# NSA Whistle-blower Ed Snowden



## Dkeh

First Manning, now him?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130609/22400623385/nsa-whistleblower-ed-snowden-my-desk-i-could-wiretap-anyone-you-federal-judge-president-us.shtml


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## Remius

:boring:

Did he really reveal anything that most people already knew was going ?

My problem is how a contractor can get that level of access for that kind of stuff.


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## Dkeh

It is related to the PRISM system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server-collection-facebook-google


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## Nemo888

All electronic communications are monitored all the time. It's gotten really cold war Soviet over here though. Pretty ironic as when I was a kid we always touted how you were always surveilled in those evil dictatorial countries who tortured and spied on their own citizens. We were the good guys in the free country! The slide was so slow and the media so on board almost no one noticed.


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## cupper

Big question in the news today is why he has chosen to hide out in Hong Kong, which has an extradition treaty with the US. :facepalm:


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## tomahawk6

Snowden longed for that great bastion of democracy Chine and I think he got his wish.


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## GAP

cupper said:
			
		

> Big question in the news today is why he has chosen to hide out in Hong Kong, which has an extradition treaty with the US. :facepalm:



and is owned by China


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## Robert0288

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> All electronic communications are monitored all the time. It's gotten really cold war Soviet over here though.



With the way that information travels over the internet, information tends to travel down the fastest pipe rather than shortest distance geographically.  With the US having so many highspeed servers, backbones and transatlantic/pasific fiber trunk lines, a good deal of information gets passed through the US while not actually having anything to do with the US.  

Next time you're bored at your computer. (Only works with windows) go to start, Command Prompt (cmd.exe) and type in "tracert www.*favoritewebitehere*.com"  Then google some of the resulting IPs.  You might be surprised where your information goes to and who owns those servers.


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## cupper

More detailed background on Snowden from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/edward-snowden-says-motive-behind-leaks-was-to-expose-surveillance-state/2013/06/09/aa3f0804-d13b-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html

His background leaves a lot to question as to how he got where he was. Dropped out of high school (eventually got a GED) discharged from the US Army after 5 months due to training accident that broke both legs. Started out in the three letter agencies as a security guard, but his computer skills allowed him to move up as a tech in various classified overseas facilities for the CIA and NSA.

But he does sound like a very personable kind of guy you'd want for a neighbor.



> Snowden and his girlfriend were strikingly standoffish while living in a home in the residential Royal Kunia neighborhood of Waipahu, and seemed to go out of their way to avoid conversations with passers-by, neighbor Carolyn Tijing said in a telephone interview. Tijing said that her husband went to introduce himself to Snowden and his girlfriend shortly after they moved across the street from the Tijings but that Snowden declined to exchange any pleasantries.
> 
> “It was a no-go, no conversation at all,” she said. “He just said ‘Fine’ and walked straight into his house. We thought they were just really anti-social.”
> 
> Carolyn Tijing said that the couple had erected a wall of boxes floor to ceiling inside their garage that blocked anyone’s view from the street into the two-car garage and that they always kept their cars parked in the driveway.Tijing said that she never saw anyone visit the home but that her college-aged son had seen several people stop by at late hours, between midnight and 2 a.m. Those visitors would arrive by car, stand in the driveway for a few minutes and exchange a few words with Snowden, then depart, Tijing said her son told her.
> 
> About four weeks ago, Snowden and his girlfriend apparently departed, Tijing said. The wall of boxes in the garage was gone, and a handyman arrived to clean the house. “One day they were here, the next they were gone,” Tijing said. “We never saw them leave.”


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## Nemo888

Great piece of character assassination from the NYT.  "He betrayed the privacy of us all." Awesome, some real Cold War Pravda style shite here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/opinion/brooks-the-solitary-leaker.html?_r=3&hp&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1370928863-7CjsK6WA3P24nw625tvv3w&


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## George Wallace

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Great piece of character assassination from the NYT.  "He betrayed the privacy of us all." Awesome, some real Cold War Pravda style shite here.
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/opinion/brooks-the-solitary-leaker.html?_r=3&hp&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1370928863-7CjsK6WA3P24nw625tvv3w&



You aren't getting a little paranoid are you?  Will we see a rush on aluminum products soon?


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## Nemo888

That the article does not even speak to the issues he gave up his life for is very telling. It is pure ad hominem. 

Some of the comments to the article are good.

This column reads like a genteel rewrite of Nixon's Enemies List. It spans the spectrum of the thin-skinned paranoia which the powerful exhibit whenever their predatory little worlds are exposed. To wit:

--Blame the messenger instead of the malefactors (Snowden magically destroys privacy by reporting on the destruction of privacy!) -- check.

-- Speculate about the messenger's psychological state ( Watergate Rule #26, inspired by the Nixon Plumbers break-in of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist ) -- check.

-- Denigrate the messenger's lowly educational background and social status. Point out the faux pas of servants who betray their masters, who of course are not corporate welfare capitalist spies, but rather philanthropic humanitarian aid organizations.-- check.

-- Question the messenger's patriotism and loyalty to friends and family. -- check. (These whistleblowers are always terrible sons, boyfriends and dressers - see Assange, Julian ; Bill Keller edition)

Edward Snowden deserves a medal not only for upsetting the security state apple cart, but for getting David Brooks so tied up in knots that his bromides and his platitudes are congealing into a bigger mess than usual.

Snowden is guilty of the high crime of giving aid and comfort to the citizenry. He is a traitor to Brook's class.


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## Nemo888

George Wallace said:
			
		

> You aren't getting a little paranoid are you?  Will we see a rush on aluminum products soon?



Brought to you by tinfoil. Why not wear it as a hat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tilfgWzhsns


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## GnyHwy

He isn't saying anything anyone else hasn't already thought about.  His problem is he is saying it from a position of authority, which gives the accusations more credibility, if not certainty.  He should not be grouped with other persons that willfully leak information, i.e. Wikileaks.  Those organizations are leaking potential sensitive information, regardless of whether or not there will be follow on effects.

He has simply stated what the government should already have been transparent about. 

Where I disagree with him is the supposed likelyhood that your past information will be used against you, even if you're a good person.  While this is certainly possible, your everyday person committing petty crimes will still remain at the bottom of the priority list.  In fact, I believe that list will only become longer and more detailed, pushing petty crimes even further down the list.


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## Nemo888

Let's talk about the real issue and get away from character assassination.

Things changed. I will go out on a limb here and say this intelligence was always collected by every single NATO nation since before most of us were even born. It was used to catch bad guys, terrorist douche bags almost exclusively. I never had a problem with that. Currently Vic Toews has been trying to get that info available to conventional law enforcement which I am totally against.

The system had many checks and balances. I'll use one of the first Delta team shooters who became a head of the GWOT Lieutenant General William G. "Jerry" Boykin as a public source. in the 80's and 90's he complained bitterly about only getting approval for roughly 10% of possible targets. To get higher there would have been many false positives, civvie casualties and diplomatic fallout.  After 9/11 that went to almost 100% and both congressional and CIA oversight was removed as power shifted to the Pentagon. By 2003 at least 3000 persons in 100 countries were disappeared or captured. Technically these were acts of war on foreign soil and not even the ambassadors knew what was going on. They would cable Washington asking why 6"5' white guys with 19 inch biceps were wandering the city. Even if it was necessary then most should be dead so it's time to bring back the rule of law. If things have gotten worse then obviously these scummy totalitarian tactics have only created more enemies and destroyed our credibility. Then time to rethink strategy and reign in these extraordinary powers.


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## GnyHwy

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Things changed. I will go out on a limb here and say this intelligence was always collected by every single NATO nation since before most of us were even born. It was used to catch bad guys, terrorist douche bags almost exclusively. I never had a problem with that. Currently Vic Toews has been trying to get that info available to conventional law enforcement which I am totally against.



When the terrorists were operating mostly outside our borders then I agree that conventional law enforcement didn't need to know.

With the likelyhood  certainty that terrorists operate within our borders, who do you expect him to get the info too?  Who is the proper authority? And when is it too late for the appropriate authority to get the information? 

For the record, I consider RCMP and FBI conventional law enforcement and if large municipalities have specialty units, I consider them conventional too.


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## The Bread Guy

Crantor said:
			
		

> My problem is how a contractor can get that level of access for that kind of stuff.


It appears a_ lot _ of int work is contracted out in the U.S.

"500,000 contractors can access NSA data hoards"
"Are Private Contractors Undermining the Intelligence Community?"


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## Nemo888

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> When the terrorists were operating mostly outside our borders then I agree that conventional law enforcement didn't need to know.
> 
> With the likelyhood  certainty that terrorists operate within our borders, who do you expect him to get the info too?  Who is the proper authority? And when is it too late for the appropriate authority to get the information?
> 
> For the record, I consider RCMP and FBI conventional law enforcement and if large municipalities have specialty units, I consider them conventional too.


It was always used successfully to catch terrorists within our borders. The changes proposed are for what it can be used for and who can get full access. If CSIS/CSE says check this guy out wink wink that's cool. If conventional police are simply trolling for data that is a big problem. The information will probably always be collected. I don't want civvie law enforcement to have free access or the courts to be able to use this illegally obtained information as evidence. This can turn all Stasi very quickly. It's everything wrong with the Gun Registry on steroids.


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## GnyHwy

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> It was always used successfully to catch terrorists within our borders. The changes proposed are for what it can be used for and who can get full access. If CSIS/CSE says check this guy out wink wink that's cool. If conventional police are simply trolling for data that is a big problem. The information will probably always be collected. I don't want civvie law enforcement to have free access or the courts to be able to use this illegally obtained information as evidence. This can turn all Stasi very quickly. It's everything wrong with the Gun Registry on steroids.



I don't quite see it the same way you are looking at, such as low level authorities dragnetting for tips.  I am with you 100% if that is the case and inexperienced persons are sifting through data rather than intelligence that has been derived from data by true experts.  Which leads to this.



			
				milnews.ca said:
			
		

> It appears a_ lot _ of int work is contracted out in the U.S.
> 
> "500,000 contractors can access NSA data hoards"
> "Are Private Contractors Undermining the Intelligence Community?"



These methods break the most important principle of intelligence.  Centralized control.  I can definitely agree with reigning in the amount of persons/groups that have access to data.  But, once it's deemed intelligence, it needs to be disseminated asap, to the persons that need it i.e. local law enforcement.


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## DBA

Telecommunications surveillance is a tool and how it is used matters. In countries where insulting the leader is a crime it has a different outcome than in countries with free speech. 

I see it as a waste of resources myself as like "defense everywhere is defense nowhere" I see "all data is no data" as there will be too many false and meaningless patterns or leads. Recording some information so you can track interactions once a lead is established by more traditional means I think would produce better results with much less effort.


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## observor 69

The New York Times 
June 11, 2013

Hong Kong, a Strange Place to Seek Freedom
By LAW YUK-kai

HONG KONG — Edward J. Snowden, the 29-year-old government contractor who blew the whistle on the American government’s vast data-collection efforts, was last seen checking out of a boutique hotel here on Monday. The previous day, he released a video defending his decision to leak sensitive secrets and explaining that he’d sought refuge in Hong Kong because it “has a strong tradition of free speech” and “a long tradition of protesting in the streets.” 

This news stunned many local residents, especially those of us who advocate for human rights. Since 1997, when the British government returned Hong Kong to China after getting assurances that this former colony’s traditions of rule of law and individual freedom would be respected, the political, legal and human rights landscape here has become ever less conducive to the protection of civil liberties. Mr. Snowden — if he is still in town — has stepped into an unknown future in which the concept of “one nation, two systems,” promised us by Beijing, has become a fading memory. 

Whether it was youthful naïveté or just ignorance, Mr. Snowden’s positive view of Hong Kong no longer matches the reality. Shortly before his arrival, the international organization Freedom House ranked Hong Kong 71st in the world in protection of political rights and civil liberties. Reporters Without Borders has dropped Hong Kong on its ranking of press freedom to No. 58, from No. 18 in 2002.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/hong-kong-a-strange-place-to-seek-freedom.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print


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## muskrat89

> Whether it was youthful naïveté or just ignorance,



Or, he could be working for the Chinese...

I saw a couple variations of that theory floated around the other day


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## jollyjacktar

Claims that Russia might be interested in granting him asylum.  



> Now Russia set to offer whistleblower asylum: Putin 'considers' giving Edward Snowden refuge as NSA leaker vanishes in Hong Kong
> Edward Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant fled to Hong Kong
> Leaked details of Prism, which he says harvests personal data from web
> U.S. National Intelligence director says surveillance keeps America safe
> Names Iceland as his destination of choice due to internet freedom
> 
> Russian MP Robert Schlegel urged the Kremlin to look at a the possibility
> News has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly
> House Speaker John Boehner called him a 'traitor' who put Americans at risk
> 
> By Ian Drury and Jill Reilly
> PUBLISHED: 02:38 GMT, 11 June 2013 | UPDATED: 12:05 GMT, 11 June 2013
> 
> Russia today hinted that Vladimir Putin would grant political asylum to Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who leaked the secret information about a classified U.S. government surveillance program.
> 
> 'We will take action based on what actually happens. If we receive such a request, it will be considered,' said the Russian president's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
> 
> The former CIA undercover operative is on the run after checking out of his luxury Hong Kong hotel on Sunday - his whereabouts is unknown.
> 
> The news that Putin is considering offering the 29-year-old refuge has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly.
> 
> The president is facing an increasing domestic and international backlash as his administration struggles to contain the explosive revelations.  He will come face to face with Putin at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week.
> 
> This morning House Speaker John Boehner called Snowden a 'traitor' who put Americans at risk by releasing classified information to the media.
> Boehner had initially called on Obama to explain to the program to the American people, but today he told ABC News, the two program's were critical to the government’s ability to fight terrorism and claimed there are 'clear safeguards' built into the programs to protect citizens.
> 
> Today one Russian report stressed that the country has a consulate in Hong Kong where Snowden could make an asylum request.
> 
> The Russian angle contrasts with its total refusal to act on Western hints that it could help solve the Syrian crisis by granting asylum to its long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad and his family.
> 
> Snowden is a technology expert working for a private firm subcontracted to  the US National Security Agency.
> Last week he told the Guardian newspaper of a mammoth surveillance operation run by the NSA on telephone and Internet records around the world.
> In the US he has been branded a traitor and there is pressure for his extradition from Hong Kong.
> 
> Russian MP Robert Schlegel urged the Kremlin to look at a the possibility of granting political asylum to Snowden.
> 
> 'It would be a good idea,' he said.  It's unknown where he will actually go, but Snowden had mentioned Iceland, a tiny island nation of 360,000, as a possibility.
> It seems more likely that he would actually flee to the Islandic consulate in Hong Kong, rather than risking boarding a plane to fly there in person.
> 
> However, powerful members of Congress are already demanding that Snowden be extradited and tried in an American court for revealing the existence of the PRISM program, which collects data from untold tens of millions of Americans, including their cell phone use.
> 
> It remains to be seen whether the Icelandic government would be willing - or even able - to stand up to pressure from the United States if American authorities demanded his extradition.
> 
> Iceland's government of newly-elected conservative Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, may not be so generous to Snowden. While still untested, it is widely seen as closer to Washington than past administrations and less keen to foster the island country's cyber-haven image.
> 
> Snowden has yet to make a formal application for asylum and would have to go to Iceland to make the request, said Kristin Volundarsdottir, head of Iceland's Directorate of Immigration. Gunnlaugsson's government did not otherwise comment on the case.
> 
> 'I would be very surprised if they (the government) would be eager to engage in any international disputes with the U.S. And it is pretty difficult to be granted asylum here,' said Stefania Oskarsdottir, lecturer in political science at the University of Iceland.
> 
> 'I think what this guy is saying is based on something he is imagining or hoping for rather than actual facts.'
> 
> As a U.S. citizen, Snowden would not need a visa to enter Iceland, or its embassy, and could immediately apply for asylum.
> 
> 
> Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2339329/Russia-hints-Putin-grant-political-asylum-whistleblower-Edward-Snowden-NSA-leaker-vanishes-Hong-Kong.html#ixzz2VwCVGlyM
> Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook


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## Old Sweat

I'm sure they'd just love to sit him down for a nice, long chat!  :sarcasm:


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## Nemo888

Hong Kong has a great airport and China is one subway stop away.  Direct flights to almost any destination. I doubt he is still in Hong Kong. I certainly wouldn't be. Ecuador would be my first choice. 

If he wanted to cash in China or Russia would have paid him handsomely and not blown his cover. Obviously he is a conscientious objector.


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## a_majoor

I seem to recall earlier versions of this were leaked to the press. In the 1980's there was a lot of speculation about a system supposedly called "Echelon", and in the 1990's another one quaintly called "Carnivore".

Like many people I am appaled at the apparently vast and all encompassing nature of the program(s). This is just warentless wiretapping and trolling taken to the logical extreme. If there are reasons to suspect a person or organization, then lay out the facts to a judge and get a warrant. If it is a military operation, then the chain of command needs to be able to explain the who, what, where, when and why, if only to assure itself it isn't wasting time and resources.

As for the idea that this sort of information won't be politicized and innocents will not be caught in the net, I suggest you look to the case of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, arrested for the video that allegedly sparked the Benghazi attacks and still in jail despite abundant evidence that his video had nothing to do with the incident.


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## DBA

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Obviously he is a conscientious objector.



He joined the US army as a volunteer in a program that directly leads to the Special Forces. No idea where your getting conscientious objector from.


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## cupper

Thucydides said:
			
		

> As for the idea that this sort of information won't be politicized and innocents will not be caught in the net, I suggest you look to the case of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, arrested for the video that allegedly sparked the Benghazi attacks and still in jail despite abundant evidence that his video had nothing to do with the incident.



Nakoula was actually arrested for violating the terms of his probation in a 2010 bank fraud conviction.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/nakoula-basseley-nakoula-sentenced-to-a-year-in-jail-for-probation-violations/



> LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California man behind an anti-Muslim film that led to violence in many parts of the Middle East was sentenced Wednesday to a year in federal prison for probation violations in an unrelated matter, then issued a provocative statement through his attorney.
> The sentence was the result of a plea bargain between lawyers for Mark Bassely Youssef and federal prosecutors. Youssef admitted in open court that he had used several false names in violation of his probation order and obtained a driver’s license under a false name. He was on probation for a bank fraud case.


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## a_majoor

Now scroll back in time to the day of the actual arrest and the following few days and you will see nary a mention of parole violation. His arrest and incarceration (without due process) was and is purely political theater to deflect attention away from the real (and still largely unanswered) issues surrounding the events in Benghazi.


