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Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

There are substantial premiums for war zone or hardship service, and if he's an independent contractor (vice working for a company) he loses half in taxes.:peace

He's (well, was) working for Booz Allen Hamilton.
 
Not for federal compensation calculations. Probably a cost of living bump, but that would not be that much.:peace

He's not paid by the GS schedule, he's a contractor.

What relevant field did you work in? I've known multiple people who have gone overseas for more than you are talking about, including to Hawaii. Hell, our old IMO was useless, and she was banking 140-150 in Hawaii.
 
Not for federal compensation calculations. Probably a cost of living bump, but that would not be that much.:peace

I'd consider marrying you, but I sense you place too high a value on fidelity..........................
 
His skill set is not uncommon. Basically a system administrator.:peace

Who was part of the PRISM program.. which gathered data at rates in a day many don't see in a whole year.
 
He's not paid by the GS schedule, he's a contractor.

What relevant field did you work in? I've known multiple people who have gone overseas for more than you are talking about, including to Hawaii. Hell, our old IMO was useless, and she was banking 140-150 in Hawaii.


CIA nearly 34 years, 18 overseas. Retired as SIS-5. Now VP of a small contracting/consulting company.:peace
 
CIA nearly 34 years, 18 overseas. Retired as SIS-5. Now VP of a small contracting/consulting company.:peace

:shrug: well if that is accurate then I don't know how to account for it, but your experience is radically different than mine, and I have observed the kind of pay you claim is impossible occurring.

As a side note - do you know American?
 
And he is out. The man who revealed this **** storm. A hero and a great man that was not afraid to tell the truth and reveal something he thought was wrong. Whistle blowing is not a crime! [/FONT][/COLOR]

This program dates back to 2001, seven months before the Patriot Act was even conceived, and has been implemented for the last 12 years. It was widely reported on 7 years ago. How can you possibly be a "whistleblower" for a program that Congress, and anyone in the general public who's been paying attention for the last 12 years, already knows about? That said, how can he be charged for exposing the existence of a program the media reported on 7 years ago?
 
“I can assure you the phone number tracking of non-criminal, non-terrorist suspects was not discussed [at the administration's classified briefings],” said [Congressman Aaron] Schock. “Most members have stopped going to their classified briefings because they rarely tell us anything we don’t already know in the news. It really has become a charade.”

Lawmakers rebut Obama's data defense - Reid J. Epstein - POLITICO.com

"By the way,” [Senator Jeff] Merkley continued. “When I sought information [on the phone surveillance program], the only information I got was that, yes there is a program sweeping up broad amounts of data through the records act. This second thing, which we just learned about, called PRISM, I had no idea about.”

Dem. Senator disputes Obama's claims that Congress was briefed

The only lawmakers who knew about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

U.S. is spying on Web servers - Philly.com
 
the lady (nyt) does graham greene (look for the rubik's cube):

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/u...r-story.html?smid=tw-nytmedia&seid=auto&_r=2&

The source had instructed his media contacts to come to Hong Kong, visit a particular out-of-the-way corner of a certain hotel, and ask — loudly — for directions to another part of the hotel. If all seemed well, the source would walk past holding a Rubik’s Cube.

So three people — Glenn Greenwald, a civil-liberties writer who recently moved his blog to The Guardian; Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who specializes in surveillance; and Ewen MacAskill, a Guardian reporter — flew from New York to Hong Kong about 12 days ago. They followed the directions. A man with a Rubik’s Cube appeared.

It was Edward J. Snowden, who looked even younger than his 29 years — an appearance, Mr. Greenwald recalled in an interview from Hong Kong on Monday, that shocked him because he had been expecting, given the classified surveillance programs the man had access to, someone far more senior. Mr. Snowden has now turned over archives of “thousands” of documents, according to Mr. Greenwald, and “dozens” are newsworthy.

when they met, mr snowden worked to portray himself as, unlike bradley manning who was reckless, "carefully selective" about what he was to release

snowden has "no regret, no sense of what have i done, he is so convinced he has done the right thing"

he's not "delusional," he's "completely rational," he has "tranquility"

it's not clear how he extracted his thousands of documents, "dozens" of which are "newsworthy"

as a teen, he was "enthralled by computers," seen thru his window by his maryland neighbors up all nite at the keyboard

he moved up in the nsa (despite dropping out of hs) because of his tech expertise and his ability to pass a thorough background check

he contacted laura poitras, the computer privacy activist and award winning documentarian featured by nyt, after "seeing disturbing things on a frequent basis, questioning abuses, only to find no one cared"

