American politics, and redefining the image of the US in the eyes
of the world. As Snowden's personal fate, and his dramatic hegira from a Hawaiian paradise to the
world's drabbest airport, captures the narrative, we hear complaints from some of his defenders
and sympathizers that all this is
getting in the way of the revelations themselves. This is true in the very narrow sense that
when we are discussing Snowden the person, we can't simultaneously discuss the
system of globalized surveillance he unveiled. Yet this misses the point, one made by Glenn Greenwald,
the Guardian reporter who broke the NSA story.
In a
speech he gave the other day to a conference put on by the International Socialist Organization
(ISO), Greenwald spoke for the first time in personal terms, and his account of how the story came
to be and what Snowden is like as a human being is fascinating – and essential to understanding these
events and the controversy they have provoked.
The process of interacting with and finally meeting Snowden in Hong Kong went on over months,
and Greenwald tells us he began to visualize a mental picture of his source: older, a CIA officer
nearing the end of his career and his life who'd had an attack of conscience as he prepared to meet
his Maker. Greenwald was shocked to discover the most significant whistleblower in American history
was a
not yet 30-year-old who looked younger. Faced with a moral conundrum – should he break the biggest
story of the decade at the price of irrevocably destroying someone's life? – Greenwald wanted to
understand what motivated Snowden. They spent many hours together, with ex-litigator Greenwald grilling
him not only about the documents in his possession and their significance but also about what motivated
Snowden to end a near paradisiacal existence in Hawaii with his
hot girlfriend
making
$122,000 a year:
"The more I spoke with him about it, the more I understood, and the more overwhelmed I became
and the more of a formative experience it had for me and will have for the rest of my life because
what he told me over and over in different ways – and it was so pure and passionate that I never
doubted its authenticity for a moment – is that there is more to life than material comfort or career
stability or trying to simply prolong your life as long possible. What he continuously told me is
he judged his life not by the things he thought about himself but by the actions he took in pursuit
of those beliefs."
Pundits left and right denounce the "traitor"
Snowden as a "narcissist,"
yet people like David Brooks deliberately
conflate narcissism with individualism, and "selfishness" with independence of mind. More to
life than material comfort or career stability? No narcissist would ever say such a thing. A true
narcissist is a moral nihilist for whom the existence of other people, let alone the principle
enshrined by the Constitution, is irrelevant. Far from caring only about his own physical survival,
here was somebody, as Greenwald points out, about "to throw all that away and become an instant fugitive
and somebody who would probably spend the rest of their life in a cage." Why did he do it?
"When I asked him how he got himself to the point where he was willing to take the risk that
he knew he was taking, he told me that he for a long time had been looking for a leader, somebody
who would come and fix these problems. And then one day he realized there's no point in waiting for
a leader, that leadership is about going first and setting and example for others. What he ultimately
said was he simply didn't want to live in a world where the United States government was permitted
to engage in these extraordinary invasions, to build a system that had as its goal the destruction
of all individual privacy, that he didn't want to live in a world like that and that he could not
in good conscience stand by and allow that to happen knowing that he had the power to help stop it."
Greenwald, clearly inspired by Snowden, has been
a wonder to behold as he takes on the Powers That Be and
brushes off a smear campaign aimed at him personally the way one would swat a gnat. It was, he
explains, a life-transforming event not only to break this important story but to interact and learn
from the person who made it possible. As he puts it:
"What I actually started to realize about all this is two things. Number one, courage is contagious.
If you take a courageous step as an individual, you will literally change the world because you will
affect all sorts of people in your immediate vicinity, who will then affect others and then affect
others. You should never doubt your ability to change the world. The other thing that I realized
is it doesn't matter who you are as an individual or how formidable or powerful the institutions
that you want to challenge are. Mr. Snowden is a high school dropout. His parents work for the federal
government. He grew up in a lower middle class environment in a military community in Virginia. He
ended up enlisting in the United States Army because he thought the Iraq War at first was noble.
He then did the same with the NSA and the CIA because he thought those institutions were noble. He's
a person who has zero privilege, zero power, zero position and zero prestige and yet he by himself
has literally changed the world."
What can one person do? This is the question that bedevils us all as we discover with a jolt how
far along we are on the road to serfdom. After all, don't we have elected representatives to deal
with this sort of thing, and judges, too, all of whom have sworn to uphold the Constitution?
Snowden has brought us face to face with the reality that these institutions have failed. Indeed,
they are complicit in the de facto repeal of the Fourth Amendment, with the secret FISA "court"
rubberstamping government demands for access to
virtually
all
online content and
telephony passing through the US, and
Congress
making this possible by amending the original legislation to legalize what the Bush administration
had already been doing.
And these same people accuse Snowden of violating his "oath"!
Courage is contagious – and that accounts for the tremendous support Snowden has gotten,
even in the face of an all-out government-media assault on him. That's why the
White House petition to pardon him is the
most successful petition in the entire history of that Obamaite publicity stunt, outdoing even
the one demanding the deportation of Piers Morgan.
After the anti-Morgan effort reached the 25,000 signature threshold in a week, the White House
quadrupled the number requiring a White House response. Yet the day after the NSA story broke, a
White House petition acclaiming Snowden a "national hero" and demanding his pardon was posted and
garnered a record number of signatures, breaking the 100,000 barrier in a little under a week. (Go
here to see a graphical analysis.) With screams of "Traitor!"
and calls not only for Snowden's prosecution but for the
prosecution
of Greenwald filling the airwaves – and coming from both sides of the political spectrum – this
overwhelming show of support is unprecedented, and quite telling.
Because what it tells us is that the American people aren't mired in apathy and paralyzed
by a sense of their own powerlessness: like Snowden, they don't want to live in a world in which
the government has the power to watch their every move, chart their every thought, and control the
very levers of their lives. They are
contemptuous of the smear campaign being launched against Snowden and Greenwald, and they are
demanding answers.
That the White House petition procedure was phony from the very beginning was obvious even to
the most cynical Democratic party hack: the most
"accessible," "inclusive,"
and "transparent" administration in our history is, in reality, the most arrogant, exclusive,
opaque regime since the fall of the Soviet Union. But as the former community organizer who became
President no doubt remembers, one of Saul Alinsky's "rules
for radicals" is to turn the institutions and "democratic" pretenses of the Powers That Be against
the very interests they are supposed to protect, and that is precisely what the anonymous person
who started the White House petition has done quite successfully.