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## cupper

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Now scroll back in time to the day of the actual arrest and the following few days and you will see nary a mention of parole violation. His arrest and incarceration (without due process) was and is purely political theater to deflect attention away from the real (and still largely unanswered) issues surrounding the events in Benghazi.



I never would have taken you for a purchaser of large quantities of tin foil. ;D


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## cupper

Personally I find the whole shorts-in-a-knot reaction that has spun up over this to be surprising.

Snowden hasn't revealed anything that wasn't already previously known. Vacuuming of phone data was first revealed in 2006 under the Bush watch.

http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

The information about PRISM having access to various Tech company servers, the only real surprise is that it hadn't come out sooner.

There is a debate within the Security Punditry as to how much damage has really been done though this series of leaks.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/national-security-leaks-fallout-92554.html?hp=l13



> Intelligence experts and former officials interviewed by POLITICO say there will likely be some harm to U.S. intelligence efforts — though not in exactly the way many Americans might expect and not because the stories really revealed the crown jewels of American counter-terrorism efforts.
> 
> And the surest negative impact of the disclosures is more likely to fall on the U.S. Internet industry, as some of its international customer base flees in search of sites thought to be more secure from American government snooping.
> 
> Former officials say it’s not so much the specifics of what was leaked as the huge wave of publicity the leaks generated: Every news story could serve as a revelation to some terrorists, and a reminder to others, of the nation’s capabilities.





> The week’s second big disclosure, that the feds have installed equipment at major U.S. email and social media firms to provide a feed of Web traffic from overseas, is also something less than a sky-is-falling revelation. In 2008, the Senate debated and passed Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act amendments that specifically authorized collection of information from foreign customers logging in from outside the United States — even those who had no suspected connection to terrorism.
> 
> The authority wasn’t slipped into the law unnoticed. In fact, some liberal House members, including then-House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), introduced a bill in 2009 to essentially do away with bulk collection from foreign sources unless there was a specific suspicion about terrorism. The measure went nowhere.
> 
> And in 2010, a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union produced hundreds of pages of materials on the bulk collection provision known as Section 702. The documents, posted on the Web, say the FBI now has access to “a faster, less labor-intensive process involving fewer personnel.”
> 
> “User need not be a foreign power or agent of foreign power,” the FBI records say. “Without the need for individualized [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] orders … significantly less documentation … no probable cause required.”
> 
> ACLU lawyer Alex Abdo said the recent leak about Section 702 was more upsetting than unexpected. “It is consistent with what we thought the government was doing,” he said. “Last week’s disclosure confirmed for us the government is engaging in the surveillance we most feared. Now, we know the mechanism for the surveillance, but the concern we have is just the same.”
> 
> Some say last week’s leak broke new ground with the description of a real-time or near real-time access to Internet firms’ data through a system known as PRISM. But the system and even its logo seem an awful lot like the “fiberoptic splitter” a whistleblowing AT&T employee described in a 2006 lawsuit as having been installed by the NSA at an AT&T switching station in San Francisco.





> Unlike a leak to The Associated Press last year, which may have led to the termination of a U.S.-backed counterterrorism operation in Yemen, or a leak in 2009 to Fox News’s James Rosen, which may have put a human source inside North Korea in danger, there’s every indication the call-tracking program and the interception of foreign users of U.S. Web firms is going to continue.
> 
> They may well be less effective — but to what degree isn’t yet known and is probably unknowable to any significant degree of certainty.





> The most certain impact of disclosures may be a loss of business for U.S. Internet and social media firms. One of the PowerPoint pages disclosed by The Guardian lists services such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Skype. Privacy-sensitive users in places like Europe may try to find other providers. That could strengthen those foreign businesses and lead to more Web content being harder for U.S. intelligence to reach or even winding up beyond its reach.
> 
> “We just punished American businesses who are just obeying U.S. law,” Hayden said.
> 
> However, Brenner said if terrorists decide not to communicate via the Internet or phones, that could carry some benefits by impeding their operations.
> 
> “If you’re able to drive your opponents completely off the network, you’ve lost something because they are are harder to track,” he said. “On the other hand, you’ve made them resort to very ineffective, old-fashioned forms of communication.”


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## CougarKing

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Will we see a rush on aluminum products soon?



What about tinfoil bras (and other articles of clothing) for Snowden's pole-dancing girlfriend?   >

link



> *NSA whistle-blower’s girlfriend feels ‘adrift’*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lindsay Mills, the woman reported to be the girlfriend of purported National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden, says she feels adrift without her 29-year-old boyfriend, whom she says abandoned her in Hawaii and fled to Hong Kong.
> 
> "My world has opened and closed all at once. Leaving me lost at sea without a compass," *Mills, a 28-year-old professional pole dancer*, wrote on her blog, "L's Journey," on Monday. The blog post was written a day after Snowden, a former technical assistant for the CIA and ex-employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, was identified by the Guardian on Sunday as the source of its stories revealing the NSA's controversial telephone and Internet surveillance programs.
> 
> "As I type this on my tear-streaked keyboard I’m reflecting on all the faces that have graced my path," Mills continued. "The ones I laughed with. The ones I’ve held. The one I’ve grown to love the most. And the ones I never got to bid adieu. But sometimes life doesn’t afford proper goodbyes."
> 
> According to the Daily Mail, Mills and Snowden had been together since at least 2009.
> 
> *"Surely there will be villainous pirates, distracting mermaids, and tides of change in this new open water chapter of my journey," Mills—who refers to Snowden as "E" and herself as a "world-traveling, pole-dancing super hero"—added. "But at the moment all I can feel is alone."*
> 
> Snowden, who was interviewed by the U.K. newspaper in his hotel room in Hong Kong where he was hiding at the time, said he has no regrets about going public—even if he never sees his family again.
> 
> "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things," Snowden said. "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. ... I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."
> 
> Snowden said he decided to leave his family, girlfriend and a six-figure-a-year salary behind, and flew to Hong Kong on May 20.
> 
> On June 3, Mills wrote:
> 
> The past few weeks have been a cluster jumble of fun, disaster, and adventure. From pop-up homes to last-minute unplanned adventure to stressful moments that would give Gandhi indigestion. While I have been patiently asking the universe for a livelier schedule, I’m not sure I meant for it to dump half a year’s worth of experience in my lap in two weeks time. We’re talking biblical stuff — floods, deceit, loss. Somehow I’ve only managed a few tears amongst all of the madness of May. Waking up to June with hopes for a better swing of luck, only to find that I’ve lost my camera’s memory card that stored 90% of my trip’s memories. I feel alone, lost, overwhelmed, and desperate for a reprieve from the bipolar nature of my current situation. My coping response of the past was to [flee] to foreign lands. Trying to outrun my misfortune. But before I can sail away to lands unknown I need to wipe my misguided tears and reflect on all that is happening. Listen to my core. Find zen or something like it. And breathe into what little patience I have left.
> 
> The newspaper said it revealed Snowden's identity at his request. Booz Allen said it fired Snowden on Monday for "violations of the firm’s code of ethics."
> 
> "All my options are bad," Snowden told the Guardian. "I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners.
> 
> "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them," he added. "The only thing I can do is sit here and hope the Hong Kong government does not deport me. ... My predisposition is to seek asylum in a country with shared values. The nation that most encompasses this is Iceland. They stood up for people over Internet freedom. I have no idea what my future is going to be."
> 
> A petition urging the Obama administration to pardon Snowden was posted to the White House website on Sunday afternoon.
> 
> "Edward Snowden is a national hero and should be immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs," the petition read.


----------



## tomahawk6

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Hong Kong has a great airport and China is one subway stop away.  Direct flights to almost any destination. I doubt he is still in Hong Kong. I certainly wouldn't be. Ecuador would be my first choice.
> 
> If he wanted to cash in China or Russia would have paid him handsomely and not blown his cover. Obviously he is a conscientious objector.



No such animal where classified information is concerned.Its a felony to release classified information to anyone not authorized to have it.I have seen military personnel given  non-judicial punishment who lost classified documents.Giving it to the media could result in prison time.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Mr. Snowden speaks, again, in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _South China Morning Post_:

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1259490/washington-bullying-hong-kong-extradite-me-says-edward-snowden


> Washington is bullying Hong Kong to extradite me, says Edward Snowden
> *America is desperate to prevent me leaking further information, whistle-blower says*
> 
> Lana Lam
> 
> Thursday, 13 June, 2013 (It's already tomorrow in HK)
> 
> The US has been “trying to bully” Hong Kong’s government into extraditing surveillance whistle-blower Edward Snowden, he told the Post in an exclusive interview.
> 
> Hong Kong justice officials have so far declined to comment on any official or unofficial approaches they may have from their US counterparts, but the former CIA contractor warned that America was desperate to prevent him leaking further sensitive information.
> 
> He said: “I heard today from a reliable source that the United States government is trying to bully the Hong Kong government into extraditing me before the local government can learn of this [the US National Security Agency hacking people in Hong Kong]. The US government will do anything to prevent me from getting this into the public eye, which is why they are pushing so hard for extradition.”
> 
> So far, Hong Kong’s government has failed to make any statement regarding Snowden’s presence in the city since May 20 or where it stands on the issues of asylum and extradition.
> 
> Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has remained tight-lipped on the matter in what has turned out to be an awkward trip to the United States to promote trade relations. He refused to respond to media questions about the case when he attended a plenary meeting hosted by the Hong Kong-US Business Council in New York yesterday.
> 
> Earlier in the week he met New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to talk about the challenges facing both their cities, but again, no mention of the Snowden affair was made. The meeting had been rescheduled in the immediate aftermath of Snowden revealing himself as the source of the leaks.
> 
> Before a dinner in his honour hosted by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council on Tuesday, Leung, who flies home today, was asked six questions by reporters about Snowden. “I have no comment on individual cases,” he said.
> 
> Asked whether he had discussed the issue with US officials and whether US officials had sought assistance from the Hong Kong government, Leung again said he could not comment.
> 
> Asked about how extraditions to friendly countries were handled, he said: “In general, we follow the laws and our policies.”
> 
> The leaks have set off a furore in the US with President Barack Obama defending the programme as vital to keeping Americans safe. The director of National Intelligence James Clapper said it gathers data trails left by targeted foreign
> 
> citizens using the internet outside the US.
> 
> The chief of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, was yesterday set to testify on the issue before a US Senate committee.
> 
> _Additional reporting by Gary Cheung in New York_




There are dueling legal opinions out there about how easy or hard it will be to extradite Mr Snowden.


----------



## cupper

S.M.A. said:
			
		

> What about tinfoil bras (and other articles of clothing) for Snowden's pole-dancing girlfriend?   >
> 
> link



I can't believe I just read that. :facepalm:


----------



## CougarKing

;D

ad: "NSA: Let me take care of your slides"


----------



## cupper

S.M.A. said:
			
		

> ;D
> 
> ad: "NSA: Let me take care of your slides"



Someone's going to get a visit from the NSA. ;D

Seems line Snowden may be speaking out of another orifice (as if we didn't know that already)

*Experts Doubt NSA Leaker's Claim About Wiretaps*

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/12/190928454/experts-doubt-nsa-leakers-claim-about-wiretaps?utm_source=NPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130612



> Edward Snowden's claim that as systems administrator for a defense contractor in Hawaii he had the authority "to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president," just isn't plausible, says a former national security lawyer at the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
> 
> On Morning Edition, NPR's Steve Henn zeroed in on some of the things that Snowden, who has come forward to claim he's behind the recent explosive leaks about surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency, has been heard saying in interviews with The Guardian.
> 
> Carrie Cordero, the former Justice and DNI lawyer, is now director of national securities studies at Georgetown University Law Center. She tells Steve that "the notion that this individual has the authority to go ahead and ... 'wiretap' people is just ridiculous."
> 
> Without discussing the details of how such surveillance programs work and the safeguards that are in place to protect privacy, Cordero says Snowden's claim "does not resemble anything close to what I observed within the intelligence community."
> 
> Might he have had the ability to wiretap individuals, if not the authority? Susan Freiwald, a cyber law and privacy expert at the University of San Francisco School of Law, notes that the NSA appears to be collecting huge amounts of "metadata" from communications companies — basically, master files of which numbers are connecting to each other. But Steve says that "for an analyst sitting in Hawaii to initiate a wiretap on anyone anywhere he or she would need much, much more" — perhaps most notably, the ability to "monitor new calls, emails and chats in real time."
> 
> The communications and Internet companies, Steve adds, "have said in no uncertain terms that they are not granting the NSA unfettered access to their servers — or turning over data on the scale necessary to make a system like this work."
> 
> "I think it's quite likely they are telling the truth," Freiwald says.


----------



## Nemo888

cupper said:
			
		

> *Experts Doubt NSA Leaker's Claim About Wiretaps*
> 
> Carrie Cordero, the former Justice and DNI lawyer, is now . She tells Steve that "the notion that this individual has the authority to go ahead and ... 'wiretap' people is just ridiculous."



Technically you would need a FISA warrant to actively wiretap. Though a FISA a warrant has never been refused it is technically possible. Ironically murdering Awlaki(an American citizen) needed no judicial oversight, but wiretapping him did. But surfing the server farm of all your internet usage and phone calls since high school wouldn't really be wiretapping. It's the entire digital footprint of the planet. This is actually the most amazing historical record in human history. If we do get rid of it I hope we put that trove in a time capsule. I would name it one of the 7 Wonders of the modern world.


----------



## cupper

It's a case of semantics. His claim of authority vs ability. And even that (his ability) is in dispute.


----------



## devil39

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> That the article does not even speak to the issues he gave up his life for is very telling. It is pure ad hominem.
> 
> Some of the comments to the article are good.
> 
> This column reads like a genteel rewrite of Nixon's Enemies List. It spans the spectrum of the thin-skinned paranoia which the powerful exhibit whenever their predatory little worlds are exposed. To wit:
> 
> --Blame the messenger instead of the malefactors (Snowden magically destroys privacy by reporting on the destruction of privacy!) -- check.
> 
> -- Speculate about the messenger's psychological state ( Watergate Rule #26, inspired by the Nixon Plumbers break-in of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist ) -- check.
> 
> -- Denigrate the messenger's lowly educational background and social status. Point out the faux pas of servants who betray their masters, who of course are not corporate welfare capitalist spies, but rather philanthropic humanitarian aid organizations.-- check.
> 
> -- Question the messenger's patriotism and loyalty to friends and family. -- check. (These whistleblowers are always terrible sons, boyfriends and dressers - see Assange, Julian ; Bill Keller edition)
> 
> _*Edward Snowden deserves a medal not only for upsetting the security state apple cart, but for getting David Brooks so tied up in knots that his bromides and his platitudes are congealing into a bigger mess than usual.
> 
> Snowden is guilty of the high crime of giving aid and comfort to the citizenry. He is a traitor to Brook's class.*_



Nemo888,

While an interesting debate as to motives and responsibilities, with an opinion like that I hope you don't have a security clearance.  

I would assume he has sworn an oath to his nation.  This is not how one should deal with issues of National Security and Policy when it does not agree with matters of personal conscience/morals in the realm of national security.  Presidents and National Security Advisors get paid to make these types of decisions.   The nation gets to elect the President.   (my bold and italics in the quote)


----------



## cupper

A little bit more detail on PRISM from the Washington Post:

*Here’s everything we know about PRISM to date*

(more like a FAQ)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/heres-everything-we-know-about-prism-to-date/?hpid=z2



> Since the Guardian and The Washington Post revealed the existence of the NSA’s PRISM program last week, there’s been a confusing debate about what exactly the program is and how it works. While the Obama administration has tacitly acknowledged the program’s existence, tech companies have angrily denied that they had given the NSA “direct” or “unfettered” access to their servers. So what’s going on? Let’s try to separate the facts from the hype.
> 
> *What do we know for sure about PRISM?*
> 
> We know that PRISM is a system the NSA uses to gain access to the private communications of users of nine popular Internet services. We know that access is governed by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was enacted in 2008. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper tacitly admitted PRISM’s existence in a blog post last Thursday. A classified PowerPoint presentation leaked by Edward Snowden states that PRISM enables “collection directly from the servers” of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook and other online companies.
> 
> *What do the Internet companies who allegedly participate in this program have to say about it?*
> 
> In a Friday post titled “What the …?” Google CEO Larry Page stated that “any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.”
> 
> In a weekend follow-up, Google chief architect Yonatan Zunger wrote that “the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals.” He said that “it would have been challenging — not impossible, but definitely a major surprise — if something like this could have been done without my ever hearing of it.” He said that even if he couldn’t talk about such a program publicly, he would have quit Google rather than participate. “We didn’t fight the Cold War just so we could rebuild the Stasi ourselves,” he concluded.
> 
> “The notion that Yahoo! gives any federal agency vast or unfettered access to our users’ records is categorically false,” wrote Yahoo’s Ron Bell on Saturday. “Of the hundreds of millions of users we serve, an infinitesimal percentage will ever be the subject of a government data collection directive.”
> 
> Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called media reports about PRISM “outrageous,” stating that “Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the U.S. or any other government direct access to our servers.”
> 
> “We only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers,” Microsoft said in a statement last Thursday. “If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data, we don’t participate in it.”
> 
> “We have never heard of PRISM,” said Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple. “We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order.”
> 
> *Are the companies lying? Or using legalistic language to hide their participation?*
> 
> It’s hard to be sure, but the number of companies that have issued denials, and the vehemence of some of their statements, suggests that they may be sincere.
> 
> Initially, many people were suspicious of the fact that a number of companies only denied giving the NSA “direct access” to their servers, suggesting that the companies might be giving the agency access to the contents of their servers through some intermediary.
> 
> But the more recent statements, especially Zunger’s and Bell’s, seem to leave little wiggle room. Google’s Zunger says that Google only responds to “specific orders about individuals.” Yahoo’s Bell says that only an “infinitesimal percentage” of Yahoo’s customers will have their information turned over to the feds. That’s in tension with initial reports about how PRISM operates. And Zunger’s crack about the Stasi is very different from the careful, legalistic statements the firms released in the initial hours after news of PRISM broke.
> 
> *If PRISM doesn’t give the NSA unfettered access to our online information, what does it do?*
> Reporting by the New York Times and CNet offers some clues about how PRISM works.
> 
> The Times says that major tech companies have systems that “involve access to data under individual FISA requests. And in some cases, the data is transmitted to the government electronically, using a company’s servers.”
> 
> Data is “shared after company lawyers have reviewed the FISA request according to company practice. It is not sent automatically or in bulk,” the Times reports. The scheme is “a more secure and efficient way to hand over the data.”
> 
> A source told CNet’s Declan McCullagh that PRISM is “a very formalized legal process that companies are obliged to do.” A source — perhaps the same one — says that “you can’t say everyone in Pakistan who searched for ‘X’ … It still has to be particularized.”
> 
> *Doesn’t that contradict what the slides released by Snowden say?*
> 
> Not necessarily. Here’s the key slide from the PRISM presentation: _(see slide at link)_
> 
> This slide draws a distinction between NSA surveillance programs that collect communications “as data flows past” on fiber optic cables and PRISM, which collects communications “directly from the servers” of U.S. Internet companies.
> 
> Some have interpreted this to mean that the NSA has “direct access” in a technical sense: automatic, unfettered access to the servers’ contents. But in context, “direct” is more likely to mean that the NSA is receiving data sent to them deliberately by the tech companies, as opposed to intercepting communications as they’re transmitted to some other destination. That’s not inconsistent with tech company lawyers scrutinizing each request before complying with it.
> 
> *Does that mean there’s nothing to worry about?*
> While the NSA may not have unfettered access to tech companies’ servers, there are still serious questions about the breadth of the information the government is collecting, and whether that information is subject to appropriate judicial oversight. FISA orders are not search warrants under the Fourth Amendment, and the FISA Amendments Act doesn’t require the government to show probable cause to believe that the target of surveillance has committed a crime.
> 
> Defenders of the NSA’s activities argue the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply because FISA orders only target non-Americans. Instead of showing probable cause to a judge, Section 702 of FISA allows senior Obama administration officials to “authorize” the “targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.” The surveillance may not “intentionally target” an American, but the NSA can obtain the private communications of Americans as part of a request that officially “targets” a foreigner.
> 
> The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the constitutionality of these provisions. In February, the Supreme Court threw out a legal challenge to the law because the plaintiffs couldn’t prove that they had personally been the target of surveillance. It’s not clear whether any of the recent revelations will give FISA opponents enough evidence to convince a court to rule on the program’s merits.
> 
> *FISA only allows targeting of foreigners. That means it can’t use FISA orders to read Americans’ e-mails, right?*
> 
> The “targeting” rule may not protect Americans as much as it might seem. Last week’s revelation that the government used an obscure provision of the Patriot Act to obtain records of every phone call on Verizon’s network with a single court order suggests that the government is willing to adopt permissive interpretations of the law.
> 
> According to the Times, “FISA orders can range from inquiries about specific people to a broad sweep for intelligence, like logs of certain search terms.” In one case, an NSA agent “installed government-developed software on the company’s server and remained at the site for several weeks to download data to an agency laptop.” In other cases, the government has sought “real-time transmission of data, which companies send digitally.”
> 
> So a FISA order might “target” a suspected terrorist, but also request access to the private data from all of the target’s associates — some of whom might happen to live in the United States.
> 
> In its initial report on PRISM, The Washington Post said that NSA analysts use search queries “designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s ‘foreignness.’ ” Training materials advise new analysts that “it’s nothing to worry about” if they accidentally collect U.S. content.
> And even if the NSA is only collecting foreigners’ communications, that doesn’t rule out abusive surveillance. For example, the environmental nonprofit organization Greenpeace has been targeted for surveillance by the NSA in the past. The organization is based outside the United States, but it has many U.S. members who might not appreciate having their government spy on its activities.