"over time, he decided his comfortable life was helping build up an architecture of oppression"

he first considered blowing his whistle in 2008 while working in geneva but said "he held off in part because he hoped senator barack obama's election as president might reverse the growth of the surveillance state"

snowden's disillusionment, however, at what he was subsequently witnessing, "hardened" him, he "decided he could not wait for others to act"

“i had been looking for leaders, but i realized that leadership is about being the first to act"

snowden reached out to poitras in january

ms poitras, mr greenwald (the guardian reporter at the front of the story who is facing legal issues of his own) and vietnam era hero daniel ellsburg were working with the freedom of the press foundation, a "new organization devoted to whistleblowers and transparency"

in february, snowden contacted greenwald with "an enigmatic email identifying himself as a reader and saying he wanted to communicate about a potential story using encryption"

greenwald wrote back that he did not have the software, snowden sent him a homemade video with step by step instructions for the install, which flummoxed greenwald who gave up

so snowden went to poitras and said he had a major story about the nsa which required both technical and legal expertise

next, poitras met greenwald (who lives in brazil) in person in a ny hotel, she shared emails from snowden saying "he had come to see the surveillance state as out of control and an abuse, and that he felt ready to risk his life and liberty to expose it"

at this point, neither greenwald nor poitras knew snowden's name

snowden arranged a meeting, "somewhere far away," where "i want you to interview me and get the documents"

a week later, snowden sent a sample of about 20 documents, including power point slides explaining prism

ms poitras, meanwhile, had contacted one baron gellman, wapo reporter, for advice---did all this seem credible to him

in mid may, snowden sent gellman the same 20 documents, and gellman gave poitras the cover she sought

“it was good to have the washington post invested in the leak, so it wasn’t just us---to tie in official washington"

in the last week of may, greenwald flew from brazil to ny to meet with guardian editors and review the preliminary docs

the next day, he and poitras and macaskill flew to hong kong

after the rubik's cube, the four talked for 6 hours in swowden's room

in the end, the journalists were "persuaded that mr snowden was who he claimed to be"

the lady concludes her tale by quoting john schindler, former nsa officer: "if a smart systems administrator went rogue you’d be in trouble”

the gray lady may be an old whore and a lush, too much makeup and her apt sorta stinks, but she still tells a great story
 
:shrug: As I've said, the programs make me uncomfortable, and I am understanding of the argument that the potential for abuse outweighs the benefit gained; though I think we should be willing to accurately describe the benefit gained as "fewer successful attacks against Americans".


But realistically, everything you do that is electronic and transmitted goes into a database and is stored, and is nigh on impossible to fully erase. If someone with the resources of the US IC wants that data, they are going to be able to get it out of that database - your only real defeat mechanism is encryption, and that will only protect content (which isn't being widely collected anyway - again, that we know of).


You know that part in the cop show where the lawyer asks the guy on the witness stand

"And so Mr Smith, you say you had no contact with the deceased on the night of the murder?"

"Mr Smith: That is correct"

"Lawyer: But isn't it true, Mr Smith, that the record shows that your cell phone made three calls to the victims' cell phone that night, and that all three resulted in conversations?"

[Dramatic Music Plays][Jury Gasps][Guilty Looking Guy Who Was Really Innocent Whom Matlock Just Saved Looks Relieved]


Well.....what record did you think they were referring to all these years? All that stuff is stored, and available to the government if they have a warrant. Which, they did.

The difference is that the data was stored by the phone company, not the government, and the government had to have reasonable suspicion and obtain a warrant to obtain it.

The other new wrinkle is that now the data can be analyzed by computers to establish patterns of phone usage and law enforcement notified solely because of suspicious patterns. That is appropriate when their is preexisting suspicion, but not something that should be done randomly or to everybody.
 
:) not lately. As I've been saying, the possibility for good is as immense here as the possibility for abuse. If we as a people want to say that we think the latter outweighs the former, tthen that's fine. But we need to honestly admit that we are making a relative rather than an absolute judgement - there isn't an option where we retain only the power that can do good while losing only the power that can do evil.

When our nation created the 4th amendment to the constitution we knowingly* chose to prioritize our privacy over greater safety and/or government control and power. Until we choose to amend the constitution that should be the law.

*"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Ben Franklin, 1775
 
The NSA should be spying on folks who call Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other sensitive areas.

Not folks who frequently call relatives in Ireland, Italy, and Israel.
 
the dropout is no dummy, manipulates the msm like a master

In his dealings with the media, Edward Snowden played his hand like a pro.