There, again, we see dramatized the lesson of not waiting for "leadership," of taking the initiative
and using one's power as an individual to effect change – a principle that will be demonstrated again
and again as this fight unfolds.
The White House petition passed 100,000 signatures over a week ago – yet still no response from
the White House, where government officials are coming up with all kinds of excuses for the official
silence. (See
here, where, in a rare mention of the petition, the headline of an ABC News story says "Petition
to Pardon Snowden to Receive White House Response," while the actual story says no such thing.) After
being
rebuffed by the Chinese and the Russians over Snowden's fate, and
rebuked by our European allies for breaking into their computers, a Snowden-inspired popular
rebellion on the home front is perhaps more than they can bear to acknowledge.
The breadth of this movement is impressive. For even as Greenwald spoke before a cheering crowd
at a conference convoked in celebration of socialism, he was holding up as an exemplar of principled
courage a man whose own politics are much closer to
Ron Paul than Karl Marx. Snowden made
two contributions totaling $500 to Paul's 2010 presidential campaign and, more significantly,
his own rhetoric recalls
Paul's libertarian
imprecations against the Leviathan State. The lawyer retained by Snowden's father to represent
his son's interests,
Bruce Fein, a
former associate deputy attorney general during the Reagan administration, is a prominent
supporter of the Paul organization.
Whether this broad movement, which transcends the arbitrary limits of "left" and "right," has
the depth to succeed, and mobilize millions behind its banner, remains to be see. But one thing I
know is this: for the first time in a long time there's hope.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going
here. But please note that my tweets
are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out
loud.
I've written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse.
Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right:
The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof.
George W. Carey, a Foreword
by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by
Scott Richert and
David Gordon
(ISI
Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus
Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker,
here.
Why Innocent People Should Fear the NSA's PRISM Program
by
Thomas R. Eddlem,
July 01, 2013 The use of warrantless surveillance by the NSA has brought a wave of naïve statements
from a segment of Americans who claim they have nothing to fear from NSA surveillance of their
telephone calls and internet traffic because they've done nothing wrong.
Obviously, the NSA
and its employees are capable of using any violation of law to intimidate or blackmail a voter
or public official, such as the millions of Americans who have experimented with illegal drugs.
In fact, the past three Presidents –
Barack Obama,
George W. Bush and Bill
Clinton – would basically be ineligible for office on illegal drug use charges, based on their
own published statements. And as Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said in a June 24
op-ed
for USA Today, the three would be "barely employable" under our current drug
laws.
The NSA would also obviously be able to intimidate/blackmail anyone who has had an extra-marital
affair, which could be a corrupting influence on a future Bill Clinton in office.
But what if you, like many who have said in recent weeks, have not broken the law or engaged
in an extra-marital affair in recent years? What do you have to fear?
In fact, there's quite a bit to fear. Not everything embarrassing which can be used for blackmail
or intimidation requires that a person have serious moral failings or to have committed crimes.
In short, you have much to fear if you or anyone in your family have:
seen a psychiatrist or counselor;
a personal medical issue, such as cosmetic surgery, an eating disorder, take medication
related to erectile disfunction, bowel or urinary tract issues, warts, sexually transmitted
diseases, etc.;
had an abortion;
viewed pornography of any kind;
closeted homosexual views;
said anything negative about a friend, relative or boss behind their back;
experimented with alcohol under the legal age;
arguments between spouses, or between parents and children when passions are at their highest;
had financial difficulties, such as a bankruptcy or home foreclosure;
had poor grades in high school or college;
had employment difficulties, such as disciplinary letters in your file or have been fired.
The list could go on much longer, but the point is that even innocent people have many things
about their lives they do not want exposed.
And hundreds of thousands of people currently have access to this data. Consider that the NSA
employs an estimated
40,000 people. Add a percentage of that number to the many officials in other federal security
agencies (such as the CIA, FBI, DHS, U.S. Secret Service) and branches of the armed forces who
would have access to the information. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Consider that NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden didn't even work for the NSA; he was
employed by Booz Allen Hamilton, one of many technology subcontractors hired by the NSA. Tens
of thousands of people who don't even work for the federal government, who instead work for private
contractors, also have access to the information.
Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of government officials and private citizens would have access
to the private information on every American citizen, and have the potential to blackmail and
intimidate both innocent and guilty. All it would take is one – just one – of those several hundreds
of thousands of government employees and contractors to have a grudge against you, or against
an organization or political party you support.
Edward Snowden's revelations were a warning in a way that perhaps he did not intend. The takeaway
from the Snowden scandal is that the NSA is already incapable of keeping its data secret from
wayward employees. Snowden exposed this terrible power to the public, though he did so as a public
service. But suppose the next employee who leaks is not so publicly-minded. Suppose he sends the
personal files of leading Republican politicians to dirty Democratic Party operatives (or he's
a Republican ideologue who sends files on Democratic politicians to leading Tea Party organizations).
The potential for abuse of this private information is not limited to grand political conspiracies,
though the
IRS scandal targeting Tea Party organizations
is more than ample evidence that government
officials have and are doing this (as was Richard Nixon's
"enemies list"
and Watergate scandal).
Access to this data is available to people in many communities across the nation. What if a neighbor
has access to the data and bears a grudge against you, punishing you with a controlled leak of
embarrassing information about you or a family member throughout the neighborhood or to your employer?
Some people would say – despite the
IRS scandal – that
the cost and risk is worth it for increased safety from the threat of terrorism. But is the United
States really safer by searching the phone records of grandmothers and corn farmers? The Fourth
Amendment – which bans warrantless searches of the type in which the NSA is engaging – should
be seen as a guideline for effective police and intelligence work.
The Fourth
Amendment bans "unreasonable searches and seizures," and then defines what is meant by unreasonable:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
In essence, the Fourth Amendment requires that searches have 1. a warrant from a judge, 2.
evidence of probable cause, 3. the warrant signed by an official under the penalties of perjury,
and 4. the warrant describes what officials are looking for and where they expect to find it.
Searches without probable cause are – by definition – searches of people who are probably innocent.