----------



## cupper

From the NSA Director's appearance in front of the Senate Committee.

(I think he makes a really good beer. I like it. I like it a lot.  ;D )

*NSA director says surveillance programs thwarted ‘dozens’ of attacks*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nsa-director-says-surveillance-thwarted-dozens-of-attacks/2013/06/12/d1297190-d396-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?hpid=z1



> The head of the National Security Agency said Wednesday that his agency’s extensive electronic surveillance programs have played a critical role in thwarting “dozens” of terrorist attacks aimed at U.S. targets and abroad.
> 
> Gen. Keith Alexander, in making the assertion, cited the two intelligence collection programs that have been the focus of public scrutiny in recent days, one that allows the government to collect the call records of millions of Americans from U.S. telecommunications companies and another that collects Internet records.
> 
> In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, he cited in particular the cases of Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan American who pleaded guilty to planning suicide attacks in New York, and Pakistani American David Headley, who conducted surveillance in support of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, which killed more than 160 people. In both instances, he said, the Internet data-mining program helped unravel the plots.
> 
> The Obama administration had defended its extensive collection of telephone and Internet records amid a political furor over the surveillance that has consumed Washington for the past week. It follows disclosures in the The Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper.
> 
> President Obama last week said he would welcome a public debate over the surveillance, saying Americans will have to sacrifice some privacy for the sake of security. Alexander vowed to quickly make public records that show the success of the phone program in preventing attacks.
> 
> “I don’t have those figures today,” he said. “Over the next week it will be our intent to get those figures out...I want the American people to know we’re being transparent here.’’
> 
> The order that allowed for the NSA collection of phone records of millions of Americans was based on Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows law enforcement to obtain a wide variety of “business records,” including calling records. The program collects customer “metadata,” including the phone numbers dialed and the length of calls, which is used by intelligence analysts to detect patterns and personal connections, on every phone call made or received by U.S. customers of major American phone companies.
> 
> The principal source of the recent revelations was Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old NSA contractor who has worked for several government agencies.
> 
> A senior intelligence official said Wednesday that the CIA has opened an internal investigation to determine what Snowden was involved in when he worked there. Separately, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has ordered a damage assessment following Snowden’s disclosures, which he acknowledged on Sunday in interviews with the Post and the Guardian.
> 
> “Obviously, Mr. Snowden’s actions over the past week-plus are generating a lot of activity on the part of the intelligence community and the CIA (in terms of taking) a look back and seeing what we can learn about just what he may have been involved in, and also see if there are some lessons we can learn,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing inquiry.
> 
> CIA officials did not dispute that Snowden was a CIA employee, though they could not say exactly when he worked there. After leaving the agency, he worked for the technology company Dell and later for Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm. While working for Booz Allen earlier this year, he was assigned to the National Security Agency Threat Center in Honolulu, where he is believed to have downloaded highly classified material, including information about widespread surveillance programs run by the NSA.


----------



## cupper

And more of the obvious from Mr. Snowden.

*NSA leaker Edward Snowden: U.S. targets China with hackers*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/snowden-wants-people-of-hong-kong-to-decide-my-fate/2013/06/12/a69e94ee-d370-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?hpid=z1



> HONG KONG — Edward Snowden, the self-confessed leaker of secret surveillance documents, claimed Wednesday that the United States has mounted massive hacking operations against hundreds of Chinese targets since 2009.
> 
> The former contractor, whose work at the National Security Agency gave him access to highly classified U.S. intelligence, made the assertions in an interview with the South China Morning Post. The newspaper said he showed it “unverified documents” describing an extensive U.S. campaign to obtain information from computers in Hong Kong and mainland China.
> 
> “We hack network backbones — like huge Internet routers, basically — that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one,” he told the newspaper.
> 
> According to Snowden, the NSA has engaged in more than 61,000 hacking operations worldwide, including hundreds aimed at Chinese targets. Among the targets were universities, businesses and public officials.
> 
> The interview was the first time Snowden has surfaced publicly since he acknowledged in interviews with The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper Sunday that he was responsible for disclosing classified documents outlining extensive U.S. surveillance efforts in the United States.
> 
> Senior American officials have accused China of hacking into U.S. military and business computers. Snowden’s claims of extensive U.S. hacking of Chinese computers tracks assertions made repeatedly by senior Chinese government officials that they are victims of similar cyber-intrusions.
> 
> Snowden’s claims could not be verified, and U.S. officials did not respond to immediate requests for comment.
> 
> In the interview with the Morning Post posted online late Wednesday, Snowden said he stood by his decision to seek asylum in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous city, after leaking documents about a high-level U.S. surveillance program.
> 
> “People who think I made a mistake in picking Hong Kong as a location misunderstood my intentions,” he said in the interview. “I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality.”
> 
> He added, “I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong’s rule of law.”
> 
> By speaking with Hong Kong’s oldest English-language newspaper, Snowden seemed to be directly addressing the city he has chosen as his safe harbor. And by disclosing that he possesses documents that he says describe U.S. hacking against China, he appeared to be trying to win support from the Chinese government.
> 
> Snowden told the Hong Kong newspaper that he was describing what he says are U.S. cyber attacks on Chinese targets to illustrate “the hypocrisy of the U.S. government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure, unlike its adversaries.”
> 
> Some in Hong Kong are responding to his campaign. A rally is being organized Saturday to support the 29-year-old former government contractor, who has been in the city since May 20. A Web site, www.supportsnowden.org, has been set up with details about the event, which will include speeches from human rights activists and local legislators.
> 
> Activists in Hong Kong said they admired Snowden’s effort to shed light on his government’s practices.
> 
> “He is a brave man. The authorities cannot use the ‘anti-terrorism’ excuse to invade people’s privacy without boundaries,” said Yang Kuang, a prominent Hong Kong activist. “I hope more and more people will stand out and expose such practices.”
> 
> Snowden said in his interview that he has “been given no reason to doubt [Hong Kong’s] legal system.”
> 
> “My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate,” Snowden said.
> 
> Snowden is up against an extradition treaty between the United States and Hong Kong that many view as being clear — that in the vast majority of cases, Hong Kong must cooperate with U.S. government requests for help apprehending suspected criminals.
> 
> The United States has yet to file a formal extradition request, although there are other ways for the governments to be cooperating.
> 
> James To Kun-sun, a Hong Kong legislator and solicitor, said that even without an extradition request, the United States can ask Hong Kong law enforcement to watch Snowden while the U.S. Justice Department moves on its investigation. The FBI has a legal attache in Hong Kong, and Snowden has also identified a CIA presence in the city.
> 
> “I suspect in this case . . . the FBI tells the HK police, ‘The request will be very soon,’ and [they can] ask police to keep an eye on him,” Kun-sun said.
> 
> Once an extradition request is received, a judge here will decide whether it falls under the treaty and whether Hong Kong law enforcement should help the United States by, for example, collecting evidence or carrying out an arrest. Snowden could also appeal any decision, so the process could be drawn out.
> 
> “As long as I am assured a free and fair trial, and asked to appear, that seems reasonable,” Snowden said in the interview.
> 
> He added that he plans to stay in Hong Kong as long as the city will have him.


----------



## Nemo888

devil39 said:
			
		

> Nemo888,
> 
> While an interesting debate as to motives and responsibilities, with an opinion like that I hope you don't have a security clearance.
> 
> I would assume he has sworn an oath to his nation.  This is not how one should deal with issues of National Security and Policy when it does not agree with matters of personal conscience/morals in the realm of national security.  Presidents and National Security Advisors get paid to make these types of decisions.   The nation gets to elect the President.   (my bold and italics in the quote)



When I was in the Ph with family I was going to travel to a very beautiful unspoiled reef. I was told it was infested with rebels and so began collecting firearms from my father-in-laws villa in a rather gleeful fashion. My wife and her sister looked on in horror. I still did not get it. They had to explain to me that such a risk was inappropriate especially considering I have a child. I'm embarrassed that I was so out of it I was going to bring my daughter with me. A fun day with the family on the reef armed to the teeth ready for a gunfight. It then occurred to me that the army makes you a bit skewed. We need a broad base of opinions from which to make solid judgements. That commenter was smart, distrusted authority and I have a soft spot for dirty hippies.

I think these policies should not be made in secret. I want people to know the real cost and take responsibility. Most people are fine with data collection as long as it has limited access. On the other hand Vice Presidents drawing up kill lists with no congressional, judicial or CIA oversight is not a functioning Democracy anymore. I don't really care about data collection. It has been here longer than I've been alive and as I realized earlier today is an amazing cultural achievement. I do want to go back to the days when Special Forces commanders complained about red tape. The killing has gotten a bit out of hand. From a doctrine standpoint it is becoming counter productive. Our enemies have programs too. They often call their failed attempts with barely literate morons "Operation Hemorrhage". They want to make us over react. It is very effective. We are broke and when I travel most of the world thinks we are no better than China or the Russians. This depresses me. When I grew up we were better than that.

Also private contractors have many customers. The products they develop for the NSA can also be retooled for other regimes as we saw in Libya. These tools are also contracted out to corporations to spy on business rivals. The adverse outcomes become quite obvious. A debate is necessary. Without them there is no democracy.


----------



## GnyHwy

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> On the other hand Vice Presidents drawing up kill lists with no congressional, judicial or CIA oversight is not a functioning Democracy anymore. I don't really care about data collection. It has been here longer than I've been alive and as I realized earlier today is an amazing cultural achievement. I do want to go back to the days when Special Forces commanders complained about red tape. The killing has gotten a bit out of hand.



If you are speaking of warfare why would the Vice President need authority.  Authority could be delved much lower than that and I don't think you should assume that there is no oversight either.  It is not like the VP has 20 TVs with an X-box controller with 24/7 satellite/UAV feeds in his bedroom... or does he?  :worms:

Your comment about wishing the red tape be brought back.  I am guessing that you will get much adversity to that.  Let's go back the stats you posted a while back.  I don't know how true they are, but I'll play with them anyway.



			
				Nemo888 said:
			
		

> The system had many checks and balances. I'll use one of the first Delta team shooters who became a head of the GWOT Lieutenant General William G. "Jerry" Boykin as a public source. in the 80's and 90's he complained bitterly about only getting approval for roughly 10% of possible targets.  After 9/11 that went to almost 100% and both congressional and CIA oversight was removed as power shifted to the Pentagon. By 2003 at least 3000 persons in 100 countries were disappeared or captured.



First you mention that only 10% missions were appproved and you seem to think that is good.  Most military minds would disagree, and they would see it as 90% of potential threats didn't get interrogated.   The stats also conveniently leave out how many of those 90% turned out to be actual threats.

Next you mention 3000 persons captured in 100 countries over 2 years(ish).  OK, I'll play along.  That's 3000/730 days = 4.1/day, which is not so much in my mind, considering it was world wide.  Now let's assume again that 3000 is a high number and I will skew this in favour of your argument.  Of those well guess high and say 1/5 was a wrongful capture, that's now 600 wrongful captures, still a high number.  And of those we'll say that 1/10 turned out to be a bad deal i.e. the wrong people got hurt or killed.  Once again I believe these numbers to be exaggerated in your favour.  That is a fraction of a fraction 1/5 x 1/10 x 3000= 60 wrongfully hurt or killed persons.  60/3000 or 2% (remember that is an exaggerated guess).  Still think that is too high?  I ask this then.  What if we used conventional kinetic methods to retrieve these 3000 persons?  Do you think the innocent casualty rate would be higher than 60?   I do.

I am not saying your are wrong, but beware of stats.  They can be manipulated and emphasized anyway you want.   

You may have something on an ethical level, and if there is a higher power judging then maybe he did do the right thing.  Professionally, he did the wrong thing, although I do not categorize him in the same group as the wikileaks or other groups like that.


----------



## cupper

From the news reports coming out after the Senate and House got their in camera briefing from General Alexander today, many that loudly expressed concern of lax checks and balances are now satisfied with the system being robust enough to prevent abuse.

The biggest concern was the FISA courts being just a rubber stamp for the agencies. One former NSA general council commented that even though the stats from last year showed that 100% of the applications were approved by the courts, a significant majority of those approvals were "wire brushed" by the courts to cut back the scale of the request, to put in more stringent limits, or require more definitive background before approval was given.

So it seems that the concerns about agencies running rampant may been blown out or proportion by the pols, the media and the leaker himself.


----------



## Nemo888

cupper said:
			
		

> From the news reports coming out after the Senate and House got their in camera briefing from General Alexander today, many that loudly expressed concern of lax checks and balances are now satisfied with the system being robust enough to prevent abuse.
> 
> The biggest concern was the FISA courts being just a rubber stamp for the agencies. One former NSA general council commented that even though the stats from last year showed that 100% of the applications were approved by the courts, a significant majority of those approvals were "wire brushed" by the courts to cut back the scale of the request, to put in more stringent limits, or require more definitive background before approval was given.
> 
> So it seems that the concerns about agencies running rampant may been blown out or proportion by the pols, the media and the leaker himself.



Corporate contractors have little oversight. Some even abuse the database to try and impress people to feel important. Rampant sounds about right to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3ux1hpLvqMw


----------



## Brad Sallows

Concerns about agencies are beside the point.

I do not want any level of government to record who is present when I speak with someone.

I do not want any level of government to record the address and return address of any piece of mail I send or receive.

I do not want any level of government to save a record of a telephone call I initiate or receive.

That technology has made the third one easier than the first two, does not suddenly make it appropriate.


----------



## cupper

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Corporate contractors have little oversight. Some even abuse the database to try and impress people to feel important. Rampant sounds about right to me.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3ux1hpLvqMw



There is a big difference between some peon douche trying to impress his douche friends, and the government investigating individuals or groups without legal justification.


----------



## cupper

Brad Sallows said:
			
		

> Concerns about agencies are beside the point.
> 
> I do not want any level of government to record who is present when I speak with someone.
> 
> I do not want any level of government to record the address and return address of any piece of mail I send or receive.
> 
> I do not want any level of government to save a record of a telephone call I initiate or receive.
> 
> That technology has made the third one easier than the first two, does not suddenly make it appropriate.



But you are OK with you ISP and phone service collecting and keeping the same info?

And using that info for whatever purpose they deem necessary, including selling it to other companies for unknown purposes?


----------



## Nemo888

cupper said:
			
		

> There is a big difference between some peon douche trying to impress his douche friends, and the government investigating individuals or groups without legal justification.



The problem is obviously that even lowly "peon douches" can abuse the database for things as unimportant as impressing douche friends. My problem isn't the government. It is that most of the work is farmed out to corporations with questionable and clearly divided loyalties and the even more questionable minions that subcontract for them.


----------



## cupper

More to society and personal privacy.