Snowden, 29, was looking to disclose top-secret information about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs to the world — and to do so he arranged a powerful one-two combination punch with the press that provided both mainstream credibility (Barton Gellman and The Washington Post) and someone who shared his ideological inclinations (Glenn Greenwald), according to media observers and whistleblower experts.

As more and more agenda-driven outlets, reporters and bloggers hit the media scene, leakers such as Snowden find themselves with a wealth of potential options to get their information out. It’s a seismic shift from the old media landscape, when would-be leakers had only one clear path to ensuring widespread attention for their stories: a successful pitch to a handful of national newspapers or TV networks.

But the traditional national security media heavyweights — led by The New York Times and The Washington Post — still have outsize influence on stories about intelligence gathering and potential overreach by the government.

So at the end of the day, experts told POLITICO, Snowden found a way to pull off what was in effect the perfect leak. He established parallel tracks with the MSM — The Washington Post and The Guardian — and also found a member of the media who was sympathetic to his cause. Snowden’s material was given widespread exposure and credibility in the traditional press and at the same time had the hand of a friendly journalist on the wheel for at least part of the ride.

The perfect leak - Mackenzie Weinger - POLITICO.com

the lady goes on at length:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/u...r-story.html?smid=tw-nytmedia&seid=auto&_r=3&
 
The difference is that the data was stored by the phone company, not the government, and the government had to have reasonable suspicion and obtain a warrant to obtain it.

Yup. All that seems to have happened is the expansion of rights to the data base - nothing new was collected. And (as has been pointed out) the government did indeed have a warrant, just as it takes further oversight to dive deep into the actual content of an American citizen.

The other new wrinkle is that now the data can be analyzed by computers to establish patterns of phone usage and law enforcement notified solely because of suspicious patterns. That is appropriate when their is preexisting suspicion, but not something that should be done randomly or to everybody.

Um.... yeah? Do you have indications that law enforcement was called in to visit random people or everybody because of pattern analysis programs?
 

Yup. All that seems to have happened is the expansion of rights to the data base - nothing new was collected. And (as has been pointed out) the government did indeed have a warrant, just as it takes further oversight to dive deep into the actual content of an American citizen.



Um.... yeah? Do you have indications that law enforcement was called in to visit random people or everybody because of pattern analysis programs?

We have now established that he lied about his salary: $122K/year vice the $200K/year he claimed. It also looks increasingly likely that he lied about his permitted accesses and his claimed freedom of action. It also appears that he was in touch with the reporter even before he took the BAH job. What we have here is a wannabe. He's a serial failure who decided to try to be the second coming of Julian Assange.:cool:
 
We have now established that he lied about his salary: $122K/year vice the $200K/year he claimed. It also looks increasingly likely that he lied about his permitted accesses and his claimed freedom of action. It also appears that he was in touch with the reporter even before he took the BAH job. What we have here is a wannabe. He's a serial failure who decided to try to be the second coming of Julian Assange.:cool:

What we have here is our government run amok. Good evening 2m...
 
What we have here is our government run amok. Good evening 2m...

Good evening, AP.:2wave:
I'll just go with the DNI's public statement.
"As our nation faces the most diverse set of threats I've seen in my 50 years in intelligence, the unauthorized disclosure of two important surveillance programs has inflicted potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to those threats. As news coverage of these unauthorized disclosures continues, we need to press on with our mission and not let these disclosures distract us from our intelligence efforts.

"The articles published in conjunction with these leaks contain numerous inaccuracies, both in describing the purpose of our efforts and in the way they characterize the work that we do. They omit key information regarding how these classified intelligence collection programs are used to prevent terrorist attacks and the numerous safeguards Congress, the FISA Court and the Intelligence Community have put in place to protect privacy and civil liberties." :2usflag:
 
Good evening, AP.:2wave:
I'll just go with the DNI's public statement.
"As our nation faces the most diverse set of threats I've seen in my 50 years in intelligence, the unauthorized disclosure of two important surveillance programs has inflicted potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to those threats. As news coverage of these unauthorized disclosures continues, we need to press on with our mission and not let these disclosures distract us from our intelligence efforts.

"The articles published in conjunction with these leaks contain numerous inaccuracies, both in describing the purpose of our efforts and in the way they characterize the work that we do. They omit key information regarding how these classified intelligence collection programs are used to prevent terrorist attacks and the numerous safeguards Congress, the FISA Court and the Intelligence Community have put in place to protect privacy and civil liberties." :2usflag:

Anyone that didn't know about these surveillance programs has had their head in the sand for a decade. It doesn't make them just...
 
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