And that's a tremendous waste of law enforcement/intelligence manpower and resources.
Perhaps the best example of this is the case of the Boston Marathon Bombing. Alleged Boston
Marathon Bombers Tamerlin and Dzhokar Tsarnaev had been under the watchful gaze of the FBI in
the years before the bombing, but the FBI did not devote sufficient resources to surveillance
of these brothers, despite Tamerlin's increasingly radical rhetoric on-line. FBI surveillance
of these likely suspects, despite
diplomatic communication from Russia that they could be Islamic terrorists, was met by the
wall of limited resources … tens of billions of dollars in resources that had been diverted to
watching hundreds of millions of Americans who are not terrorists. The FBI simply didn't have
the manpower to watch likely suspects because the NSA was spending that money checking up on unlikely
suspects, like cataloging and storing your mom's emails and GPS data about her trip to the grocery
store.
The question for Americans is not whether the the government can check up on all possibilities;
that kind of analysis could never happen in a world of limited resources. The question is where
anti-terrorism resources are best directed. The Fourth Amendment at least guarantees that tax
dollars for preventing terrorism will be spent effectively, i.e., toward people where there is
"probable cause" of criminality, while at the same time preventing the horrific kind of surveillance
state that once plagued East Germany.
Daniel Ellsberg, author of
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, discusses Bradley Manning's selective
leaks that informed the public of criminal government behavior without endangering lives; Edward
Snowden's bravery in the face of Obama's unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers; why it's safe
to assume the NSA records every single electronic communication; evidence that Robert McNamara kept
LBJ in the dark about the true nature of the Gulf of Tonkin incident; why Obama persisted with an
Afghan "surge" despite knowing it couldn't work; and the psychology of government secrecy.
Scott Horton: All right, y'all. Welcome back to the show. It's the Scott Horton
Show. I'm him. Scotthorton.org is my website. I keep all my interview archives there, more than 2800
of them now, going back to 2003. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at /scotthortonshow.
And our next guest on the show today is the American hero, Daniel Ellsberg, liberator of the Pentagon
Papers, subject of the excellent documentary
The Most Dangerous Man in America,
author of the book
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, which is so important, and you can read
Chapter One for free online if you just google around a little bit, all about his first day on
the job at the Pentagon in a certain position anyway, the day of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and
a very first-person account of what happened there. Incredible stuff. And then he writes all over
the place including for Truthdig,
where he did a great series on nuclear weapons, and he's an antiwar activist of many descriptions
and in many very important ways, courageous whistleblower and defender of courageous whistleblowers,
Daniel Ellsberg. Welcome back to the show, Dan. How are you?
Daniel Ellsberg: I'm fine. Thanks for such a warm introduction.
Scott Horton: Well, I love you. What am I going to do? Play it down? Come on.
Daniel Ellsberg: Right, okay. Now it's out in the open. Okay, great.
Scott Horton: Okay, good. So. Let's talk about the American hero, Bradley Manning.
He's halfway through a military trial right now. I don't know if you want to talk at all about, you
know, where we are in the court process so far, or just about Manning in general.
Daniel Ellsberg: You know, because of the Snowden revelations here I haven't
kept up as I should have, and will shortly, on the daily
transcripts
of that trial, so I'm not up on the very latest stuff on that. Have you been following it closely?
Scott Horton: I admit I've basically been keeping track through
Nathan Fuller and have not
read the transcripts myself either, but – although I could say that it seems as though the government's
case is not very strong and that the cross-examination by the defense attorney has been very effective
at undermining quite a few of the government's claims and in basically setting up the informant Adrian
Lamo to admit that there was nothing nefarious here, the kid really meant well. There's just no doubt
about it.
Daniel Ellsberg: Okay. Very good. You know, it's the group that I'm associated
with on the board, the Freedom of the
Press Foundation, that gathered money, collected money in order for there to be a transcript
so it wouldn't be in effect a secret trial. So the transcripts are there. Now it's up to me to make
use of them. So thanks for that summary.
Scott Horton: Yeah. Well, and of course, thanks to
bradleymanning.org, Nathan Fuller, and
all those other guys. They're doing great work there attending the trial, and I'm sorry, I can't
remember the young woman's name who's done such great work on this.
Daniel Ellsberg: Yeah. Was making a transcript earlier which was all the press
had to work with.
Scott Horton: All right, now. You know, something really bothered me the other
day, and it was one of these TV jerks was interviewing Glenn Greenwald and he was saying, "Well,
now, so would you make the case then that this Snowden guy is somehow different and better than Bradley
Manning, who after all is considered a terrible villain by so many people." And so that is the conventional
wisdom. That's the consensus that everyone agrees, is that Bradley Manning actually is just a no-goodnik,
and even if he did mean well, just think of what a sin it was to indiscriminately dump so many documents.
I mean, they don't really have anything. That's the best that they have on him, I guess, but they
want us to all just really cheer for the state in its crusade against this young man. What's your
position on all that, Dan?
Daniel Ellsberg: You know, you don't see many national security whistleblowers
who are identified to the public. Most leakers of classified material are anonymous and stay anonymous.
So it's really a very small set of people whose names are known at all, and when they stick their
heads up, when they do make themselves known or become known, the media on the whole shows a very
puzzling willingness or determination to join the government in deprecating them, you know, and helping
smear them in many ways and focusing on their personal foibles or their sexual life, whatever. This
happened certainly with me, not so much on the sex. It so happens that Pat Buchanan and the White
House reached the conclusion that publicizing what they knew about my sex life would, quote, "only
increase his numbers." I was a bachelor at the time. So they chose not to use any of that. And they
don't seem to have anything on Snowden.
But, for example, I noticed, having just seen this I would say terrible film, We Steal Secrets
by Alex Gibney – rather incomprehensible why he made such a what I would call a bad film – but I
notice that no mention was made of – there was ample time given to the charges that were made that
Manning and Assange, before Manning's name was known, but that the source and Assange and WikiLeaks
might have blood on their hands, or did have blood on their hands. No mention made of the fact that
the Pentagon has repeatedly announced that they have no evidence of any blood resulting from these
revelations, which is kind of relevant to those charges.