*Are American Attitudes Toward Privacy Changing?*

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=191226108&m=191226087



> LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
> 
> Revelations this week that the government is tracking billions of email messages and phone calls have produced conflicting responses among Americans. Some are outraged that their government is spying on them. For others, it's more like, duh. The debate is bringing to the fore larger questions about our changing attitudes toward privacy.
> 
> And to talk about that, we've brought in NPR's social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam, who joins us regularly to discuss new research.
> 
> Shankar, welcome.
> 
> SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Hi, Linda.
> 
> WERTHEIMER: Now, in just the past few years, it seems as if Americans are more willing than ever to share fairly private portions of their personal lives online. But is that actual evidence that our attitudes toward privacy are changing?
> 
> VEDANTAM: That's really an interesting question, Linda, because when social scientists look at this empirically, they find that people actually don't want less privacy. People seem to want more privacy - at least they want more control over their privacy, and this is true of both younger, as well as older people. But when you look at that behavior, people seem to be revealing more than they used to. You know how much money they make, the status of their relationships, illnesses. So there's this disconnect between what people say they want in terms of privacy and what they actually seem to choose in terms of their privacy options. And, you know, it's sort of ironic that we're debating how the NSA is tracking how phone A calls phone B, because in many ways, marketers are well ahead of spies in this game. They've not only found ways to get much more private information out of us, ostensibly, it's without permission.
> 
> WERTHEIMER: We have heard a lot about how marketers make it hard for us to understand their privacy policies, so that inadvertently, we cannot control our privacy.
> 
> VEDANTAM: Yes, that's absolutely true. I think complicated privacy rules are very powerful in shaping people's behavior. At Carnegie Mellon University, Alessandro Acquisti, George Loewenstein and Lorrie Cranor have done a number of experiments exploring different dimensions of privacy. I talked to Acquisti. He told me that between 2005 and 2009, there was actually a decrease in willingness to share information on Facebook. But then in 2009, Facebook changed its privacy rules, and the sharing went back up. So, just because people don't like rules doesn't mean they don't follow the rules.
> 
> And it's not just rules. There are actually much more subtle ways in which people can be influenced. When we see other people disclosing private information, or we are led to believe that other people are disclosing private information, we may say we don't want to disclose our private information, but we end up doing it, anyway.
> 
> WERTHEIMER: So you're saying if I'm on Facebook and I see my friends sharing very personal information, say, about a breakup then I'll do it, too?
> 
> VEDANTAM: Yeah. Or I might reveal something about my child, or a problem that my child is encountering at school. I think what Acquisti is basically saying is that there are these unconscious biases that really are very powerful.
> 
> You know, there's another very clever technique that he's discovered. He initially assumed that when you're trying to get private information out of people, it's better to start by asking a trivial question and then slowly build up to more intrusive questions.
> 
> So what Acquisti did was he asked 30 questions for people, and they ranged all the way from the innocuous - have you ever left a light on in a room when you left the room - all the way up to: Have you ever had sex with the current partner of a friend?
> 
> And interestingly, what he found was exactly the opposite: people revealed much more when you asked them the most intrusive question first. Now, they didn't actually reveal the answer to that most intrusive question, but for every other question, they compared the next questions with the most intrusive question. And compared to revealing things about adultery, you know, questions about whether they'd falsified an insurance claim seemed much less intrusive.
> 
> And so when he asked the questions in decreasing orders of intrusiveness, he found nearly twice as many people admitted to falsifying an insurance claim, and nearly three times as many people said they hadn't told a partner about a sexually transmitted disease.
> 
> WERTHEIMER: So what do these researchers make of the controversy over the NSA surveillance?
> 
> VEDANTAM: You know, I asked a question about that, and what he said is that, you know, the cloak-and-dagger stuff really worked great in 1913 and maybe in 1963, but in 2013, people are much more likely to reveal their private information not when they're spied on, but when they feel they have total control over their information. That's when they let loose.
> 
> WERTHEIMER: That's Shankar Vedantam, who joins us regularly to talk about social science research. Shankar, thank you.
> 
> VEDANTAM: Thanks, Linda.
> 
> WERTHEIMER: You can follow him on Twitter @HiddenBrain. And while you're at it, you can follow this program @MorningEdition.


----------



## cupper

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> The problem is obviously that even lowly "peon douches" can abuse the database for things as unimportant as impressing douche friends. My problem isn't the government. It is that most of the work is farmed out to corporations with questionable and clearly divided loyalties and the even more questionable minions that subcontract for them.



And my previous question applies here as well:



			
				cupper said:
			
		

> But you are OK with you ISP and phone service collecting and keeping the same info?
> 
> And using that info for whatever purpose they deem necessary, including selling it to other companies for unknown purposes?




But there is another aspect of your argument that does raise concerns, the considerable number of contractors that are employed by the government makes the keeping of secrets more difficult.

As Benjamin Franklin said: "Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead."


----------



## cupper

cupper said:
			
		

> From the news reports coming out after the Senate and House got their in camera briefing from General Alexander today, many that loudly expressed concern of lax checks and balances are now satisfied with the system being robust enough to prevent abuse.
> 
> The biggest concern was the FISA courts being just a rubber stamp for the agencies. One former NSA general council commented that even though the stats from last year showed that 100% of the applications were approved by the courts, a significant majority of those approvals were "wire brushed" by the courts to cut back the scale of the request, to put in more stringent limits, or require more definitive background before approval was given.
> 
> So it seems that the concerns about agencies running rampant may been blown out or proportion by the pols, the media and the leaker himself.



Here are the news clips I referenced in my previous post.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=191400440

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/13/191400442/senator-nsa-program-expanded-beyond-original-vision

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/13/191226106/fisa-court-appears-to-be-rubberstamp-for-government-requests


----------



## a_majoor

The potential for abuse is quite massive. As pointed out, warentless serching is rolling for information, and allied with the escalating overreach of bureaucratic organs could lead to a situation where anyone at all could be at risk of being attacked for a politicized agenda. Canadians already should be familier with this throught the "Human Rights" kangaroo courts; the potential in the US is far worse:

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/



> Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance
> BY MOXIE MARLINSPIKE06.13.136:30 AM
> 
> Photo: Dell’s Pics / Flickr
> Suddenly, it feels like 2000 again. Back then, surveillance programs like Carnivore, Echelon, and Total Information Awareness helped spark a surge in electronic privacy awareness. Now a decade later, the recent discovery of programs like PRISM, Boundless Informant, and FISA orders are catalyzing renewed concern.
> 
> The programs of the past can be characterized as “proximate surveillance,” in which the government attempted to use technology to directly monitor communication themselves. The programs of this decade mark the transition to “oblique surveillance,” in which the government more often just goes to the places where information has been accumulating on its own, such as email providers, search engines, social networks, and telecoms.
> 
> Apologists will always frame our use of information-gathering services like a mobile phone plan or Gmail as a choice.
> Both then and now, privacy advocates have typically come into conflict with a persistent tension, in which many individuals don’t understand why they should be concerned about surveillance if they have nothing to hide. It’s even less clear in the world of “oblique” surveillance, given that apologists will always frame our use of information-gathering services like a mobile phone plan or Gmail as a choice.
> 
> We Won’t Always Know When We Have Something To Hide
> As James Duane, a professor at Regent Law School and former defense attorney, notes in his excellent lecture on why it is never a good idea to talk to the police:
> 
> Estimates of the current size of the body of federal criminal law vary. It has been reported that the Congressional Research Service cannot even count the current number of federal crimes. These laws are scattered in over 50 titles of the United States Code, encompassing roughly 27,000 pages. Worse yet, the statutory code sections often incorporate, by reference, the provisions and sanctions of administrative regulations promulgated by various regulatory agencies under congressional authorization. Estimates of how many such regulations exist are even less well settled, but the ABA thinks there are ”nearly 10,000.”
> 
> If the federal government can’t even count how many laws there are, what chance does an individual have of being certain that they are not acting in violation of one of them?
> 
> As Supreme Court Justice Breyer elaborates:
> 
> The complexity of modern federal criminal law, codified in several thousand sections of the United States Code and the virtually infinite variety of factual circumstances that might trigger an investigation into a possible violation of the law, make it difficult for anyone to know, in advance, just when a particular set of statements might later appear (to a prosecutor) to be relevant to some such investigation.
> 
> For instance, did you know that it is a federal crime to be in possession of a lobster under a certain size? It doesn’t matter if you bought it at a grocery store, if someone else gave it to you, if it’s dead or alive, if you found it after it died of natural causes, or even if you killed it while acting in self defense. You can go to jail because of a lobster.
> 
> If the federal government had access to every email you’ve ever written and every phone call you’ve ever made, it’s almost certain that they could find something you’ve done which violates a provision in the 27,000 pages of federal statues or 10,000 administrative regulations. You probably do have something to hide, you just don’t know it yet.
> 
> Moxie Marlinspike
> A security researcher who has published numerous attacks on SSL and other secure protocols, Moxie Marlinspike was formerly the director of application security at Twitter and co-founder and CTO of Whisper Systems.
> 
> We Should Have Something To Hide
> Over the past year, there have been a number of headline-grabbing legal changes in the U.S., such as the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington, as well as the legalization of same-sex marriage in a growing number of U.S. states.
> 
> As a majority of people in these states apparently favor these changes, advocates for the U.S. democratic process cite these legal victories as examples of how the system can provide real freedoms to those who engage with it through lawful means. And it’s true, the bills did pass.
> 
> What’s often overlooked, however, is that these legal victories would probably not have been possible without the ability to break the law.
> 
> The state of Minnesota, for instance, legalized same-sex marriage this year, but sodomy laws had effectively made homosexuality itself completely illegal in that state until 2001. Likewise, before the recent changes making marijuana legal for personal use in Washington and Colorado, it was obviously not legal for personal use.
> 
> Imagine if there were an alternate dystopian reality where law enforcement was 100% effective, such that any potential law offenders knew they would be immediately identified, apprehended, and jailed. If perfect law enforcement had been a reality in Minnesota, Colorado, and Washington since their founding in the 1850s, it seems quite unlikely that these recent changes would have ever come to pass. How could people have decided that marijuana should be legal, if nobody had ever used it? How could states decide that same sex marriage should be permitted, if nobody had ever seen or participated in a same sex relationship?
> 
> If everyone’s every action were being monitored, and everyone technically violates some obscure law at some time, then punishment becomes purely selective.
> 
> The cornerstone of liberal democracy is the notion that free speech allows us to create a marketplace of ideas, from which we can use the political process to collectively choose the society we want. Most critiques of this system tend to focus on the ways in which this marketplace of ideas isn’t totally free, such as the ways in which some actors have substantially more influence over what information is distributed than others.
> 
> The more fundamental problem, however, is that living in an existing social structure creates a specific set of desires and motivations in a way that merely talking about other social structures never can. The world we live in influences not just what we think, but how we think, in a way that a discourse about other ideas isn’t able to. Any teenager can tell you that life’s most meaningful experiences aren’t the ones you necessarily desired, but the ones that actually transformed your very sense of what you desire.
> 
> We can only desire based on what we know. It is our present experience of what we are and are not able to do that largely determines our sense for what is possible. This is why same sex relationships, in violation of sodomy laws, were a necessary precondition for the legalization of same sex marriage. This is also why those maintaining positions of power will always encourage the freedom to talk about ideas, but never to act.
> 
> Technology and Law Enforcement
> Law enforcement used to be harder. If a law enforcement agency wanted to track someone, it required physically assigning a law enforcement agent to follow that person around. Tracking everybody would be inconceivable, because it would require having as many law enforcement agents as people.
> 
> Those in power will essentially have what they need to punish anyone they’d like, whenever they choose, as if there were no rules at all.
> Today things are very different. Almost everyone carries a tracking device (their mobile phone) at all times, which reports their location to a handful of telecoms, which are required by law to provide that information to the government. Tracking everyone is no longer inconceivable, and is in fact happening all the time. We know that Sprint alone responded to eight million pings for real time customer location just in 2008. They got so many requests that they built an automated system to handle them.
> 
> Combined with ballooning law enforcement budgets, this trend towards automation, which includes things like license plate scanners and domestically deployed drones, represents a significant shift in the way that law enforcement operates.
> 
> Police already abuse the immense power they have, but if everyone’s every action were being monitored, and everyone technically violates some obscure law at some time, then punishment becomes purely selective. Those in power will essentially have what they need to punish anyone they’d like, whenever they choose, as if there were no rules at all.
> 
> Even ignoring this obvious potential for new abuse, it’s also substantially closer to that dystopian reality of a world where law enforcement is 100% effective, eliminating the possibility to experience alternative ideas that might better suit us.
> 
> Compromise
> Some will say that it’s necessary to balance privacy against security, and that it’s important to find the right compromise between the two. Even if you believe that, a good negotiator doesn’t begin a conversation with someone whose position is at the exact opposite extreme by leading with concessions.
> 
> We’re not dealing with a balance of forces looking for the perfect compromise between security and privacy, but an enormous steam roller.
> And that’s exactly what we’re dealing with. Not a balance of forces which are looking for the perfect compromise between security and privacy, but an enormous steam roller built out of careers and billions in revenue from surveillance contracts and technology. To negotiate with that, we can’t lead with concessions, but rather with all the opposition we can muster.
> 
> All the Opposition We Can Muster
> Even if you believe that voting is more than a selection of meaningless choices designed to mask the true lack of agency we have, there is a tremendous amount of money and power and influence on the other side of this equation. So don’t just vote or petition.
> 
> To the extent that we’re “from the internet,” we have a certain amount of power of our own that we can leverage within this domain. It is possible to develop user-friendly technical solutions that would stymie this type of surveillance. I help work on Open Source security and privacy apps at Open Whisper Systems, but we all have a long ways to go. If you’re concerned, please consider finding some way to directly oppose this burgeoning worldwide surveillance industry (we could use help at Open Whisper Systems!). It’s going to take all of us.


----------



## Nemo888

Thucydides said:
			
		

> The potential for abuse is quite massive. As pointed out, warentless serching is rolling for information, and allied with the escalating overreach of bureaucratic organs could lead to a situation where anyone at all could be at risk of being attacked for a politicized agenda. Canadians already should be familier with this throught the "Human Rights" kangaroo courts; the potential in the US is far worse:
> 
> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/



"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." Tacticus, AD 100


----------



## Edward Campbell

I just heard on the (CBC Radio) news that the UK has warned international air carriers to not attempt to transport Mr. Snowden to he UK. The report says that he is unlikely to be admitted and any airline that brings him will be subject to hefty fines.


----------



## Brad Sallows

>But you are OK with you ISP and phone service collecting and keeping the same info?

Yes; it is billing information.  However, I doubt they have a capability or desire to retain it "forever".

>And using that info for whatever purpose they deem necessary, including selling it to other companies for unknown purposes?

I'd prefer not, but if those are the terms, I can change providers or do without.

Here's the interesting thing: government should be setting limits on records retention and exchange of information (as in "no"), not saying "me too".


----------



## GnyHwy

Brad,

It seems you would like the government to choose the do nothing COA in their efforts to combat crime and warfare.  Our current request and approval systems for tapping don't stand a chance against the speed and adaptability of the internet.  It is time to upgrade our security and this is the first step.

I don't get the paranoia argument.  Authorities are busy enough with legitimate concerns to worry about what people bought online at crappy tire or that fact that they called their cousin 3 times last week.

I do agree that the outsourcing has probably gotten out of control.  Especially when these agencies willfully withhold and hoard information to ensure that they get the credit.  It has become a competitive space rather than a collaborative one.


----------



## Colin Parkinson

As a gun owner and working as Public Servant, my trust in government is quite low. Some of the abuse is malicious, some is out of laziness and other is out a belief that rights are obstacles to a smoothly running bureaucracy and can be ignored for the most part.


----------



## Brad Sallows

I didn't suggest "do nothing".  There are going to be limits on the exchange of liberty for security, and denial of call records should be one of them.  Governments have proven repeatedly that they can't keep information under control.  There are people willing to leak information for money, there are people willing to leak information for political gain, and there are people elsewhere devoted to seeking information they are not supposed to have.

Anyone who happens to obtain files of call detail records can convert those into lists of who (name and address) called whom in a few hours.  Telephone switch manuals (to interpret the CDRs) are publicly available, and web-based directory services are even more publicly available.  Writing simple program's to parse CDR files to extract phone numbers and scrape web sites to match numbers to names and addresses is child's play.

Here are two security principles which should never be violated:
1) Control of public utilities' equipment should never be accessible on public networks.
2) Data from public utilities should never be in any hands except the utilities', and also never accessible on public networks.

To violate either of those is to ask to be gut-fu<ked by foreigners who don't like you.
2)


----------



## cupper

S.M.A. said:
			
		

> What about tinfoil bras (and other articles of clothing) for Snowden's pole-dancing girlfriend?   >
> 
> link



To borrow a gag from Bill Maher:

Dude went a long way to dump the broad. Gotta give him an A for covering all the possibilities.


----------



## cupper

*Metadata reveals the secrets of social position, company hierarchy, terrorist cells*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/metadata-reveals-the-secrets-of-social-position-company-hierarchy-terrorist-cells/2013/06/15/5058647c-d5c1-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story_1.html



> The general’s mistress thought she was being clever by using anonymous e-mail accounts and sending messages using hotel WiFi networks. But metadata — in this case the Internet protocol addresses pointing to network locations — gave her away.
> 
> The IP addresses of the networks Paula Broadwell logged into this past fall to send threatening messages to a woman she perceived as a rival for the affection of Gen. David H. Petraeus traced back to the hotels. There, records corresponding to the dates the e-mails were sent revealed one common guest: Broadwell.
> 
> Petraeus resigned as CIA director over the affair, and the episode has since receded from the public’s attention. But it is instructive as one simple but powerful way in which metadata — or data about communications — can reveal so much about who we are, where we go and whom we associate with.
> 
> Metadata is so rich with clues that entities from Google and eBay to the world’s largest spy agency, the National Security Agency, are collecting and mining this deceptively innocuous information: e-mail addresses to and from, times of e-mails, phone numbers dialed and received, lengths of calls, unique device serial numbers.
> 
> A week and a half ago, U.S. officials acknowledged for the first time that the NSA since 2006 has been amassing a database of metadata on the phone-call records of tens of millions of U.S. customers.
> 
> And, according to new documents obtained by The Washington Post, the NSA until 2011 gathered e-mail and other digital metadata from major Internet data links, presumably to detect and thwart terrorist plots.
> 
> But the government has resisted explaining its legal justification for gathering such massive amounts of data, which hold the potential to permit vast intrusions into the personal lives of Americans.
> 
> “When you can get it all in one place and analyze the patterns, you can learn an enormous amount about the behavior of people,” said Daniel J. Weitzner, a principal research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
> 
> Analysts can gain clues to sleep patterns (when people are asleep, they send no e-mails and make no calls), religion (based on locations of calls made or the absence of communications on the Sabbath) or even social position (based on how often people get calls and e-mails and how quickly they receive responses).
> 
> In 2007, researchers at Columbia University were able to identify the senior-most company officers at the bankrupt Enron Corp. by studying individual e-mail volume and average response time in 620,000 company e-mails. The highest-ranking officers got the most e-mail and the quickest responses.
> 
> Similarly, federal agents use software and social-network analysis to map out terrorist cells and criminal groups. They look, for instance, at who calls whom most frequently, in a technique known as “link analysis.”
> 
> “It’s remarkable how just the phone-call data can give you at least a preliminary picture of how the organization operates and who its members are,” said Jason Weinstein, a former deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s criminal division. “It’s by no means the whole picture, but it’s a critical piece of the puzzle to solve the most serious crimes people can commit.”
> 
> Sometimes, metadata patterns can be tip-offs — a driver or courier in a terrorist cell or criminal group may be the one to receive short phone calls from several different operatives just before and after an operation.
> 
> Cellular-tower location data can help place criminals at the scene if they are using their phones just before they commit a robbery, murder or attack.
> 
> “Every day, law enforcement officers are using this data to place suspects at the scene of murders and other crimes,” said Weinstein, now a partner at Steptoe & Johnson.
> 
> Data about a communication may be just as revealing as the content itself, said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union.
> 
> “If you call an abortion clinic and make an appointment, the fact that you’re making the appointment is far more sensitive than what time your appointment is,” he said. “If you’re calling Alcoholics Anonymous or a suicide counselor, what you’re saying will certainly be sensitive. But the fact that you’re calling Al Anon or a suicide counselor is extremely sensitive, too.”
> 
> Under U.S. law, it’s easier for the government to obtain metadata than content. Authorities generally need to show probable cause for a wiretap or intercept of communications.
> 
> Telephone records, but not e-mail metadata, can be obtained by law enforcement agencies without any kind of court order.
> 
> Weitzner said metadata is “arguably more revealing because it’s actually much easier to analyze the patterns in a large universe of metadata and correlate them with real-world events than it is to go through a semantic analysis of all of someone’s e-mail and all of someone’s telephone calls, if you could get that.
> 
> “Metadata is objective: I called you. You called me.”
> 
> Cellphone data helped Italian authorities identify CIA agents who abducted an Egyptian cleric suspected of terrorist involvement in Milan in 2003. The investigators pulled the records and identified the agents by their aliases, where they had stayed and whom they had called — including each other. Similarly, in 2011, Hezbollah identified a half-dozen CIA informants through analysis of their cellphone records and calling patterns.
> 
> Critical as metadata is, Weinstein said, it does not give you the subject’s words and thoughts. “Only the content,” he said, “will provide you with the evidence you need that the conversations are about terrorism or other crimes.”


