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Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

Jack Hays said:
We have now established that he lied about his salary: $122K/year vice the $200K/year he claimed.
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Shoulda said "Either you gimme a raise or I'll squeal!"
 
Jack Hays said:
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:
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Translated into plain English: "Trust us, we're the government."
 
a topic that never should have been addressed in open session
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then maybe that 's what he should have said

instead of lying

if not snowden, who?

congress?

“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.”
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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.”
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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.
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U.S. is spying on Web servers - Philly.com

the judiciary?

US government invokes special privilege to stop scrutiny of data mining | World news | guardian.co.uk

Justice Department Fights Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding Unconstitutional Surveillance | Mother Jones

according to mojo's david corn, the fisa court wrote an 86 page report finding the nsa's actions "unreasonable under the 4th amendment"

the doj, citing privilege, is stonewalling the publication of those problematic pages

nsa keith alexander lied 14 times to congressman hank johnson, also in sworn testimony

Horrible timing: National Security Agency lists 'Digital Network Exploitation Analyst' internship opening as controversy swirls over digital snooping scandal | Mail Online
 
Visbek said:
That doesn't change anything.

Again: There is always a tradeoff between privacy and law enforcement. Is it feasible to get rid of the police? Wiretaps? Police searches? Should we say that the police are completely barred from stopping citizens and asking questions? Should the police be barred from entering an apartment when actively chasing a subject?

We cannot choose "freedom" exclusively, as then we would have no law enforcement capabilities whatsoever. That's simply not an option. We need to make reasonable and deliberate choices about the trade-offs between security and liberty.
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Yes, and Franklin and the founding fathers already struck that balance. We are LESS in danger of terrorist attacks in 2013 than we were when the Constitution was inked, and yet the government continues to create bigger, more intrusive programs to peer into our private lives.


Americans have spent the past decade demanding more and more protections from terrorists. The Patriot Act was not passed in secret. The Patriot Act was not renewed in secret. The phone surveillance is far from new -- we've known about it for a few years now. Public outcry at the time was... muted.

We don't know a lot about PRISM yet. What we do know is that the NSA has been building a mammoth facility in a Utah desert. We also know that the Internet was not designed with security in mind, that email and HTTP are completely unsecured in transit, and that the companies who provide us all these wonderful services at no cost have long since shredded our privacy. Scott McNeally didn't intend it as a warning, but was telling us that we had no privacy on the Internet back in 1999.

To me, the shocking part is that people don't realize that the NSA has been tracking everything they can suck up into their databases. (As have Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Amazon and pretty much every major technology and social media company.)

On a side note, the US does not have any real privacy protections. It has no explicit protections in our Constitution, and our legislators don't take it very seriously. In contrast, the EU has much stricter privacy protections and regulations.

We have the option to get serious about reining in government. We shouldn't need a military contractor violating espionage laws to tell us to get serious.
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The argument right now is on whether or not the Patriot Act authorizes the government to collect all the data it is currently collecting or whether it is an over reach on the part of the NSA.

Also, while people might be calling for more security that doesn't mean that they by default were asking for this. As an example, better border security can be accomplished without encroaching on a single American citizen's rights.



No, actually, it hasn't.

Lots of dictatorships and totalitarian states rise to power fairly quickly, and clamp down afterwards. E.g. Iran went from the Shah's government collapsing, to Islamic hard-liners taking control, in 6-8 months, and it was after they took power that they clamped down. The Nazis suspended a whole bunch of civil liberties in 1933, pretty much in a matter of months. When the PRC took over, they didn't wait around to set up a police state; neither did the Japanese when they invaded Manchuria.
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The majority of these dictatorships rise to power through selling themselves as the solution to a perceived threat, be it religious, economic or geographic. You can't avoid this simple truth.


A coup, by definition, is not an incremental process. And plenty of authoritarian governments gained power in coups.
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The actual coup is the last step in a process, it isn't self contained. The power behind the coup is built incrementally, sold to its followers on the grounds of more personal security.



It can also take long histories and traditions of authoritarianism to produce a political environment conducive to authoritarian control. Europe, for example, had centuries of monarchical and feudal rule, and relatively short periods of electoral rule before the paroxysms of totalitarianism in the 30s and 40s.
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So you are saying it was ... incremental? Do tell!


We've also seen plenty of instances of electoral governments going back and forth on intrusive policies. McCarthy became increasingly authoritarian in his pursuit of anti-Communism, and after a few years of hysteria the nation pulled back from that brink. Domestic spying was curtailed (though not stopped completely) for a few decades, when COINTELPRO was shut down. The US is slowly relaxing its intense desire to suspend every civil liberty in the name of fighting terrorism.
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Now imagine Senator McCarthy with access to PRISM...


Basically, it's not valid to oppose every policy on the grounds that it "might" be an incremental step towards totalitarianism.
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Every surrender of civil liberty IS a step towards totalitarianism, by the very definition.