You know the fact is that there was a problematic aspect, I would say – I don't call it a fact;
subjective here – but there was a problematic aspect, even my view initially, about Manning putting
out a lot of material that he hadn't read. That has a bad ring to it. How can he know whether it's
damaging or not? But you know, three years later, I've seen a lot of benefit come out from the cables
that might well not have been – that he might not have read, and that might well not have been published
by any one source, like the New York Times. For example, the corruption in Tunisia, which
led to Arab Spring, really, which led to the downfall of Ben Ali in Tunisia, led to the nonviolent
uprising against Mubarak. It's not at all clear that that would have come out if he had limited himself
to the relatively small fraction that he could have read. And on the other hand, no damage whatever.
I think we have to – I've changed my opinion on that, in other words.
Scott Horton: Well, you know –
Daniel Ellsberg: He did discriminate between what he did put out, which was only
– and I say this in his terms and mine, only Secret. It was not Top Secret, it was not communications
intelligence, to both of which he had access. Almost no one seems to realize that his daily work
involved communications intelligence higher than Top Secret and Top Secret material, none
of which he put out. So whether he should have or not, he was very discriminating in what he put
out, just as I was and just as Snowden is.
Scott Horton: Right.
Daniel Ellsberg: The public is – I don't know anyone who's made that simple point.
Scott Horton: Right. Well, you know, he has in his guilty plea to the facts on
the lesser charges –
Daniel Ellsberg: – finally in court when he made his statement. And I believe,
by the way, that to hear from him make a statement like that showing what he had put out and what
he had not put out, was one of his reasons for making that guilty plea. It was not part of a bargain.
It was puzzling to a lot of lawyers why you'd plead guilty to 10 out of 22 charges without any kind
of plea bargain, without getting anything back, but I think one of the reasons was to make that point
that he had selected what he had put out and felt that the material was only Secret, not even Limdis,
Nodis, Exdis – those are distributional restrictions that are put on things – that he presumed that
at most it would be embarrassing, and that it would not hurt security. That judgment seems to have
been vindicated; after three years, no evidence of damage.
And meanwhile I think his other reason was to say very clearly he had not been induced to do this
by WikiLeaks; the idea of a conspiracy there on the part of WikiLeaks was simply invalid and he wanted
to say that under oath as clearly as he could. Just as I did when I submitted to arrest, I took public
acknowledgement of all the facts that I had done, all the actions that I had done, so that I could
say, "I did this on my own. I didn't tell anyone who might otherwise be suspected of helping me.
They had no part in it." And that didn't relieve them of all suspicion, but it helped, I'm sure.
At least that's what I wanted to do. And Snowden has done the same. Snowden has taken advantage of
revealing himself to say that his partner, his girlfriend in Hawaii, did not know anything of what
he was doing, to try to relieve the pressure on her and on his family.
Scott Horton: Okay, well, and we're going to get back to him here in a few. But
let me ask you this. I've been making the case, and I guess I'm basically cribbing from Kevin Zeese,
the lawyer, on this, that Manning's mistreatment at Quantico, his being held for three years before
his court martial was even begun, and the fact that the president – I mean this to me is just the
icing on the cake even more than the abuse in prison I think – the president, the Secretary of Defense,
and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the three highest ranking people in the military chain
of command, all have pronounced Manning guilty. And it seems to me that any honest judge would have
to admit that that is a direct order to his judge to convict, and how else is she to possibly interpret
that? And so he must be set free, Dan. But, then again, I don't know. Am I going, you know, off the
reservation here? What do you think?
Daniel Ellsberg: No, you're absolutely right. He should be free on both counts,
just as my charges were dropped when it was revealed that Nixon's White House had taken steps against
me that were criminal and impeachable actually and figured in his impeachment proceedings and, as
the judge put it, "offends a sense of justice." Well, of course Manning's treatment has offended
a sense of justice. But when you say "must be set free," well, that position has been raised, all
of that has been raised, and the court, the judge decided that on the basis of his being held under
conditions that the UN Rapporteur for Torture regarded as at least cruel, inhumane treatment and
possibly torture, as a result of that they would take 112 days off of his sentence, which might be
a life sentence. So I suppose, you know, he gets three months off when he's in terminal conditions
of some kind.
But meanwhile, the treatment of him, and the pronouncements by everybody here, like – I'm talking
about Snowden now – have convinced Snowden, and I think very realistically, that if he wanted to
be able to tell the public what he had done and why he had done it and what his motives were and
what the patterns of criminality were in the material that he was releasing, it had to be outside
the United States. Otherwise he would be in perhaps the same cell that Bradley Manning was, and that's
a military cell. The NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act, permits military custody indefinitely
of an American citizen who's a civilian, and Snowden could very well find himself at Quantico, naked
perhaps like Bradley was for a while, and be really incommunicado, as Bradley has been for three
years with the single exception of being allowed to make a statement when he pled guilty to 10 charges.
And that's the only chance he had to speak out. So I think Snowden has learned from that example.
When it comes to being pronounced guilty, the head of the intelligence committee here, Senator
Dianne Feinstein, has said this is an act of treason, indicating that she has probably never read
the definition of treason in the Constitution, in her Constitution, in our Constitution, which involves
the element of adhering to an enemy of the United States, which no one is claiming that Snowden has
done, or that Manning has done. He's not going to be charged with treason, as a matter of fact, but
the word can be used as a smear, and of course the effect of that on a potential jury is very significant.
Of course the word is being used very commonly about him and Manning, and me for that matter, by
Cheney and others that you'd expect it from.
Scott Horton: Right. Okay, and now one more thing before we get too far into
the Snowden thing, back to Manning here.
Daniel Ellsberg: Yeah.
Scott Horton: This is something that we've discussed in the past, but I think
it's so important to get on the record, especially here in the middle of his military court martial
and everything, and that was the final straw that made him do this, as he explained to the informant
Adrian Lamo, was that he had been ordered not just to look at pieces of paper or watch videos and
review war crimes committed by others, he had been ordered to participate in them. He had been ordered
to help the Iraqi government imprison – capture – abduct people for the crime of writing op-ed pieces
wondering specifically where did the money go, about corruption in downtown Baghdad.
Daniel Ellsberg: And he knew would be tortured by the people we were turning
them over to.
Scott Horton: Right.