----------



## Nemo888

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower?commentpage=1

The interview the world's media organisations have been chasing for more than a week, but instead Edward Snowden is giving Guardian readers the exclusive.

The 29-year-old former NSA contractor and source of the Guardian's NSA files coverage will – with the help of Glenn Greenwald – take your questions today on why he revealed the NSA's top-secret surveillance of US citizens, the international storm that has ensued, and the uncertain future he now faces. Ask him anything.

Snowden, who has fled the US, told the Guardian he "does not expect to see home again", but where he'll end up has yet to be determined.

He will be online today from 11am ET/4pm BST today. An important caveat: the live chat is subject to Snowden's security concerns and also his access to a secure internet connection. It is possible that he will appear and disappear intermittently, so if it takes him a while to get through the questions, please be patient.

To participate, post your question below and recommend your favorites. As he makes his way through the thread, we'll embed his replies as posts in the live blog. You can also follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #AskSnowden.

We expect the site to experience high demand so we'll re-publish the Q&A in full after the live chat has finished.


Updated at 10.03am ET
11.07am ET
Question:


Guardian staff
GlennGreenwald
17 June 2013 2:11pm
Let's begin with these:

1) Why did you choose Hong Kong to go to and then tell them about US hacking on their research facilities and universities?

2) How many sets of the documents you disclosed did you make, and how many different people have them? If anything happens to you, do they still exist?

Answer:

1) First, the US Government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime. That's not justice, and it would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it.

Second, let's be clear: I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target. Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash. Congress hasn't declared war on the countries - the majority of them are our allies - but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting? So we can potentially reveal a potential terrorist with the potential to kill fewer Americans than our own Police? No, the public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the "consent of the governed" is meaningless.

2) 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.

11.13am ET
Question:


Guardian staff
ewenmacaskill
17 June 2013 3:07pm
I should have asked you this when I saw you but never got round to it........Why did you just not fly direct to Iceland if that is your preferred country for asylum?

Answer:

Leaving the US was an incredible risk, as NSA employees must declare their foreign travel 30 days in advance and are monitored. There was a distinct possibility I would be interdicted en route, so I had to travel with no advance booking to a country with the cultural and legal framework to allow me to work without being immediately detained. Hong Kong provided that. Iceland could be pushed harder, quicker, before the public could have a chance to make their feelings known, and I would not put that past the current US administration.

11.17am ET
Question:


ActivistGal
17 June 2013 2:15pm
You have said HERE that you admire both Ellsberg and Manning, but have argued that there is one important distinction between yourself and the army private...


"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."

Are you suggesting that Manning indiscriminately dumped secrets into the hands of Wikileaks and that he intended to harm people?

Answer:

No, I'm not. Wikileaks is a legitimate journalistic outlet and they carefully redacted all of their releases in accordance with a judgment of public interest. The unredacted release of cables was due to the failure of a partner journalist to control a passphrase. However, I understand that many media outlets used the argument that "documents were dumped" to smear Manning, and want to make it clear that it is not a valid assertion here.

11.20am ET
Question:


D. Aram Mushegian II
17 June 2013 2:16pm
Did you lie about your salary? What is the issue there? Why did you tell Glenn Greenwald that your salary was $200,000 a year, when it was only $122,000 (according to the firm that fired you.)

Answer:

I was debriefed by Glenn and his peers over a number of days, and not all of those conversations were recorded. The statement I made about earnings was that $200,000 was my "career high" salary. I had to take pay cuts in the course of pursuing specific work. Booz was not the most I've been paid.

11.23am ET
Question:


Gabrielaweb
17 June 2013 2:17pm
Why did you wait to release the documents if you said you wanted to tell the world about the NSA programs since before Obama became president?

Answer:

Obama's campaign promises and election gave me faith that he would lead us toward fixing the problems he outlined in his quest for votes. Many Americans felt similarly. Unfortunately, shortly after assuming power, he closed the door on investigating systemic violations of law, deepened and expanded several abusive programs, and refused to spend the political capital to end the kind of human rights violations like we see in Guantanamo, where men still sit without charge.

11.27am ET
Question:


Anthony De Rosa
17 June 2013 2:18pm
1) Define in as much detail as you can what "direct access" means.

2) Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?

Answer:

1) More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed.

Updated at 11.41am ET
11.40am ET

Anthony De Rosa
17 June 2013 2:18pm
1) Define in as much detail as you can what "direct access" means.

2) Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?

2) NSA likes to use "domestic" as a weasel word here for a number of reasons. The reality is that due to the FISA Amendments Act and its section 702 authorities, Americans’ communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as "incidental" collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications. Even in the event of "warranted" intercept, it's important to understand the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a "real" warrant like a Police department would have to, the "warrant" is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp.

Glenn Greenwald follow up: When you say "someone at NSA still has the content of your communications" - what do you mean? Do you mean they have a record of it, or the actual content?

Both. If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time - and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants.

11.41am ET
Question:


HaraldK
17 June 2013 2:45pm
What are your thoughts on Google's and Facebook's denials? Do you think that they're honestly in the dark about PRISM, or do you think they're compelled to lie?

Perhaps this is a better question to a lawyer like Greenwald, but: If you're presented with a secret order that you're forbidding to reveal the existence of, what will they actually do if you simply refuse to comply (without revealing the order)?

Answer:

Their denials went through several revisions as it become more and more clear they were misleading and included identical, specific language across companies. As a result of these disclosures and the clout of these companies, we're finally beginning to see more transparency and better details about these programs for the first time since their inception.

They are legally compelled to comply and maintain their silence in regard to specifics of the program, but that does not comply them from ethical obligation. If for example Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple refused to provide this cooperation with the Intelligence Community, what do you think the government would do? Shut them down?

11.55am ET
Question:


MonaHol
17 June 2013 4:37pm
Ed Snowden, I thank you for your brave service to our country.

Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this:

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 if I had a personal email.

Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate?

Answer:

Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn't stop being protected communications just because of the IP they're tagged with.

More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."

12.04pm ET
Question:


Guardian staff
Spencer Ackerman
17 June 2013 4:16pm
Edward, there is rampant speculation, outpacing facts, that you have or will provide classified US information to the Chinese or other governments in exchange for asylum. Have/will you?

Answer:

This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public, as the US media has a knee-jerk "RED CHINA!" reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct. Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

12.10pm ET
Question:


Answer:

US officials say this every time there's a public discussion that could limit their authority. US officials also provide misleading or directly false assertions about the value of these programs, as they did just recently with the Zazi case, which court documents clearly show was not unveiled by PRISM.

Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.

Further, it's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

Updated at 12.11pm ET
12.12pm ET
Question:


Mathius1
17 June 2013 2:54pm
Is encrypting my email any good at defeating the NSA survelielance? Id my data protected by standard encryption?

Answer:

Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it. 

12.24pm ET
Question:


Answer:

Binney, Drake, Kiriakou, and Manning are all examples of how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope, and skill involved in future disclosures. Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it. Instead, these draconian responses simply build better whistleblowers. If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they'll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response.

This disclosure provides Obama an opportunity to appeal for a return to sanity, constitutional policy, and the rule of law rather than men. He still has plenty of time to go down in history as the President who looked into the abyss and stepped back, rather than leaping forward into it. I would advise he personally call for a special committee to review these interception programs, repudiate the dangerous "State Secrets" privilege, and, upon preparing to leave office, begin a tradition for all Presidents forthwith to demonstrate their respect for the law by appointing a special investigator to review the policies of their years in office for any wrongdoing. There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency. 

12.28pm ET
Question:


Ryan Latvaitis
17 June 2013 2:34pm
What would you say to others who are in a position to leak classified information that could improve public understanding of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and its effect on civil liberties?

What evidence do you have that refutes the assertion that the NSA is unable to listen to the content of telephone calls without an explicit and defined court order from FISC?

Answer:

This country is worth dying for.

12.34pm ET
Question:


AhBrightWings
17 June 2013 2:12pm
My question: given the enormity of what you are facing now in terms of repercussions, can you describe the exact moment when you knew you absolutely were going to do this, no matter the fallout, and what it now feels like to be living in a post-revelation world? Or was it a series of moments that culminated in action? I think it might help other people contemplating becoming whistleblowers if they knew what the ah-ha moment was like. Again, thanks for your courage and heroism.

Answer:

I imagine everyone's experience is different, but for me, there was no single moment. It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress - and therefore the American people - and the realization that that Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper - the Director of National Intelligence - baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.

12.37pm ET
Follow-up from the Guardian's Spencer Ackerman:

Regarding whether you have secretly given classified information to the Chinese government, some are saying you didn't answer clearly - can you give a flat no?

Answer:

No. I have had no contact with the Chinese government. Just like with the Guardian and the Washington Post, I only work with journalists.

12.41pm ET
Question:

So far are things going the way you thought they would regarding a public debate? – tikkamasala

Answer:

Initially I was very encouraged. Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history.

12.43pm ET
Final question from Glenn Greenwald:

Anything else you'd like to add?
Answer:

Thanks to everyone for their support, and remember that just because you are not the target of a surveillance program does not make it okay. The US Person / foreigner distinction is not a reasonable substitute for individualized suspicion, and is only applied to improve support for the program. This is the precise reason that NSA provides Congress with a special immunity to its surveillance.


----------



## Retired AF Guy

It appears that some of the shine is starting to come off of Mr Snowden's pearly white armour. Here is an article written by Terry Glavin re-produced under the Fair Dealings Section of the Copyright Act:



> Terry Glavin: No, we’re not living in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’
> 
> Terry Glavin, Special to National Post | 13/06/17 12:16 PM ET
> 
> Of all the sideshows to the recent hysterics about the U.S. National Security Agency and its worldwide deep-state Eye of Sauron surveillance operation — which, it is now turning out, is not watching you or tapping your telephone or reading your emails, after all — the most amusing has got to be the sudden spike in enthusiasm for George Orwell’s classic dystopian parable, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
> 
> No sooner had the Washington Post and the Guardian (U.K.) rushed to reveal NSA “whistleblower” Edward Snowden’s deeply disturbing (and now embarrassingly dubious) allegations than copies of the book were seen launching themselves off bookstore shelves. Three distinct editions were skyrocketing up Amazon’s Movers and Shakers’ charts by last Tuesday. By Thursday it was everything Barnes and Noble could do to keep copies in stock.
> 
> This was only partly because President Barack Obama had found it necessary to declaim that Americans were in fact not living inside the novel’s frightening pages, and the famously demented cable television personality Glenn Beck had similarly invoked the novel’s bleak police-state, only contrariwise.
> 
> It’s mostly because any moderately literate person will immediately recognize the outlines of Orwell’s Big Brother apparatus in the chilling architecture of the NSA’s deep-state surveillance regime, at least as we’ve all heard it described over the past 11 days owing the exertions of the Guardian and WaPo. The question was put directly by CBC’s The Current last Friday — Are we living in 1984? — and was answered most capably by the American novelist Joyce Carol Oates: “Well, no, I don’t think so.”
> 
> A totalitarian regime like Oceania would not allow a CBC chat show to ask such questions out loud — that should be the most obvious difference, one would have thought. If the problem is a docile and unconcerned public, then maybe Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is what you would want to be reading, Oates suggested. We’re inside the dark masterpiece of Nineteen Eighty-Four? Get real: “Our society is in a way an eccentric society. One can write anything. You can publish anything in the Internet.”
> 
> You certainly can, and just one thing you can publish on the Internet and also in the old-fashioned way is the spectacular unravelling of the NSA-PRISM “scoops” that the Guardian and the Washington Post captured everyone’s attention with in the first place.
> 
> PRISM is merely a computer system that allows the NSA to gather court-approved foreign-intelligence information
> For a few days there almost everybody had been spooked into believing that Facebook, Google, Apple, Skype and several other Silicon Valley majors were allowing NSA spies to tap directly into their systems and wander around at will picking up whatever they liked. As it has turned out, PRISM is not the top-secret information-gathering operation we have been lately hearing about, any more than the purported blockbuster about a court order instructing Verizon to give the FBI a whack of its “telephony metadata” (a fancy term for a mountain of phone bills) means G-men are listening in on people’s phone calls.
> 
> PRISM is merely a computer system that allows the NSA to gather court-approved foreign-intelligence information from communications service providers, under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as amended in 2008. It isn’t even “news.”
> 
> This brings us to a metaphor from Nineteen Eighty-Four that is notably inconvenient to the Wake Up Sheeple faction. It’s the “Memory Hole,” that system of orifices and tubes that carried documents and all else down to Oceania Airstrip One’s furnaces so that any shred of history found troublesome to Big Brother was incinerated and forever forgotten.
> 
> Here’s something awkward, up from the Memory Hole: “The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA Today.”
> 
> That isn’t an article USA Today published last week in some valiant effort to keep up with the Guardian and the Washington Post. It’s a USA Today article dated May 11, 2006.
> 
> So what is new in any of this?
> 
> One reason it’s hard to say is that it isn’t easy to describe perfectly lawful and sensible metadata aggregation without resort to euphemisms from our analog past. Noticing that, strictly speaking, the state’s computer-tracking of private communications data is merely what the Royal Mail has been doing since 1660 is true as far as it goes, but maybe not the most helpful metaphor.
> 
> The biggest problem is that from the get-go the journalism involved in all this has been mostly a shady collaboration between three dubious people.
> 
> The Guardian’s comically doctrinaire Glenn Greenwald is the Glenn Beck for people who fancy themselves too clever for Fox News. His friend Laura Poitras is a radical-chic activist and documentarist. Their so-called source, that “senior adviser to the Central Intelligence Agency,” has turned out to be the intensely paranoid 29-year-old high-school dropout Edward Snowden, who has further turned out to be an NSA security guard who was promoted to an IT job because of some “computer courses” he’d taken in community college.
> 
> Snowden, Poitras and Greenwald played the Guardian and WaPo off against one another, warning both newspapers in turn that they’d be scooped by the other if they didn’t run with Snowden’s claims
> Poitras and Greenwald share places on a foundation that raises money for WikiLeaks, the information-vandalizing invention of the formerly globe-trotting celebrity techno-hipster Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for a year now, hiding from rape charges in Sweden.
> 
> It has lately emerged that Snowden, Poitras and Greenwald played the Guardian and WaPo off against one another, warning both newspapers in turn that they’d be scooped by the other if they didn’t run with Snowden’s claims. While Poitras will say only “no comment” when asked for the specifics of this peculiar series of events, the NSA stories ended up appearing almost simultaneously in both newspapers.
> 
> Just one consequence for the Post’s rushed decision is that ever since, its editors have been busy deleting, scrubbing, correcting, backtracking, amending and clarifying its “scoop.” Watching the embarrassment unfold, Ed Bott, the highly respected technology writer and former editor of PC World, put it this way, in the trend-tracking technology zine ZDNet: “In short, one of the great journalistic institutions of the 20th Century is now engaged in outright click-baiting, following the same ‘publish first, fact-check later’ rules as its newer online competitors.”
> 
> As for journalistic integrity, it helps to know that Greenwald reinvented himself from litigation lawyer to libertarian pundit only in 2007 when he started writing a column for the online magazine Salon. It wasn’t until last year, that he got himself rebranded as a Guardian journalist, and that was mainly owing to his knack for reciting that newspaper’s most cherished pseudo-leftish imbecilities in ways that seem almost original.
> 
> The Guardian has walked back some of Greenwald’s NSA-PRISM mischief, but Greenwald is standing his ground. This has left the tech genius Mark Jaquith, a lead developer for the web publishing platform WordPress who calls the whole NSA-PRISM story a “yawn,” to conclude in an essay on his blog that the only way Snowden’s claims can be true is if everybody else is lying.
> 
> The Silicon Valley companies, the NSA, House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers, Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, President Obama, the New York Times’ sources — everybody would have to be lying. “Everyone but Greenwald’s source would have to be lying,” Jaquith wrote.
> 
> For that to be true it would be something straight out of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that it’s true, which means that from the beginning, this whole thing has been, to slightly misuse the term, utterly Orwellian.
> 
> Ottawa Citizen



 Article Link


----------



## Nemo888

From South China Morning Post

WikiLeaks plane ‘ready’ to bring Snowden to Iceland
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1265642/wikileaks-plane-ready-bring-snowden-iceland

A chartered private jet is ready to bring US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden to Iceland from Hong Kong, a businessman connected to whistleblowing website WikiLeaks said late on Thursday.

“Everything is ready on our side and the plane could take off tomorrow,” Icelandic businessman Olafur Sigurvinsson, head of WikiLeaks partner firm DataCell, told Channel2 television. ,.......