That rhetorical flourish could be -- no, is -- used to oppose such a wide variety of policies, that it detracts from formulating more precise guidelines about what should or should not be acceptable.
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It's simply the truth, regardless of how dearly you want to pretend it isn't/
 
Okay, I was on the fence leaning toward parade (as per poll), but now things are developing. I'm not happy with what Snowden told the Chinese newspaper about our hacking. Exposing harm to Americans is patriotic, but exposing harm to China....not so much.
 
Hard Truth said:
That's what all dictators say.
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And all people who have a hard job trying to protect you, too. Interesting, huh?

American said:
Okay, I was on the fence leaning toward parade (as per poll), but now things are developing. I'm not happy with what Snowden told the Chinese newspaper about our hacking. Exposing harm to Americans is patriotic, but exposing harm to China....not so much.
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If anyone thought he was ever doing this to be a 'patriotic American', they were an idiot. He wasn't exposing that Americans were being harmed by his first revelation, he was the one doing the harm. His second revelation only increases the harm and hammers home his intent. People are so gullible.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
And all people who have a hard job trying to protect you, too. Interesting, huh?

If anyone thought he was ever doing this to be a 'patriotic American', they were an idiot. He wasn't exposing that Americans were being harmed by his first revelation, he was the one doing the harm. His second revelation only increases the harm and hammers home his intent. People are so gullible.
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If no Americans were being harmed, how can what he was doing cause harm?
 
radcen said:
If no Americans were being harmed, how can what he was doing cause harm?
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??? That doesn't make sense logically at all.

No Americans were being harmed by PRISM, but by disclosing that it exists, he decreases the level of protection afforded them, which harms them.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
??? That doesn't make sense logically at all.

No Americans were being harmed by PRISM, but by disclosing that it exists, he decreases the level of protection afforded them, which harms them.
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You're assuming that your interpretation of "harm" is absolutely correct and without question. Phfft! Everybody thinks their conclusions are correct. Duh.

Many people do believe that the government's actions are either a) harming them, and/or b) would harm them if allowed to continue to expand unchallenged, which would happen if unchecked. Just because they come to a conclusion that differs from yours doesn't make them automatically wrong. If nothing else, the revelations brought out into the open for public debate that which should have already been debated, yet never was. Only a gullible idiot would believe that the government was ever going to start the debate on it's own and for right and ethical reasons.
 
radcen said:
You're assuming that your interpretation of "harm" is absolutely correct and without question. Phfft! Everybody thinks their conclusions are correct. Duh.

Many people do believe that the government's actions are either a) harming them, and/or b) would harm them if allowed to continue to expand unchallenged, which would happen if unchecked. Just because they come to a conclusion that differs from yours doesn't make them automatically wrong. If nothing else, the revelations brought out into the open for public debate that which should have already been debated, yet never was. Only a gullible idiot would believe that the government was ever going to start the debate on it's own and for right and ethical reasons.
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Don't tell me you think some random people (teachers, plumbers, construction workers, waiters, etc) should even be involved in this debate? How could they speak intelligently about it? Save it for experts and policymakers. I'll go to a plumber when my drains are backed up, though. A public debate also defeats the purpose, you know.

But lol I have to laugh at your defensiveness. Were you one of those guys that thought he was a hero before he started giving secrets about our operations against the Chinese to them (even though he already gave our secrets to...everyone on the planet?)? You didn't think him going to Hong Kong was a tip off?

Don't be defensive, my man, just don't get so sucked up in the conspiracy bull**** next time.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
Don't tell me you think some random people (teachers, plumbers, construction workers, waiters, etc) should even be involved in this debate? How could they speak intelligently about it? Save it for experts and policymakers. I'll go to a plumber when my drains are backed up, though. A public debate also defeats the purpose, you know.

But lol I have to laugh at your defensiveness. Were you one of those guys that thought he was a hero before he started giving secrets about our operations against the Chinese to them (even though he already gave our secrets to...everyone on the planet?)? You didn't think him going to Hong Kong was a tip off?

Don't be defensive, my man, just don't get so sucked up in the conspiracy bull**** next time.
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"Experts and policymakers" are who got us here. Color me unimpressed.
 
radcen said:
"Experts and policymakers" are who got us here. Color me unimpressed.
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Right. And the whole point is 'here' isn't a problem- although so many people hilariously think it is. Well, it wasn't until the hero of the ignorant and unwashed, Snowden, started talking.

Maybe you think the plumbers and construction workers should be in charge of things. They can team up and make an organization. Call it a 'Soviet' or something.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
Right. And the whole point is 'here' isn't a problem- although so many people hilariously think it is. Well, it wasn't until the hero of the ignorant and unwashed, Snowden, started talking.

Maybe you think the plumbers and construction workers should be in charge of things. They can team up and make an organization. Call it a 'Soviet' or something.
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Your assertion that the NSA as "experts" are incapable of abusing the rules or violating our Constitutional right to privacy is moronic.

I'm an expert in nonsense, and I proclaim your assertion to be nonsense. Can't refute it bro, I'm an expert.
 
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