Daniel Ellsberg: No, not only was the action of turning them over to torturers
illegal, criminal, but so was the order to not investigate it further, which was what he was asking
for, not to stop the process but to continue to get more people to hand over more suspects. As he
put it, summed it up, "I was actively participating in something I was totally against." And the
challenge he makes to every person, really, on the planet, and every American citizen, everybody
in the armed services or the government, but all of us really: Do we feel that what is happening,
being done in our name and with our tax dollars, is something that is legal, moral, ethical, something
that we should be doing, prudent? Or are you one of those like me who finds it reckless, immoral
and in many cases criminal? The question then is, what do you do about it? And Manning put his life
on the line. I think it was appropriate. The stakes justified that kind of personal risk, and the
same is true of Snowden. The stakes – we're coming back to him I guess, but, I'm saying the stakes,
as they were for me, were worth a person's life.
Scott Horton: Right. I mean this is the thing, and we've talked about this for
years before anybody ever heard of Manning or Snowden. Obviously you've been talking about this since
before I was born, but you've been talking about this with me since 2004 or 2005, something like
that, and that is that when we're talking about these imperial wars of occupation, of aggressive
war and invasion in other people's countries, that the soldiers have a duty to liberate this information
and publish it and make sure that the Post or the Times or Greenwald or Julian
Assange or somebody can get their hands on it, because the mission is wrong. What they're doing is
wrong. The empire is wrong.
Daniel Ellsberg: The orders, they're expected to give the benefit of the doubt
to an order that it's legal that they get, and they certainly do that, and that's understandable
in a military context in particular and really pretty much everybody in government. But a lot of
orders that have come down in my lifetime, and in the last 10 years and before that, are blatantly
illegal, blatantly unconstitutional. The orders to torture, to hand over people for torture, to fail
to investigate that, are blatantly illegal, and everybody obeyed that except Bradley Manning that
we know of. If somebody else has refused any of those things –
Actually there have been, I would say, one or two people who have exposed it, so let me take that
back. Joe Darby, of course, who had to go under a witness protection system for a while here, having
exposed the torture at Abu Ghraib. Sam Provance, likewise, was demoted and threatened with court
martial for doing that. So there have been a few people who spoke out. General Taguba, actually,
his career was ended when he asserted that what we were doing was blatantly illegal, and that ended
his career.
So the punishment is clear enough, but the stakes actually make that worthwhile. What are you
here on earth for? What is your life for and what is it worth? For what will you risk and sacrifice?
And many people ask themselves that. They can think, they should be able to think of a number of
things. But giving up their career in order to save the Constitution or to save tens, hundreds of
thousands of people from death in wrongful wars or needless wars would seem to me it should be one
of those things. It doesn't seem – people just don't ask themselves the question. I think if more
people asked the question posed by Manning or Snowden of what they ought to do in this situation,
they wouldn't all do it, but some of them would.
Scott Horton: Right. I mean I think of it, you know, in terms of – and I don't
know what the prison sentence really is, but would you rather have a couple of years patrolling in
Afghanistan helping the Delta Force do night raids and maybe getting your legs blown off by a land
mine when you've got no business there in the first place, or do a few years in the brig for doing
the right thing and telling the people the truth, you know? Which is more courageous?
Daniel Ellsberg: Well, Manning was in a base that I just saw in the movie that
was described as perhaps the safest in Iraq. It was far from any – there'd been no enemy action whatever,
so he wasn't exactly risking his limbs there. And he's not risking just a few years of course. He's
risking his life.
Scott Horton: Well, that's true.
Daniel Ellsberg: But you're right, though. Most people do not have information
that poses them with that kind of risk and they don't take any risk at all. That seems to be the
normal, ordinary thing. I think that's a human characteristic and one reason that we're on our way,
in my belief, to extinction, with the threat of nuclear winter, nuclear war, still with us and the
climate changes that are confronting us, and the population. And I think a species that has so much
capability for destruction, for damage, and so constrained in ability to care about people outside
our own group, ourselves, our family, our team, our organization or our nation – it's very clear,
by the way, that Manning, and very particularly, was concerned about the non-Americans who were being
harmed by all this. And that's in a way what people like Cheney and others mean when they say treason.
To care at all about what we're doing to other people is in their minds a form of treason. And unfortunately
too many people share that. But some people have awakened, and unless more wake up from that, to
that kind of concern, we've had it. This species is going to go and take an awful lot of other species
with it.
Scott Horton: Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is, it's in the dark times that,
you know, there's always you find the silver lining too, right? For example, you've got this guy
Snowden who certainly must have heard your call at some point. You know what I mean? He's not ignorant
of Dan Ellsberg, this guy.
Daniel Ellsberg: Well he did – he said he admired Ellsberg and Manning.
Scott Horton: There you go.
Daniel Ellsberg: I was very glad to be in that company. But that sounded as though
– unlike Manning who was probably too young to have heard my name at all, and Assange, who was born
the week I was eluding the FBI actually back in 1971, though he heard about it from his mother, his
antiwar mother. But I was glad to hear that probably the example had not deterred him, because both
of us of course were put on trial, facing a life sentence, Manning and I. Manning is very likely
to get it. I lucked out in many ways in that the crimes against me came out in time to spare me that
life sentence. But Snowden was not deterred from that, and frankly that was something that was a
surprise to me. I was just reading a book here,
This Machine Kills Secrets
by Andy Greenberg, which mentioned at the end of one chapter, well, given this digital era, there
will be more Bradley Mannings. And having just read that, I have to admit I said to myself, "Yeah,
don't hold your breath. When people see what's happened to Manning, people aren't going to rush to
join him." And it didn't take long for Snowden to come along and expose himself to exactly the same
risk as Manning. That gives me hope, more hope than I've had for a long time, that there will be
others who show that kind of civil courage on which I keep saying – and it may sound like hyperbole
but in my mind it's not – civil courage on which our species' survival depends.
Scott Horton: Well, you got to be pleased by some of these polls have, you know,
give or take – I know they come back with different numbers but give or take half the country says
that this Snowden guy obviously is siding with them against their government. Right? They don't believe
for a minute this hokum that their government is them.