----------



## a_majoor

Restating why this is a particularly disturbing event. Reform would not only require reigning in the NSA and other intelligence agencies, but also the bureaucracies and massively pruning and rewriting the criminal code:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/no-one-is-innocent.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29



> *No One is Innocent*
> 
> by Alex Tabarrok on June 21, 2013 at 7:22 am in History, Law, Political Science | Permalink
> 
> I broke the law yesterday and again today and I will probably break the law tomorrow. Don’t mistake me, I have done nothing wrong. I don’t even know what laws I have broken. Nevertheless, I am reasonably confident that I have broken some laws, rules, or regulations recently because its hard for anyone to live today without breaking the law. Doubt me? Have you ever thrown out some junk mail that came to your house but was addressed to someone else? That’s a violation of federal law punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
> 
> Harvey Silverglate argues that a typical American commits three felonies a day. I think that number is too high but it is easy to violate the law without intent or knowledge. Most crimes used to be based on the common law and ancient understandings of wrong (murder, assault, theft and so on) but today there are thousands of federal criminal laws that bear no relation to common law or common understanding. The WSJ illustrates:
> 
> Last September (2011), retired race-car champion Bobby Unser told a congressional hearing about his 1996 misdemeanor conviction for accidentally driving a snowmobile onto protected federal land, violating the Wilderness Act, while lost in a snowstorm. Though the judge gave him only a $75 fine, the 77-year-old racing legend got a criminal record.
> 
> Mr. Unser says he was charged after he went to authorities for help finding his abandoned snowmobile. “The criminal doesn’t usually call the police for help,” he says.
> 
> Or how about this:
> 
> In 2009, Mr. Anderson loaned his son some tools to dig for arrowheads near a favorite campground of theirs. Unfortunately, they were on federal land….
> 
> There is no evidence the Andersons intended to break the law, or even knew the law existed, according to court records and interviews. But the law, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, doesn’t require criminal intent and makes it a felony punishable by up to two years in prison to attempt to take artifacts off federal land without a permit.
> 
> The Anderson’s didn’t even find any arrowheads but the attempt to find was punishable by imprisonment. Under statutes such as the Lacey Act one can even face criminal prosecution for violating the laws of another country. Ignorance of another  country’s laws is no excuse.
> 
> If someone tracked you for a year are you confident that they would find no evidence of a crime? Remember, under the common law, mens rea, criminal intent, was a standard requirement for criminal prosecution but today that is typically no longer the case especially under federal criminal law .
> 
> Faced with the evidence of an non-intentional crime, most prosecutors, of course, would use their discretion and not threaten imprisonment. Evidence and discretion, however, are precisely the point. Today, no one is innocent and thus our freedom is maintained only by the high cost of evidence and the prosecutor’s discretion.
> 
> One of the responses to the revelations about the mass spying on Americans by the NSA and other agencies is “I have nothing to hide. What me worry?” I tweeted in response “If you have nothing to hide, you live a boring life.” More fundamentally, the NSA spying machine has reduced the cost of evidence so that today our freedom–or our independence–is to a large extent at the discretion of those in control of the panopticon.
> 
> - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/no-one-is-innocent.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#sthash.YMKn87Uf.dpuf


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## MarkOttawa

_Plus ça change_:

NSA secrets revealed — in 1960
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nsa-secrets-revealed--in-1960/2013/06/21/35e0f072-d509-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html

Mark
Ottawa


----------



## Retired AF Guy

Well its now official. Snowden charged with committing offences under the Espionage Act and for the theft of government property. Re-produced under the usual caveats of the Copyright Act.



> Edward Snowden charged with espionage, theft in NSA surveillance case
> 
> Pete Yost, The Associated Press. Published Friday, June 21, 2013 11:09PM EDT
> 
> WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has charged former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property in the NSA surveillance case.
> Snowden, believed to be holed up in Hong Kong, has admitted providing information to the news media about two highly classified NSA surveillance programs.
> 
> A one-page criminal complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., says Snowden engaged in unauthorized communication of national defence information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence information. Both are charges under the Espionage Act. Snowden also is charged with theft of government property. All three crimes carry a maximum 10-year prison penalty.
> 
> The federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia where the complaint was filed is headquarters for Snowden's former employer, government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
> 
> The complaint is dated June 14, five days after Snowden's name first surfaced as the leaker of information about the two programs in which the NSA gathered telephone and Internet records to ferret out terror plots.
> 
> The complaint could become an integral part of a U.S. government effort to have Snowden extradited from Hong Kong, a process that could turn into a prolonged legal battle. Snowden could contest extradition on grounds of political persecution. In general, the extradition agreement between the U.S. and Hong Kong excepts political offences from the obligation to turn over a person.
> 
> It was unclear late Friday whether the U.S. had made an extradition request. Hong Kong had no immediate reaction to word of the charges against Snowden.
> 
> The Espionage Act arguably is a political offence. The Obama administration has now used the act in eight criminal cases in an unprecedented effort to stem leaks. In one of them, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning acknowledged he sent more than 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and other materials to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. His military trial is underway.
> 
> Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, welcomed the charges. "I've always thought this was a treasonous act," he said in a statement. "I hope Hong Kong's government will take him into custody and extradite him to the U.S."
> 
> Michael di Pretoro, a retired 30-year veteran with the FBI who served from 1990 to 1994 as the legal liaison officer at the American consulate in Hong Kong, said "relations between U.S. and Hong Kong law enforcement personnel are historically quite good."
> 
> "In my time, I felt the degree of co-operation was outstanding to the extent that I almost felt I was in an FBI field office," said di Pretoro.
> 
> The U.S. and Hong Kong co-operate on law enforcement matters and have a standing agreement on the surrender of fugitives. However, Snowden's appeal rights could drag out any extradition proceeding. The success or failure of any extradition proceeding depends on what the suspect is charged with under U.S. law and how it corresponds to Hong Kong law under the treaty. In order for Hong Kong officials to honour the extradition request, they have to have some applicable statute under their law that corresponds with a violation of U.S. law.
> 
> In Iceland, a business executive said Friday that a private plane was on standby to transport Snowden from Hong Kong to Iceland, although Iceland's government says it has not received an asylum request from Snowden. Business executive Olafur Vignir Sigurvinsson said he has been in contact with someone representing Snowden and has not spoken to the American himself. Private donations are being collected to pay for the flight, he said.
> 
> "There are a number of people that are interested in freedom of speech and recognize the importance of knowing who is spying on us," Sigurvinsson said. "We are people that care about privacy."
> Disclosure of the criminal complaint came as President Barack Obama held his first meeting with a privacy and civil liberties board as his intelligence chief sought ways to help Americans understand more about sweeping government surveillance efforts exposed by Snowden.
> 
> The five members of the little-known Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board met with Obama for an hour in the White House Situation Room, questioning the president on the two NSA programs that have stoked controversy.
> 
> One program collects billions of U.S. phone records. The second gathers audio, video, email, photographic and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas, and probably some Americans in the process, who use major providers such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Yahoo.



 Article Link


----------



## Nemo888

Should the US throw the book at him and lock him up for 20 years for saying things everyone already knew? Prism is the bargain basement program that can't even cut encryption in real time. It's not designed for catching terrorists. It's more for dissidents and stupid criminals. Sources that were often used by Arab Spring type groups of unhappy citizens. It is so cheap conventional law enforcement are probably drooling over it. PRISM is a backdoor program. Never a good idea to leave the backdoor open. 

I would make an example of him. Black list him and if all he released was the poorly done death by PowerPoint presentation 12 to 24 months. 20 years kind of proves him right. He wanted to start debate. Let's have one and then forget about him.


----------



## cupper

Whether everyone knew about it or not is not relevant.

He violated several laws by releasing the information to people who were not authorized to have access to it.

The reason he did it is not relevant either.


For an interview with Shane Harris, author of "The Watchers" and columnist for Foreign Policy Magazine that gives an excellent overview of the history of "snooping programs" within the intelligence communities, check out the link below.

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/19/192770397/the-watchers-have-had-their-eyes-on-us-for-years



> The revelations about secret National Security Agency programs, leaked by Edward Snowden earlier this month, have stirred great controversy, but this type of surveillance is not entirely new, according to journalist Shane Harris.
> 
> In his 2010 book, The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State, Harris traced the evolution of these surveillance programs in the U.S.
> 
> He says that as the digital age advanced, the NSA reached a crossroads and realized that analog tactics like phone tapping were quickly becoming obsolete: There was a whole new world of digital information to be accessed.
> 
> "They're realizing," says Harris, "if we can get into this 'digital network' ... [that] they would effectively be able to monitor global communications."
> 
> Because these communications were traveling through lines inside the United States, the U.S. was the central switching station for the global communications grid. The laws at the time, however, forbade much of that kind of intelligence gathering in the United States.
> 
> "9/11 changed all that," Harris tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.
> 
> Harris is a reporter at Foreign Policy. He's also written about intelligence, surveillance and cybersecurity for the Washingtonian and National Journal.
> 
> *Interview Highlights*
> 
> On how the dawn of the digital era created a crisis for surveillance agencies
> 
> "The law changed such that in the future, whenever the companies built and installed these digital network systems for communications, they too had to be built in a way that law enforcement could execute a warrant quickly and easily ...
> 
> "So they basically had to install and build in an architecture that allows for digital surveillance at a high volume ... so essentially what you have now is a phone system that can be easily tapped and quickly tapped ... and there was a real debate about ... whether this would give the government even more intrusive access into communications because you can just swallow up so many more kinds of digital communication at once rather than tapping one phone line at a time."
> 
> On John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program of 2002
> 
> "His goal was to create a system that could access all of the digital information anywhere in real time — everything from phone calls and emails, text messages, rental car reservations, credit card transactions, prescription records.
> 
> "And the idea behind TIA was it would go out and look through this huge ... universe of data, and look for patterns of activity or patterns of transactions that analysts had predetermined were associated with terrorist attacks.
> 
> "Any movement that you make today leaves a digital signature, a digital trail. Investigators, after a terrorist attack has occurred, go back and use all of those digital signatures and trails to figure out who these people were and how they did the plot. Why can't we look at it before the event occurs and try to predict with some degree of certainty where we should then be focusing our attention and which people we should be closely monitoring? But to do that you had to collect all of the information available everywhere."
> 
> On why TIA (Total Information Awareness) was shut down
> 
> "What he was proposing at the time — and this is before we realized what had been going on in secret at the NSA, sounded Orwellian. It sounded almost absurd. The idea that you would want to go out and give the government access to every single person's record and let them root through it, really seemed just a step too far, even in the one or two years after 9/11 when the country was still very much on edge and we were fighting a war in Afghanistan; it just seemed like it was just excessive.
> 
> "The name creeped people out. It was called 'Total Information Awareness.' It had this logo of the pyramid from the great seal of the United States with this floating eye on it casing a beam over the globe; it looked very menacing."
> 
> On Snowden working for a private contractor
> 
> "What I'm surprised by is how it is that any employee at his level, whether a contractor or not, would have access to some of the information that he had access to. The NSA prides itself on being one of the most secure agencies in government. This is the agency, after all, that specializes in cryptology. They are code-makers and code-breakers. So how is it that these incredibly sensitive documents — particularly the court order related to metadata — was just accessible to anyone and to remove with a thumb drive, regardless of whether they were a contractor or not?"
> 
> On the generational value gap
> 
> "There is a cultural collision, a clash that's going on here with these organizations that are built on compartmentalization and secrecy and deceit to a certain degree, needing the expertise of someone like Ed Snowden who grew up in the digital age, who grew up using computers as if they were regular household items.
> 
> "That's the workforce that the NSA has to pull from. The value systems may not be compatible, however. It strikes me that, you know, there are a lot of people, though, who work for the NSA who probably do feel the way that Snowden did, who believe in this idea of freedom of information. ... But you make a commitment when you go to work for these agencies, to keep the secrets and to almost kind of push your own beliefs to the side.
> 
> "It used to be, perhaps, that commitment to that secrecy and that code of ethic was more likely to trump anyone's personal beliefs. But the more that you have these people coming in who do see things differently, I think it does increase the likelihood that you're going to have leaks like this in the future. At the same time, the NSA can't afford to say, 'We won't hire anybody under the age of 35,' or, 'We won't hire anybody who has expressed an interest in digital privacy rights.' "


----------



## Edward Campbell

Retired AF Guy said:
			
		

> Well its now official. Snowden charged with committing offences under the Espionage Act and for the theft of government property. Re-produced under the usual caveats of the Copyright Act.
> 
> 
> Article Link




And now will come the legal business of extraditing (or attempting to extradite) him from Hong Kong. It is not as straight forward as it appears; although HK has an extradition treaty with the USA there is still a legal process to be followed and there are potential _traps_ in it.


----------



## Nemo888

cupper said:
			
		

> The reason he did it is not relevant either.


Are you sure? There is a huge difference. Jeffrey Paul Delisle only got 20 years for selling secrets to the Russians, deliberately endangering lives and destroying our security in the process. Snowden also broke the law. But giving him the same punishment and adding 10 years more to it is not justice. By that logic self defense is murder because you ended up killing someone. Motivation is always important. Especially when it comes to sentencing. Using the Espionage Act of 1917 in unintended ways not even Cheney or Nixon thought were moral is  bit sick. Obviously Obama is not trustworthy and the Executive Branch has accumulated way too much power.


----------



## tomahawk6

Snowden thought his judgement was better than his bosses.He signed a contract not to reveal secrets for ANY reason.He could have gone the official whistle blower route but he revealed the secrets to he media and went to Hong Kong.


----------



## Remius

While I agree with Nemo that his motivations are indeed relevant (and I'm starting to think this guy is liking the attention) there is also the need to send a clear message in the type of punishment.  You can't compare Delisle with Snowden and the sentence he received.  While similar they are two different countries and two different legal systems.

If Bradley Manning had already received his sentence (life or worse) do you think that this guy snowden wouldn't have thought this out a bit more?  By giving him a light sentence you are practically giving anyone permission to go to the media, interweb or wherever under whatever sense of duty they have.  No, this guy needs the book thrown at him to send a message.


----------



## devil39

Crantor said:
			
		

> While I agree with Nemo that his motivations are indeed relevant (and I'm starting to think this guy is liking the attention) there is also the need to send a clear message in the type of punishment.  You can't compare Delisle with Snowden and the sentence he received.  While similar they are two different countries and two different legal systems.
> 
> If Bradley Manning had already received his sentence (life or worse) do you think that this guy snowden wouldn't have thought this out a bit more?  By giving him a light sentence you are practically giving anyone permission to go to the media, interweb or wherever under whatever sense of duty they have.  No, this guy needs the book thrown at him to send a message.



Yup.   When you are trusted under oath with access to your countries secrets, and you knowingly and willingly violate that oath.....you should get the maximum punishment available.   It will be found out at trial whether his actions were acceptable.


----------



## Edward Campbell

CBC Radio News is reporting that:

     1. Snowden has left Hong Kong, bound for Moscow - the US applied for a "hold" order, to prevent this, but the legalities were not all in place so Snowden was allowed to leave, legally; and

     2. Reports suggest that Moscow is only a stopover and his final interim destination is Havana.

By the way, I agree 100% with devil39: _"When you are trusted under oath with access to your countries secrets, and you knowingly and willingly violate that oath.....you should get the maximum punishment available."_

There is nothing inherently wrong with contractors handling very, very highly classified information - assuming they have been fully, positively vetted. There are, in every organization with which I am familiar, mechanisms for reporting concerns about the legality of morality of orders and directions; they are, often, slow and cumbersome, but they exist.

We always have choices and there are, always, consequences. I would have had some respect for Mr Snowden had he gone to HK to make his revelations and then hopped on a plane back to the USA to accept the consequences of his decision to "blow the whistle."


Edit: changed "final" to "interim" based on breaking news reports


----------



## cupper

Reports are coming out that Havana is only a stop over to either Caracas, Venezuela or Quito, Ecuador.

He's receiving advice from WikiLeaks legal representatives, including the same lawyer representing Julian Assange.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-hong-kong-93195.html?hp=f2



> WikiLeaks said it was providing legal help to Snowden at his request and that he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from the group. Its founder, Julian Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that his organization is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/snowden-departs-hong-kong-for-a-third-country-government-says/2013/06/23/08e9eff2-dbde-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_story.html?hpid=z1



> Snowden’s final destination was unclear. Russian news agency Interfax and Radio Ekho Moskvy reported that Snowden was booked on a flight to Cuba and then from Havana to Caracas, Venezuela. The next Aeroflot flight to Havana leaves Monday. Ecuador and Iceland have also been mentioned as possibilities.
> 
> A black BMW with diplomatic license plates assigned to the Ecuadorian Embassy was seen parked at Sheremetyevo, but it was unclear who might have been in the car.



The Post also provides a detailed travel itinerary on flights to get from Moscow to either Caracas or Quito.  :


----------



## cupper

Further to above, Senator Chuck Schumer accuses Vladimir Putin of having knowledge of the upcoming movements of Snowden and gave approval for Snowden to transit through Russia.

*Schumer slams Putin over Snowden*

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2013/06/schumer-slams-russia-over-snowden-166815.html?hp=l1



> Sen. Chuck Schumer on Sunday blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of "sticking a finger" in the eye of the U.S. by allowing Edward Snowden to land in Moscow.
> 
> "The bottom line is very simple: allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States, whether it is Syria, Iran and now of course with Snowden," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on CNN's "State of the Union." "That's not how allies should treat each other and I think it will have serious consequences for the United States-Russia relationship."
> 
> Schumer's comments came amid reports that Snowden, who took responsibility for leaking NSA secrets, had left Hong Kong and was allowed to land in Russia despite American wishes that he be turned over to U.S. law enforcement. Schumer said Putin likely was aware of Snowden's moves and slammed him for "aiding and abetting" Snowden.


----------



## Journeyman

cupper said:
			
		

> Sen. Chuck Schumer on Sunday blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of "sticking a finger" in the eye of the U.S.....


I suspect that Putin responded with a   :boring:


----------



## Remius

Yep.  Because the US would have done the same thing if the tables were turned.  Just some senator thumping his chest.  To be honest, short of being arrested and convicted, Mr. Snowden is getting the next best thing.  life in exile where he will almost certainly see that the grass isn't greener.  In fact it's likely brown with yellow patches.


----------



## Edward Campbell

cupper said:
			
		

> Further to above, Senator Chuck Schumer accuses Vladimir Putin of having knowledge of the upcoming movements of Snowden and gave approval for Snowden to transit through Russia.
> 
> *Schumer slams Putin over Snowden*
> 
> http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2013/06/schumer-slams-russia-over-snowden-166815.html?hp=l1




From what I have seen it's not (yet) clear that Mr Snowden has transited through Russia. So long as he stay either _connections side_ (that is doesn't pass through Russian immigration) or is taken from _connections side_ in a diplomatic vehicle to a foreign embassy, then he isn't actually *in* Russia at all.