Daniel Ellsberg: I am encouraged by that. And by the way, just minutes before
this call, here's what's easy to do now these days, I just signed a digital
petition that Barbara Lee has put out for repealing the Authorization for the Use of Military
Force that was signed without any – just by reflex, by everyone but her, Barbara Lee of Oakland,
back in 2001, and she wants to repeal that since it's be used, as she says, to support torture, kidnapping,
drone assassination, other invasions and whatnot ever since. She says it's time to cut that back.
So there's a credoaction.com, I think it is, petition where Barbara Lee, to support her bill to repeal
that.
But your point in general on the polls, there is an encouraging side to that, and I'll tell you
something kind of funny in a way. People have drawn attention to the fact that whereas the overall
polling on this has not changed on whether you believe in the government having all the data on the
telephone calls of everyone (and I would say that includes the content as well though that hasn't
been admitted yet) – what do you think about that? The polls are about the same as they were back
when that was first revealed in 2005 by the New York Times, but the position, the relative
position of Democrats and Republicans, has reversed almost in terms of the numbers, the relative
proportion. Back in 2005 most Democrats opposed that under Bush and most Republicans supported it.
Now most Republicans oppose this right now and most Democrats support it. So they reversed. Well,
that looks on the first glance like simple partisan hypocrisy. But there's another way to see it.
In a way they're both right. The Republicans correctly distrust those powers in the hands of a president
that isn't of their own party, and they're right. And the Democrats don't trust these powers; they
can see room for abuse, when it's a president of the other party, of the Republicans. Both right.
Their only mistake is they're willing to trust it if it's in the hands of a president of their own
party.
Scott Horton: Right.
Daniel Ellsberg: There they're wrong. And that's a naiveté that doesn't do them
credit. But maybe they can wake up from that delusion.
Scott Horton: Right. Well, you know, I think that's still the margin, right?
That's the swing voters in the middle. There are still a lot of people who hate this no matter who's
in charge.
Daniel Ellsberg: That's true. Yes, that is true.
Scott Horton: Well, and I'm just having a good day today, I guess. I'm more optimistic
than usual. I'm sounding like it anyway.
Daniel Ellsberg: Yeah. Well there I hate to tell you but there are also those
people who trust whoever's in charge.
Scott Horton: Right. Yeah, exactly.
Daniel Ellsberg: Sorry to tell you that, but. No, actually, I am hopeful at the
reaction to this, but we'll see how long it lasts. The administration I'm sure is counting on its
going away. Even Frank Rich was predicting that this was an interest of the moment but it'll be over
by August. Well, it's up to us to see in a way whether we keep this one burning or not. I think there's
going to be a lot more revelations by Snowden, and that'll keep it going, I think. Given that he's
not in the country.
Scott Horton: Right. I mean, according to Greenwald, he's got a dozen more stories
coming, minimum, so.
Daniel Ellsberg: My strong guess is that what we're going to learn is that the
recording of data, the storing of data, is not at all limited to, quote, metadata or to foreigners,
with PRISM or anything like that. I think they're what I would call collecting, that is recording,
listening, recording and storing everything, everything. What we're saying right now, of course.
But for example William Binney, formerly of NSA for over 30 years, says the million-square-foot place
they're building in Bluffdale, Utah, NSA is building, is – he's made some real calculations as to
what that's meant to store. And he said if all they were storing was text, for example, or metadata,
a small room would suffice for virtually the whole world with the storage capability they have now.
He said when you want 100,000 square feet, 10% of that million square feet they're doing, he said
that's clearly for video and audio. And that means everything.
And when they say, when the president says, "We're not listening to your calls," he speaks with
forked tongue there because what he means is "We're not listening live" – obviously, it would take
the whole population to be doing that, but he's not saying, "We're not storing it for later listening
at our leisure with our feet up in front of the fire poring over whatever we want to of what you
have." And I think when Keith Alexander and Hayden and these other people involved assure us that
they're not collecting – oh, who was it? It was Clapper. Clapper said, "We're not collecting information
on millions of Americans, which at first sounds like a simple lie in the face of what Snowden has
revealed here; they are collecting data on hundreds of millions of Americans. But he explains, "Well,
by collecting, I don't mean just recording it. Collecting to me is when you pull up the file and
you analyze it and you transcribe it, you know, something that happens later. Well, as he said it
was the least untruthful answer he could give to the question, are you collecting data on millions
of Americans?, a less untruthful answer would have been – he said no, and a less untruthful answer
would have been yes.
But that's the point I'm making here. I think they are still conning us into believing that the
content of our e-mails and our phone calls and our chat logs and everything else is inaccessible
to them where they're not recording it, they're not keeping it. I think that's simply false. They
have everything.
Scott Horton: Right. Well you know, I think the part of that that sounds the
most fantastic is that they could keep all the audio from all the phone calls, that kind of thing,
but I was talking this over with
James Bamford,
and you know telephone, regular land line, copper land line telephone, that's only 14k, which is
very low quality really. It's good enough for the human voice but you couldn't listen to a symphony
orchestra over it, right? It doesn't sound very good really. But it sure is enough. And they could
probably, you know, with all the different audio codecs in the world, they cold probably zip down
the average telephone call to nothing almost, you know what I mean? And then they can, you know,
as you said, the storage space required, they've got it.
Daniel Ellsberg: Well, maybe what they want is to assure that the best quality
recording of all the symphonic music in the world will be in Bluffdale, Utah, so that I hope it's
deep, deep underground so that after the nuclear winter, whoever succeeds us will have access to,
you know, really good acoustics.
* * *
Scott Horton: Let me ask you this. I could go back and read the book again, but
I got Dan Ellsberg on the phone. Did McNamara lie to LBJ about what happened the second so-called
Gulf of Tonkin attack mistake, or did they both lie together?
Daniel Ellsberg: Why do you ask? I'm interested.
Scott Horton: Well, one of our favorite reporters tells me his interpretation
is that McNamara got the message that you got, that "Oops, sorry, we were listening to our own propeller,"
but that McNamara fooled LBJ into, and basically didn't update him that oops it was all a mistake.
Daniel Ellsberg: Well, that is the conclusion of Gareth Porter –
Scott Horton: That's my friend, our friend I'm citing there, yeah. Now I'm asking
you.