----------



## cupper

This morning's Meet The Press lead to an interesting episode of "I know you are but what am I" between David Gregory and Glenn Greenwald which has since devolved into a Twitter war.

Gregory asks the question why shouldn't Greenwald face charges for aiding and abetting Snowden, and Greenwald counters by questioning Gregory's "claim" to being a journalist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p62s9d1T8uM


----------



## Edward Campbell

cupper said:
			
		

> This morning's Meet The Press lead to an interesting episode of "I know you are but what am I" between David Gregory and Glenn Greenwald which has since devolved into a Twitter war.
> 
> Gregory asks the question why shouldn't Greenwald face charges for aiding and abetting Snowden, and Greenwald counters by questioning Gregory's "claim" to being a journalist.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p62s9d1T8uM




I just saw the same thing: you can see the sad state of _journalism_ ~ whatever _journalism_ might be ~ when they, the _journalists_ are trying to make one another part of the story.

Kudos, by the way, to the _Guardian_ for breaking the story; it was, still is, *news* and it is a legitimate thing upon which to report. Given the nature of US law, the decision to move Mr Snowden to HK to tell the story, and to break it from there, probably makes good legal sense: the _Guardian_ would not be prosecuted under HK law for receiving (and publishing) "secrets;" it's not clear to me that the _Guadian_ would be similarly "protected" in the USA in 2013.


----------



## cupper

They definitely could not have done it in the UK, due to the secrecy laws which would have resulted in a D-Notice banning publication being issued if the Gov't felt that UK security was compromised.


----------



## cupper

*Ecuador Says NSA Leaker Has Asked For Asylum*

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/23/194829002/nsa-leaker-departs-hong-kong-reportedly-headed-to-venezuela



> Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor accused of leaking classified surveillance information, has asked Ecuador for asylum, the country's foreign minister says.
> 
> Snowden left Hong Kong earlier Sunday bound for a "third country," the government in the Asian hub said. He later landed in Moscow.
> 
> Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino Aroca, who is on an official visit to Vietnam, said: (via Twitter post)
> 
> _The Government of Ecuador has received an asylum request from Edward J. #Snowden_
> 
> Earlier, Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency quoted an unidentified official from Aeroflot as saying Snowden would fly to Moscow and from there to Cuba on Monday, with an ultimate destination of Caracas, Venezuela. The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks also said it was giving Snowden legal counsel and had helped him leave Hong Kong.
> 
> The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, or HKSAR, said in a statement that Snowden departed the territory "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel." It did not say what his destination was.
> 
> CNN had a camera trained on the arrival area in Moscow for the Aeroflot flight Snowden was believed to be on, but there was no sign of him. However, The New York Times reported that other passengers on the plane said a black car pulled up on the tarmac after the flight landed; Russia Today, Russia's English-language television station, later reported that the car belonged to the embassy of Ecuador.
> 
> On Saturday, the U.S. asked Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory, for Snowden's extradition after federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint last week charging him with espionage, theft and conversion of government property in connection with leaks to The Guardian newspaper about secret U.S. electronic surveillance programs.
> 
> Despite the extradition request, the HKSAR government said that documents from the U.S. asking for a provisional arrest warrant "did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law."
> 
> Hong Kong said it had asked the United States to provide additional information, but "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, [so] there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong," according to the statement.
> 
> Hong Kong said it had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure.
> 
> Justice Department spokeswoman Nanda Chitre confirmed that Hong Kong told the U.S. that Snowden "departed Hong Kong for a third country.
> 
> "We will continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel," Chitre said.
> 
> WikiLeaks — whose founder, Julian Assange has taken refuge in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations — said on its Twitter feed that it was assisting Snowden.
> 
> "Mr. Snowden is currently over Russian airspace accompanied by WikiLeaks legal advisors," it said in a statement issued shortly after Snowden's Aeroflot flight departed Hong Kong.
> 
> In a later statement, Wikileaks said Snowden "is bound for the Republic of Ecuador ... for the purposes of asylum."
> 
> The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Assange as saying that he had "great personal sympathy for Ed Snowden's position" and that he was "thankful to the countries that have been doing the right thing in these matters."


----------



## Edward Campbell

According to _CBC Radio News_ the _Aeroflot_ flight from Moscow to Havana left this morning; it was full of journalists but Mr Snowden was *not* on board; to add insult to injury the CBC reporter says that the flight is "dry," no booze served.  ;D

The same report says Mr Snowden has not entered Russia; he remains in the airports international connections area, which is outside of Russian customs and immigration.


----------



## Robert0288

haha, The reporters must be bitter.  Fly to Russia, only to have to get on a plane to Cuba hoping for a chance to talk to snowden, only to be stuck in a plane for no good reason as you fly accross the world with nothing to drink.


----------



## Edward Campbell

A confirmatory report here which says:

     "And now, in a national-security version of the Rihanna plane, journalists from AP, AFP, BBC and NBC News, among others, are trapped on a 12-hour flight from Moscow to Cuba. It gets worse:

          _* Starting from Feb 10, 2010, the sale of alcohol is suspended on flights to/from Havana, Bangkok, Shanghai, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yuzhno-Sahalinsk, and Khabarovsk._

     And worse (or, really, better?): Thanks to travel regulations in Cuba, they'll have to stay there three days before they'll be allowed to fly back. At least they've got decent entertainment options? (_North by Northwest!
     Tarkovsky's Solaris! Episodes of Friends!_)


----------



## Retired AF Guy

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> A confirmatory report here which says:
> 
> "And now, in a national-security version of the Rihanna plane, journalists from AP, AFP, BBC and NBC News, among others, are trapped on a 12-hour flight from Moscow to Cuba. It gets worse:
> 
> _* Starting from Feb 10, 2010, the sale of alcohol is suspended on flights to/from Havana, Bangkok, Shanghai, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yuzhno-Sahalinsk, and Khabarovsk._
> 
> And worse (or, really, better?): Thanks to travel regulations in Cuba, they'll have to stay there three days before they'll be allowed to fly back. At least they've got decent entertainment options? (_North by Northwest!
> Tarkovsky's Solaris! Episodes of Friends!_)



Now we know the truth; the Good Lord does have a sense of humour!!


----------



## cupper

Snowden is stuck in Sheremetyevo Airport for the time being, but his father claims that he would consider returning to the US under specific conditions, such as not being held in custody prior to trial. His Father also is wary of the influence that WikiLeaks personnel are having on his son.

Oh, yeah, and He thinks that his son is not a Traitor. A criminal, yes, Traitor, no.

*Snowden’s father on ‘Today’: He betrayed his government, but he’s not a traitor*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/snowdens-father-on-today-show-he-has-betrayed-his-government/2013/06/28/d942d404-e000-11e2-963a-72d740e88c12_story.html



> The father of fugitive Edward Snowden told NBC News that he believes his son would return to the United States if he were assured that he would not be jailed before trial or subjected to a gag order.
> 
> Lonnie Snowden told journalist Michael Isikoff that he has not spoken since April with his son — who is believed to be hiding in a Moscow airport to evade arrest by U.S. authorities.
> 
> Edward Snowden went into hiding in early June, after information he provided about U.S. data surveillance programs was published by The Washington Post and Guardian newspapers. He has said he revealed the information because he feared that the programs were violating the rights of private citizens. He has been charged with leaking classified documents.
> 
> The portion of the interview that aired on the “Today” show Friday morning did not explain how the elder Snowden had developed his opinion as to the conditions under which his 30-year-old son might return home.
> 
> Lonnie Snowden sent a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. with his suggestions about how to get his son to return to this country, Isikoff reported. In the interview, he said he knew his son had broken the law but does not think he committed treason.
> 
> “He has betrayed his government, but I don’t believe that he’s betrayed the people of the United States,” Lonnie Snowden said.
> 
> “I love him. I would like to have the opportunity to communicate with him,” he added.
> 
> Snowden, a career Coast Guard officer who retired and moved to Pennsylvania a few years ago, told NBC that he did not trust WikiLeaks, the ­anti-secrecy organization that is providing his son with legal and logistical assistance.
> 
> “I am concerned about those who surround him,” the father said in the interview. “I think WikiLeaks, if you’ve looked at past history, you know, their focus isn’t necessarily the Constitution of the United States. It’s simply to release as much information as possible.”
> 
> Edward Snowden is reportedly seeking asylum from Ecuador. He surfaced in Hong Kong shortly after his leaked information was published, then vanished until he arrived in Moscow last Sunday.
> 
> He is believed to have been planning to travel from there to Ecuador, possibly via Cuba. But as a crush of journalists descended on the airport Monday, he did not board the designated Havana-bound flight. He has remained out of public view, as heads of government have verbally jousted over whether he should be extradited to the United States.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It looks like Ecuador may be backtracking.

This _Associated press_ aticle quotes Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa as saying that "Edward Snowden is "under the care of the Russian authorities" and can't leave Moscow's international airport without his U.S. passport," [and] "the Ecuadorean consul in London committed "a serious error" without consulting any officials in Ecuador's capital when the consul issued a letter of safe passage for Snowden" [and] "the consul would be punished." Correa added that "the case is not in Ecuador's hands" and said Snowden must assume responsibility if he broke U.S. laws.


----------



## a_majoor

There are far easier ways to "get" at the NSA and other organs of the Surveillance State:

http://xkcd.com/1223/


----------



## Robert0288

Except you lack the downward deathspiral that Dwarf Fortress can turn into at a drop of a hat.


----------



## Retired AF Guy

From the Wall Street Journal. Re-printed under the Fair Dealings section of the Copyright Act.



> Who Helped Snowden Steal State Secrets?
> The preparations began before he took the job that landed him at the NSA.
> 
> By Edward Jay Epstein
> In March 2013, when Edward Snowden sought a job with Booz Allen Hamilton at a National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, he signed the requisite classified-information agreements and would have been made well aware of the law regarding communications intelligence.
> 
> Section 798 of the United States Code makes it a federal crime if a person "knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States" any classified information concerning communication intelligence.
> 
> Mr. Snowden took that position so he could arrange to have published classified communications intelligence, as he told the South China Morning Post earlier this month. The point of Mr. Snowden's penetration was to get classified data from the NSA. He subsequently stated: "My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked, that is why I accepted that position."
> 
> My question would be, then: Was he alone in this enterprise to misappropriate communications intelligence?
> 
> Before taking the job in Hawaii, Mr. Snowden was in contact with people who would later help arrange the publication of the material he purloined. Two of these individuals, filmmaker Laura Poitras and Guardian blogger Glenn Greenwald, were on the Board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation that, among other things, funds WikiLeaks.
> 
> In January 2013, according to the Washington Post, Mr. Snowden requested that Ms. Poitras get an encryption key for Skype so that they could have a secure channel over which to communicate.
> 
> In February, he made a similar request to Mr. Greenwald, providing him with a step-by-step video on how to set up encrypted communications.
> 
> So, before Mr. Snowden proceeded with his NSA penetration in March 2013 through his Booz Allen Hamilton job, he had assistance, either wittingly or unwittingly, in arranging the secure channel of encrypted communications that he would use to facilitate the publication of classified communications intelligence.
> 
> On May 20, three months into his job, Mr. Snowden falsely claimed to his employer that he needed treatment for epilepsy. The purpose of the cover story was to conceal his trip to Hong Kong, where the operation to steal U.S. secrets would be brought to fruition.
> 
> Mr. Greenwald and Ms. Poitras also flew to Hong Kong. They were later joined by Sarah Harrison, a WikiLeaks representative who works closely with Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder. Mr. Snowden reportedly brought the misappropriated data to Hong Kong on four laptops and a thumb drive. He gave some of the communications intelligence to Mr. Greenwald, who had arranged to publish it in the Guardian, and Mr. Snowden arranged to have Ms. Poitras make a video of him issuing a statement that would be released on the Guardian's website. Albert Ho, a Hong Kong lawyer, was retained to deal with Hong Kong authorities.
> 
> This orchestration did not occur in a vacuum. Airfares, hotel bills and other expenses over this period had to be paid. A safe house had to be secured in Hong Kong. Lawyers had to be retained, and safe passage to Moscow—a trip on which Mr. Snowden was accompanied by WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison—had to be organized.
> 
> The world now knows that the misappropriation of U.S. communications intelligence began appearing in the Guardian and other publications on June 5, and Mr. Snowden left Hong Kong for the Moscow airport on June 21. A question that remains to be answered: Who, if anyone, aided and abetted this well-planned theft of U.S. secrets?
> 
> Mr. Epstein's most recent book is "The Annals of Unsolved Crime" published in March by Melville House.



 Article Link


----------



## cupper

Snowden either has a flair for the dramatic, or suffers from paranoia. (or both)

*Snowden says he is victim of illegal U.S. persecution*

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/07/snowden-says-he-is-victim-of-us-persecution-167463.html?hp=l1



> Former security contractor Edward Snowden has written a letter to Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa in which he argues that he has been illegally persecuted by the United States for exposing the National Security Agency's surveillance program, according to a new report from Reuters.
> 
> "I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest," Snowden wrote in Spanish, according to Reuters. "No matter how many more days my life contains, I remain dedicated to the fight for justice in this unequal world. If any of those days ahead realize a contribution to the common good, the world will have the principles of Ecuador to thank."
> 
> "While the public has cried out support of my shining a light on this secret system of injustice, *the Government of the United States of America responded with an extrajudicial man-hunt costing me my family, my freedom to travel, and my right to live peacefully without fear of illegal aggression*," he wrote.
> 
> This is Snowden's first statement since arriving at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport eight days ago. He is believed to have been in the airport's transit zone, legally separate from Russian soil, since his arrival.
> 
> *Snowden has reportedly applied for politial asylum in Russia, though on Monday President Vladimir Putin said the former contractor would not be granted asylum unless he stopped publishing classified documents, according to a report in The New York Times.
> *
> UPDATE (6:08 p.m.): Snowden released the following statement, via WikiLeaks, shortly after Reuters report was published:
> 
> One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
> 
> On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
> 
> This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
> 
> For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
> 
> In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
> 
> I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
> 
> Edward Joseph Snowden
> 
> Monday 1st July 2013



Also this news from Moscow as noted in the article above:

*Report: Edward Snowden has asked for asylum in Russia*

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/edward-snowden-asylum-russia-93622.html?hp=r2_b2



> MOSCOW — The Interfax news agency says a Russian consular official has confirmed that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden asked for political asylum in Russia.
> Interfax cited Kim Shevchenko, the duty officer at the Russian Foreign Ministry's consular office in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, as saying that Snowden's representative, Sarah Harrison, handed over his request Sunday.
> 
> Snowden has been caught in legal limbo in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23. The U.S. has annulled his passport, and Ecuador, where he has hoped to get asylum, has been coy about offering him shelter.
> Russia's President Vladimir Putin says Snowden will have to stop leaking U.S. secrets if he wants to get asylum in Russia, but adds that Snowden has no plan to quit doing so.


----------



## Nemo888

cupper said:
			
		

> Snowden either has a flair for the dramatic, or suffers from paranoia. (or both)
> 
> *Snowden says he is victim of illegal U.S. persecution*
> 
> JSOC is about as extra judicial as you can get. The CIA rendition prisons around the world are not judicial or even legal. To call the drone programs in Yemen, Somalia, Algeria, Libya, Pakistan and  now Mali "legal" makes the word meaningless. America is  the last superpower and they know it. Last time I checked though might did not make right. Snowden's foolishness is that he expects better from the US.


----------



## cupper

:nod:


----------



## cupper

Ooops. Forgot  :sarcasm:


----------



## JorgSlice

If only they had some sort of Whistleblower Protection legislation...  :


----------



## Edward Campbell

In a report in the _National Post_ we learn that _"Edward Snowden, believed to be in legal limbo in the Moscow airport, is expanding his requests for asylum to another 19 countries, including China, according to WikiLeaks."_


----------



## jollyjacktar

He's made his bed (of nails) and soon will have to lie in it.  I'll enjoy that moment in time.  That's what he get's for getting sucked in by Assange.


----------



## PuckChaser

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> In a report in the _National Post_ we learn that _"Edward Snowden, believed to be in legal limbo in the Moscow airport, is expanding his requests for asylum to another 19 countries, including China, according to WikiLeaks."_



IMO he thought he'd be welcomed with open arms into some country by now like a saviour of democracy, when in all reality nobody wants to touch this guy with a 10-foot pole. I wonder if it makes him feel bad that Ecuador would hide someone accused of sexual assault over him?


----------



## cupper

He may end up in Venezuela, if the new Prez will give him a ride in his aircraft, but my money is on him being forcibly placed on an aircraft by Russian security and being flown to some other country which has an extradition treaty with the US.