Daniel Ellsberg: – in his
book, and frankly
I was very resistant to that interpretation, having lived through the events. It just didn't, it
sounded hardly possible to me, partly because I thought, well I read the cable that said "Hold everything,"
you know, "every previous report is in error, in question here," of the reports of torpedoes that
were coming through. So I said, "If I read that, how could the president not know it?" And then,
as he showed me the detail of what we now know [were] the president's phone calls between the Pentagon,
where I was, and the White House, there's no actual indication that McNamara, who did have that cable
along with me, did pass that information on to the president. And I was very struck by how careful
his analysis was. And it did look possible that, as he put it, that the president did really want
to be absolutely sure that there had been an attack and that McNamara was willing to go with a much
lower level of evidence. In fact there was no attack, so the evidence they had was wrong, as in the
case of WMDs in Iraq. But wrong or right, there was a certain degree of alleged evidence.
Certainly both of them – well, again, I don't know whether the president was fully aware here.
Certainly McNamara did lie to the public when he said the evidence was unequivocal, just as when
Rumsfeld said that the evidence of WMDs, "We know where they, here's where they are, these are facts,"
and Powell said the same. That was a clear-cut lie that the evidence was strong and unequivocal,
you know, on the very face of it. It was extremely weak and very equivocal. That was true in both
cases. So they certainly did lie. The president, I have to acknowledge now, may or may not have known,
in which case McNamara really did have a lot more to bear on his conscience than I realized, which
is perhaps why he absolutely refused to discuss Vietnam for some 30 years, and eventually did write,
he said, "We were wrong about the war," in his book In Retrospect, but I was told by the
publisher of that book that they had to force those words out of him. He was not willing to sign
that – a little piece of inside gossip here, that Peter Osnos, his publisher, told me that they had
told him they would not publish the book unless he was willing to say those words, and so he did.
Which is to his credit that he finally did. He was the only person who said that, out of the administration.
And we were all wrong, and that we includes me.
Scott Horton: Well, and LBJ, he was looking for an excuse anyway, right? He didn't
have to escalate that war, even if –
Daniel Ellsberg: No, no –
Scott Horton: – McNamara did fool him.
Daniel Ellsberg: But I assumed. He was looking – he was expecting to expand the
war, yes. Definitely. But he was a skeptic on the bombing. That is one of the things that brought
me around in a way to Gareth Porter's point of view on Tonkin Gulf eventually, that McNamara, McNamara
was openly pushing for the bombing. I knew that. I have never been clear why. And LBJ was saying,
according to my boss, who would come back from meetings in the White House, LBJ would say "your bombing
bullshit." And LBJ was properly skeptical on the bombing. The bombing was a crazy idea, basically.
I think – just a conjecture – I think that McNamara thought the bombing would get us into negotiations
in which we'd be able to make a deal. Which was unrealistic, but that's why he wanted it. But of
course the military wanted the bombing because they wanted a much bigger program of bombing, so they
wanted a foot in the door, which was all that LBJ gave them at first. But LBJ was not anxious to
do the bombing. What he was anxious to do though was not to lose the war, and he was ready to put
troops in, which McNamara was realistically resistant to. So the president was pushing for troops,
McNamara was pushing for bombing, they compromised on both, and of course catastrophe followed.
Scott Horton: Right. Instead of doing neither, they did both, yeah exactly. That's
the same way it always works. That's called "bipartisanship." Oh well.
Daniel Ellsberg: Yeah. I think that Obama likewise was very resistant to putting
a surge into Afghanistan, the last 30 to 40,000 troops, but he did it. In other words, he could see
that it wasn't going to accomplish anything, all of his personal military advisers told him that,
but he did not want to get into a fight with Petraeus and McChrystal in the midst of his health insurance
program and so he sent 30,000 more troops to kill and die in Afghanistan. That's the way it goes.
And that's the kind of secrecy, and the obvious need for secrecy – the fact that his advice was not
to do it had to be kept secret –
Scott Horton: Right.
Daniel Ellsberg: – his advice from people other than Petraeus and McChrystal
–
Scott Horton: Yeah, you know, wait, I just want to interrupt you for –
Daniel Ellsberg: – and so his position was, "give the generals whatever they
want." So that kind of internal controversy is the biggest secret because it raises questions as
to whether this policy is really wise or necessary. And all presidents prefer the public to think,
"I had no choice, don't blame me, there really was no alternative, all of my advisers agreed that
I had to do this," and so forth. The fact that that's false is one of the greatest secrets, and that's
the reason we need whistleblowers. It's not properly classified, but it is classified and that secrecy
is kept to the death so tenaciously, so the only way we ever learn is when some future president
decides that it's in his favor to give the leak to somebody. Actually it so happens that Bob Woodward
did come out with all those top secrets eventually, having apparently been given a green light by
Obama to show that he really hadn't wanted to do this but the military made him do it.
Scott Horton: Right. I was going to say, because it sounded at first as though,
just the language you used, it sounded almost as though you were speculating, but I just wanted to
point out that the publisher, Rothkopf, of foreignpolicy.com wrote an
article just like that about how it was all about domestic politics and he [Obama] knew better,
and there's a book Little America
that was serialized in the Washington Post that
says that he specifically refused to read a CIA report that he already knew said "Don't bother
'surging' because it's not going to work," and then there's one of Holbrooke's guys who
talked all about how the political hacks in the White House ran the entire Afghan policy and
the only policy was to just prolong the status quo forever and not actually work at doing anything,
just surge, not to win but surge just to prolong.
Daniel Ellsberg: Look, that sounds – of course it is in line with my own understanding
of it, but I didn't know any of those references, and I'm very interested in it, and so after the
program could I ask you to send me links for those?
Scott Horton: Sure, and I guess now I got to read Bob Woodward, which I didn't
want to do, Dan, thanks a lot.
Daniel Ellsberg: Well, whatever. But, no, the particular ones you just mentioned
all sounded very interesting. I'll add one to that – well, by the way, Holbrooke's dying words, literally
dying words, his
last words, were said in one story to be, I don't have it exactly, something to the effect, "Get
out of Afghanistan." But that's quite possible, because I knew Holbrooke when he was a young foreign
service officer, one of the few who spoke Vietnamese, in Vietnam. And he had been all over Vietnam.
He knew the score very well. I was certain that he had to perceive Afghanistan in exactly the same
terms. The conditions – there were differences. The language we didn't speak was, you know, different
from Vietnam. The terrain was different. The temperature was different. But the crucial aspects of
it were so similar in terms of a hopeless war that I knew that Holbrooke had to see that. He couldn't
have forgotten that. Well, when Obama's War comes out by Bob Woodward, he quotes, not directly
but from somebody else, he quotes Holbrooke as saying of the surge, he says he was the most pessimistic,
three words,
"It can't work." And he was Obama's, in principle his top man, his plenipotentiary, on Iraq and
Afghanistan. So Holbrooke of course doesn't tell the public that, ever, doesn't come out and say
– because he's the president's man, he's an insider. He doesn't tell us that "I've given the president
my opinion that this can't work." And he wasn't the only one. Nearly everybody inside said that.
Even Rahm Emanuel, and definitely Biden for example. Everybody but Hillary and Gates actually, who
were for it. So we don't hear that.
I'll tell you one other thing. Holbrooke, knowing Vietnam as well as he did and having worked
on the Pentagon Papers, was the one person that I went to to try to persuade to make a united front,
not to put out the papers but to come out publicly and from within the government and say, "The war
is hopeless, we've got to end it, we've got to negotiate a deal here," various kinds. And I did present
that to him. And he was at that point in the Peace Corps. He, because of his disillusionment with
war, he had left the ranks of the foreign service officers in there and was working in the Peace
Corps in Morocco. And he knew what I was saying, and we saw eye to eye on the war exactly, and he
just clearly wasn't willing to do anything like that, make any public statement, take any public
stance, because he wanted to be the president's plenipotentiary on Iraq and Afghanistan someday.
And you cannot come out against your president's policy and get a job even under another president.
You won't be trusted to keep your mouth shut, no matter what, no matter how disastrous the course
is. That's the test of being reliable, faithful, trustworthy – namely, you may criticize inside but
you won't tell an outsider, like Congress or the press or the public, that we're lying or that we're
in a hopeless situation, no matter what it is. And I keep coming back to the point, even if nuclear
war is at risk, as it wasn't in that particular case, but –
Scott Horton: Right. And you know, I got to say, that's one of the most important
lessons that I remember out of your memoir of Vietnam, Secrets it's called, that really
stuck with me is the psychology of being an insider and just waiting and hoping, "If I can influence
my boss a little and he can influence his boss a little – and after all, all those little people
out there," as you say, including Congress, "they don't have the Top Secret access. They don't know
what we know. So we don't have any reason to listen to any outside open source type wisdom
because none of those people have anything like the access we have, so it's up to us wise people
on the inside to stay on the inside and do our very best." And you can, really, as you're saying,
you can actually have the extinction of mankind in a thermonuclear war based on that kind of bureaucratic
psychology of "We're the insiders, we know better, blah blah blah," just because they're bureaucrats,
just executive branch bureaucrats, makes them the kings of the universe.
Daniel Ellsberg: Well, you know, just, and maybe I'll make this my last thought,
if I may.
Scott Horton: Sure.
Daniel Ellsberg: Coming back to Manning and Snowden, and actually I was the same
on this point. Snowden is called arrogant, for example, because he took it on himself to put out
this information, and even the president makes that point. Well, Snowden explicitly makes the very
point. "I'm an ordinary guy," he says. "I'm an ordinary guy. I'm an American. I'm not a traitor or
a hero, I'm an American, I'm just another guy sitting at a desk reading this stuff." Obviously Manning
did not have grandiose notions of himself, he was tormented in his personal life, but each of them
looked at this and said, "Here I have this information and the public doesn't. Why should I, sitting
at this desk, know all this stuff with these clearances that the public needs to know and senators
need to know, and senators don't have it?" And by the way we know that because a number of senators
have been saying since Snowden's revelation, "I've learned more in the last 10 days than in the last
10 years of what NSA is doing."
So the idea that, "Oh, we knew all this stuff, there's nothing unusual here, or hurry on folks,
keep moving, there's nothing to see here," is one point, and then on the other point, a little contradictory,
they say, "Super Top Secret, higher than Top Secret" – the latter is really true. They haven't been
putting this out.
And Snowden was saying, "I don't think it's right that I can sit at this desk and task the system
to get the e-mails with the entire record and all the details of anybody in the country from the
president on down." He said, "It's not only a question of my knowing it and the other people not
knowing it. My being able to do this and to know this is not right. And there's a thousand people
like me who can do this. And that's not," he said, "that's not a country I want to live in." And
Manning the same, saying, he says to Adrian Lamo, "This kind of information – horrible," he says,
"criminal." He said, "Should it just be sitting in a safe here somewhere, in a dusty safe, or should
it be out for the people to know?" And of course I felt the same back with the Pentagon Papers. Why
should I at the Rand Corporation have this history when literally the Senate cannot get it? So, you
know, that's not the way it should be.
And it turns out that when you make that perception of yourself, that you have the capability
to tell a truth that will help save some lives or preserve our democracy – and you don't have to
be in the government to have that feeling. Think of all the people who over the generations have
contributed to cancer of hundreds of millions, in the tobacco industry, and never told about it.
Or asbestos, or Vioxx, or all the other things that are going on. And the people in the government
who knew about global warming and were sat on and muffled and so forth. It isn't that unusual to
know a truth that would be of great benefit to some other people, that is to say would save them
from torment or in terms of illness or keep us free, things like that, if you're willing to take
a risk of your own life, of your own personal life. If more people – you're not going to get a lot
of people willing to do it, but if you have more than we've had who follow like Snowden or Manning,
on a lesser scale perhaps, we would be a lot safer and a lot freer than we are on the way to becoming.
Scott Horton: Thank you very much for your time today, Dan. I really appreciate
it.
Daniel Ellsberg: Thank you, Scott, for the opportunity.
Scott Horton: Everybody, that is the great Daniel Ellsberg, liberator of the
Pentagon Papers, author of
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, and his website of course is
ellsberg.net, I might have forgot to mention
that at the beginning, ellsberg.net. You can read
Chapter
One of Secrets, all about his big day, first day on the job in this new position at
the Pentagon the day of the Gulf of Tonkin nonattack, the second so-called attack there. And follow
him on Twitter.
That's it for the show. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you tomorrow here, 11 to 1 Texas
time, scotthorton.org and noagendastream.com.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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