And now his Father is comparing him to Paul Revere, rousing the citizens to the alarm call over the tyrannical US Government usurping the Constitution and the freedom and will of the people. :

*Edward Snowden’s father, in letter, compares son to Paul Revere, assails administration*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/02/edward-snowdens-in-letter-compares-son-to-paul-revere-assails-obama-administration/



> Edward Snowden’s father Lon Snowden, in an open letter co-authored with his lawyer, compared his son’s leaks to Paul Revere warning of incoming British troops, “summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny and one branch government.”
> 
> The letter, released to news organizations, lauded Edward Snowden as following the “honorable tradition” of “brave men and women refusing to bow to government wrongdoing or injustice, and exalting knowledge, virtue, wisdom, and selflessness over creature comforts as the North Star of life.”
> 
> Much of the letter focused on criticizing the Obama administration, arguing it has revoked Snowden’s passport in order to make him “de facto stateless” and to “penalize [Snowden's] alleged violations of the espionage act.” Lon Snowden and his lawyer and co-author, Bruce Fein, pledged that they would be “unflagging in efforts to educate the American people about the impending ruination of the Constitution and the rule of law unless they abandon their complacency or indifference.” The letter implied that the Obama administration is seeking “planetary domination through force, violence or spying.”
> 
> In an aside, the letter also compared American politics to “a football game with winners and losers.”
> 
> According to the Associated Press, Lon Snowden released the open letter because he was “frustrated by his inability to reach out directly to his son.” It’s not clear why Snowden, who is in Moscow, would be unable to communicate with his father. Also according to the AP, Snowden’s father expressed concern that WikiLeaks, members of which have been working closely with Snowden in Moscow and whose founder Julian Assange has advocated publicly on his behalf, may not have his son’s best interests at heart.
> 
> Here is the letter in full:
> 
> Dear Edward:
> 
> I, Bruce Fein, am writing this letter in collaboration with your father in response to the Statement you issued yesterday in Moscow.
> 
> Thomas Paine, the voice of the American Revolution, trumpeted that a patriot saves his country from his government.
> 
> What you have done and are doing have awakened congressional oversight of the intelligence community from deep slumber; and, had already provoked the introduction of remedial legislation in Congress to curtail spying abuses under section 215 of the Patriot Act and section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. You have forced onto the national agenda the question of whether the American people prefer the right to be left alone from government snooping absent probable cause to believe crime is afoot to vassalage in hopes of a risk-free existence. You are a modern day Paul Revere summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny and one branch government.
> 
> In contrast to your actions, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper responded last March as follows to an unambiguous question raised by Senator Ron Wyden:
> 
> “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper testified, “No sire, it does not.” Wyden asked for clarification, and Clapper hedged. “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.”
> 
> Director Clapper later defended his stupendous mendacity to the Senator as the least untruthful answer possible. President Obama has not publicly rebuked the Director for frustrating the right of the people to know what their government is doing and to force changes if necessary through peaceful democratic processes. That is the meaning of government by the consent of the governed. “We the people” are sovereign under the U.S. Constitution, and government officials are entrusted with stewardship (not destruction) of our liberties.
> 
> We leave it to the American people to decide whether you or Director Clapper is the superior patriot.
> 
> The history of civilization is a history of brave men and women refusing to bow to government wrongdoing or injustice, and exalting knowledge, virtue, wisdom, and selflessness over creature comforts as the North Star of life. We believe your actions fall within that honorable tradition, a conviction we believe is shared by many.
> 
> As regards your reduction to de facto statelessness occasioned by the Executive Branch to penalize your alleged violations of the Espionage Act, the United Stated Supreme Court lectured in Trop v. Dulles (1958): “The civilized nations of the world are in virtual unanimity that statelessness is not to be imposed as punishment for crime.”
> 
> We think you would agree that the final end of the state is to make men and women free to develop their faculties, not to seek planetary domination through force, violence or spying. All Americans should have a fair opportunity to pursue their ambitions. Politics should not be a football game with winners and losers featuring juvenile taunts over fumbles and missteps.
> 
> Irrespective of life’s vicissitudes, we will be unflagging in efforts to educate the American people about the impending ruination of the Constitution and the rule of law unless they abandon their complacency or indifference. Your actions are making our challenge easier.
> 
> We encourage you to engage us in regular exchanges of ideas or thoughts about approaches to curing or mitigating the hugely suboptimal political culture of the United States. Nothing less is required to pay homage to Valley Forge, Cemetery Ridge, Omaha Beach, and other places of great sacrifice.
> 
> Very truly yours,
> 
> Bruce Fein, Counsel for Lon Snowden
> 
> Lon Snowden


----------



## kevincanada

cupper said:
			
		

> He may end up in Venezuela, if the new Prez will give him a ride in his aircraft, but my money is on him being forcibly placed on an aircraft by Russian security and being flown to some other country which has an extradition treaty with the US.
> 
> And now his Father is comparing him to Paul Revere, rousing the citizens to the alarm call over the tyrannical US Government usurping the Constitution and the freedom and will of the people. :
> 
> *Edward Snowden’s father, in letter, compares son to Paul Revere, assails administration*
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/02/edward-snowdens-in-letter-compares-son-to-paul-revere-assails-obama-administration/



I can foresee this too,  or even the Russians handing him over directly if Snowden does something else really dumb.  Vladimir Putin seems to have been playing nice recently with the Americans on security related issues.  I have noticed Pres Obama, letting out loose hints in some speeches on how their police agency's and the Russians security agencies have been getting along regarding terrorism issues.  I'm starting to wonder if they struck some of kind of information sharing and protection against terrorism agreement behind the camera.

I don't want to derail the subject,  that would be for a new thread.


----------



## cupper

You really can't make this stuff up. It a comedy gift that keeps on giving.

*Bolivian leader's plane rerouted on Snowden fear*

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/bolivia-presidential-plane-edward-snowden-93679.html?hp=l3_b1



> LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivia's foreign minister says the plane bringing President Evo Morales home from Russia was rerouted to Austria after France and Portugal refused to let it to cross their airspace because of suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board.
> 
> David Choquehuanca has denied that Snowden was on the plane, saying "we don't know who invented this lie, but we want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales."
> 
> Bolivia's foreign minister said Tuesday that both France and Portugal canceled authorization for the plane to enter their airspace.
> 
> Morales traveled to Russia over the weekend and from Moscow said he would consider an asylum request from the NSA leaker.


----------



## cupper

I think Glenn Greenwald has finally given up the right to claim credibility as a journalist.

*Glenn Greenwald: New bombshell coming*

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/glenn-greenwald-nsa-leak-edward-snowden-93648.html?hp=l3



> Another big National Security Agency scoop is coming soon, Glenn Greenwald said on Tuesday.
> 
> “Just wait a little bit, you’ll have it,” The Guardian journalist who broke the NSA surveillance story said on “Fox & Friends.”
> 
> Although Greenwald wouldn’t reveal exactly what the new revelations are, he said the world “will be shocked.”
> 
> “I will say that there are vast programs, both domestic and international spying, that the world will be shocked to learn about, that the NSA is engaged in with no democratic accountability and that’s what driving our reporting,” Greenwald said.
> 
> Greenwald also said President Barack Obama’s administration is using leaker Edward Snowden as an example to prevent future whistleblowers from coming forward.
> 
> “I think what the Obama administration wants, and has been trying to establish for the last almost five years now with the unprecedented war on whistleblowers that it is waging, and to make it so that everybody is petrified of coming forward with information about what our political officials are doing in the dark that is deceitful, illegal or corrupt,” Greenwald said.
> 
> He added that the administration doesn’t care about Snowden anymore.
> 
> “They don’t care about Edward Snowden at this point; he can no longer do anything that he hasn’t already done; what they care about is making an extremely negative example out of him to intimidate future whistleblowers from coming forward because they’ll think that they’ll end up like him,” Greenwald said.


----------



## kevincanada

Shocked?  Was anyone shocked at the Snowden revelation or wikileaks? or Egypt on the brink of presidency failure again?  Maybe I'm just naive.   :facepalm:


----------



## Nemo888

cupper said:
			
		

> I think Glenn Greenwald has finally given up the right to claim credibility as a journalist.
> 
> *Glenn Greenwald: New bombshell coming*
> 
> http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/glenn-greenwald-nsa-leak-edward-snowden-93648.html?hp=l3


Harvard, Yale, Brown, UCLA, and many others strongly disagree with you. He was a constitutional and civil rights attorney before he became a journalist and has written three New York Times best sellers. Such petty character assassination is childish. The issue is the bypass of the Constitution and the aggregation of immense unregulated powers by government. 

When I was a boy people defected _to_ the USA, not from it. That makes it pretty obvious to me he has some valid points. The only reason people are not upset is because they expect abuse of power and immoral behaviour of the last remaining superpower.


----------



## George Wallace

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Harvard, Yale, Brown, UCLA, and many others strongly disagree with you. He was a constitutional and civil rights attorney before he became a journalist and has written three New York Times best sellers.



Damn!   That makes Ezra Levant on Sun Network a Journalist too.


----------



## Nemo888

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Damn!   That makes Ezra Levant on Sun Network a Journalist too.


If you can't tell the difference between a civil rights activist and a former tobacco industry lobbyist,...


----------



## cupper

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Harvard, Yale, Brown, UCLA, and many others strongly disagree with you. He was a constitutional and civil rights attorney before he became a journalist and has written three New York Times best sellers. Such petty character assassination is childish. The issue is the bypass of the Constitution and the aggregation of immense unregulated powers by government.
> 
> When I was a boy people defected _to_ the USA, not from it. That makes it pretty obvious to me he has some valid points. The only reason people are not upset is because they expect abuse of power and immoral behaviour of the last remaining superpower.



Journalists are expected to investigate and report on news worthy issues and events without undue personal bias entering into the story. I do believe that one of the tenants of journalism is to not make yourself part of the story. With this latest missive from Greenwald, stating that a shocking bombshell will soon be released, he has fully made himself part of the story.

Having a law degree and practicing in various fields of law is not a qualification for journalism. It may be helpful in pursuing a career in journalism, but is not a qualification.

Neither is having books on the NY Times Best Seller Lists. There are plenty of non-journalists who have achieved that recognition.


----------



## Kat Stevens

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> If you can't tell the difference between a civil rights activist and a former tobacco industry lobbyist,...


Got it, liberal civil rights lawyer = journalist, conservative lobyist = poo flinging howler monkey, thanks.


----------



## cupper

Kat Stevens said:
			
		

> conservative lobyist = poo flinging howler monkey, thanks.



On some networks, that does qualify as a journalist. ;D


----------



## George Wallace

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> If you can't tell the difference between a civil rights activist and a former tobacco industry lobbyist,...



I couldn't really care to dwell too much on such trivia.  I can tell which way certain posters on the site will swing.  

"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?"
(FIVE MAN ELECTRICAL BAND)

You come to mind.


----------



## Inquisitor

Following was published on Wikileaks  by Snowden
Reproduced under the fair use provision of the copyright act

"One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful. 

 On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions. 

 This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me. 

 For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum. 

 In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.   

 I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many. 

 Edward Joseph Snowden 

 Monday 1st July 2013"

Now I imagine that I will take some heat for this. 

First I agree that eavesdropping on foreign nations is an act that all national governments indulge in. So yes his feet should  be in the fire for that. 

On the domestic spying let me ask you a question. 

Suppose that you were hired by an organization and signed a NDA not to disclose what the organization was doing to the general public, breach of which would involve  severe penalties. 

And then you discovered that one of your key roles was to defraud investors, no, lets try something a little more plausible. Tap into heath records and make them available to insurer's to deny coverages. 

The point that I am trying to make is that if the action is illegal, the equivalent if you will of an unlawful command, then the right minded individual has a moral obligation not to comply. 

For the latter I feel he deserves commendation and support.

The governments are getting a little too comfy trampling the rights of the citizenry. Case in point up here, our dealer beloved ex Ontario premier, the gas plant closing baddy, illegally restricting access to public areas during the G20 summit. 


Lets limit this to the matter at hand - what I see as the American publics rights to privacy and unwarranted surveillance - fourth amendment. 

I think they deserve better

I hope you think they  deserve better too.


----------



## GnyHwy

Inquisitor said:
			
		

> The point that I am trying to make is that if the action is illegal, the equivalent if you will of an unlawful command, then the right minded individual has a moral obligation not to comply.



Disobeying an unlawful command and not complying is not the same thing as spreading incomplete and unauthorized information based on what you believe to be true.


----------



## Inquisitor

"Disobeying an unlawful command and not complying is not the same thing as spreading incomplete and unauthorized information based on what you believe to be true.  " 

I agree with your point. He could have simply resigned rather than comply, with what both He, and I see  as illegal conduct. 

He could have been more selective in what he released.  If individuals are harmed I deplore it. 

Given that his superior, Gen Culper??, is reported to have given false statements to the oversight committee, and Snowden knew this. I can't see him as having a warm and fuzzy feeling about having this resolved internally, especially given the administrations reported crackdown on this sort of behavior. 

Given the choice of actions, none palatable, he  chose what he saw as the lesser evil. 

Say what you will about him, he may not have judgment, but I feel he had the courage, to speak truth to power.


----------



## George Wallace

What I see here is a very naïve "Leftie" whose view that the world is such a peaceful beautiful place in which all the West's Security Services are not required; that any such 'Service' that works in secret to preserve the security and safety of citizens is morally wrong.  One of those "Do Gooders" who thinks that they can change the world into a kinder gentler place by exposing anything that they feel may be a threat to the "peace loving peoples of the 'other' side".  He is truly a very naïve person who has lived a very sheltered life in my opinion.  

I wonder just how much the Chinese, and now the Russian, Intelligence agencies have been trying to get close to him clandestinely to garner real intelligence.


----------



## Nemo888

Until you start getting Watergate style break ins. Do we have any checks or balances to prevent such abuses or did we dismantle them all?


----------



## DBA

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> When I was a boy people defected _to_ the USA, not from it. That makes it pretty obvious to me he has some valid points. The only reason people are not upset is because they expect abuse of power and immoral behaviour of the last remaining superpower.



Except of course there were defections including NSA employees. The two highest profile were Martin and Mitchel.


----------



## a_majoor

So what, exactly, is the NSA (and possibly every other advanced Intelligence agency on Earth) actually getting when they access your phone metadata? You might be amazed. Follow the link for the graphics (a fair number)

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-you-can-learn-from-phone-metadata-2013-7



> *Astonishing Graphic Shows What You Can Learn From 6 Months Of Someone's Phone Metadata*
> Michael Kelley Jul. 2, 2013, 11:30 AM 35,105 15
> 
> A German politician named Malte Spitz filed a suit against T-Mobile for the release of all the metadata from his phone that had been gathered and stored.
> 
> He received 35,830 records — six months worth — and then gave it to ZEIT Online.
> 
> From ZEIT (emphasis ours):
> 
> "We combined this geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites, all of which is all freely available on the internet.
> 
> By pushing the play button, you will set off on a trip through Malte Spitz's life."
> 
> The result is astonishing to watch — a politician's daily movements, phone calls, text messages, and mobile Internet usage over months.
> 
> (Click the image to get taken to the interactive version of the chart.)
> 
> 
> 
> ZEIT ONLINE
> It's important to note two things: First, this is only phone metadata — the National Security Agency (NSA) also reportedly collects bulk Internet metadata.
> 
> Second, U.S. officials have said that the NSA chooses not collect location data of U.S. cell phones even though the Obama administration has argued in court that warrantlessly tracking locations of Americans' mobile devices is perfectly legal.
> 
> Here's what Spitz recently wrote in a New York Times op-ed:
> 
> ... now imagine if you had access to millions of similar data sets. You could easily draw maps, tracing communication and movement. You could see which individuals, families or groups were communicating with one another. You could identify any social group and determine its major actors.
> 
> That is precisely why the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the government for collecting the information in the first place, arguing that the phone metadata "gives the government a comprehensive record of our associations and public movements, revealing a wealth of detail about our familial, political, professional, religious, and intimate associations."
> 
> Indeed, the ZEIT graphic clearly shows public movements and corresponding communications (i.e. who Spitz is talking to). Here's the politician traveling from Frankfurt to Cologne:
> 
> 
> 
> ZEIT ONLINE
> The ACLU argues that this type of dragnet surveillance "is not authorized by Section 215 [of the Patriot Act] and violates the First and Fourth Amendments."
> 
> The ZEIT ONLINE graphic includes a calendar — each column corresponds to a day — that shows "when he was in a particular location and can be used to jump to a specific time period."
> 
> 
> Last month Rep. Mike Rogers (R- Mich.), who heads the House Intelligence Committee, argued that phone metadata from Americans is kept in a "lockbox" that can only be accessed if it becomes relevant to terrorism investigations.
> 
> As we've since learned, that's not the case since NSA analysts can access the data at their discretion.
> 
> Furthermore, privacy-minded senators such as Mark Udall (D-Colo.) don't understand why the NSA collects the data in bulk in the first place.
> 
> "I don't think collecting millions and millions of Americans' phone calls — now this is the metadata, this is the time, place, to whom you direct the calls — is making us any safer," Udall (D-Colo.) has said.
> 
> Udall has a point. It's hard to see the national security relevance of knowing who and what Spitz communicated as he travels/traveled through Berlin.


----------



## cupper

Inquisitor said:
			
		

> And then you discovered that one of your key roles was to defraud investors, no, lets try something a little more plausible. Tap into heath records and make them available to insurer's to deny coverages.



I understand the point you are trying to make but this was not the best example to use, as the insurance companies have access to your health records, as your doctor needs to submit information in order to receive payment. And you are required to disclose all medical conditions when at time of enrollment. Regardless of all that, you cannot be denied insurance for a preexisting condition under the ACA.

With respect to a moral obligation not to comply, let's say for arguments sake that what Snowden found during his employment with the NSA was illegal. His moral obligation of not complying was limited to refusing to do his job, or resigning. When he release classified information into the public form (not withstanding that some portion of it may have already been public knowledge) he crossed the line, and he himself committed an illegal act. His moral obligation was to bring the situation to the attention to the rightful authority, in this case the Congressional oversight apparatus.


----------



## Inquisitor

His moral obligation was to bring the situation to the attention to the rightful authority, in this case the Congressional oversight apparatus.

I agree, and then if nothing figure out next steps. 

George Wallace's comments on my being a "naïve leftie" etc, I can see his point of view, perhaps I am. 

Taking into account reports of the reported plot out in BC on the weekend, I can see how many may feel that this serves the greater good. 

After all no one was using this technology to enable  plots in the 18th century when the  fourth amendment came into effect. 

I can understand that a constitution should be a "living"  document. 

I got rid of a lot of frustration when I made the post. Thanks all for your consideration. 

At this point I don't think I can add more of value.


----------



## cupper

I think George was directing his statements more towards Mr. Snowden than to you. 

But I could be mistaken.


----------



## cupper

The other thing that Snowden is guilty of is only looking at the trees and not looking at the forest.

Yes, what he was looking at and seeing in his daily routine was questionably illegal in his opinion, but not being privy to the full picture he in no way could understand how the information being gathered was being used or the reasoning behind it. 

I was watching a 2010 documentary on PBS' Frontline called WikiSecrets. It gave a detailed if somewhat dated description of the Bradley Manning affair, from his background and experiences after joining the army, how he came to the decision to gain the info and then leak it to WikiLeaks. They even looked at the relationship between Manning and Assange.

What I was struck by was the attitude that many of the "Hacker" society hold about how there really should be no secrets, and that they needed to force governments to be transparent in policies and actions. But Assange is verging on the level of a rabid dog with respect to exposing what he perceives as governments doing illegal spying on its own people, killing without justification, treating other countries with scorn and distain.

When he frst approached the NY Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel on the Manning leaks, the three papers raised concerns about the safety of sources and innocent people named in the various dispatches who could potentially be targetd or brought to harm if the names were made public. His response was that they were involved in illegal and immoral actions, and deserved to die.

People like Assange and others involved with WikiLeaks and other similar sites don't give a rat's flying patootie about the "why". All they care about is the "what" being done by "who". Which is a very naive and dangerous view of the world to have. Snowden is just the latest member of the club. And unfortunately for him, he seems to have found himself in over his head, and people like Assange are willing to throw him an anchor. But there seems to be a kind of poetic justice to what is now playing out.


----------



## a_majoor

The real issue (which people like Snowden and Assange overlook as well) is the vast sweeping up of data without just cause puts everyone at risk of persecution by the State. Since (as noted upthread) there are so many laws and regulations that the average person cannot keep track of them and probably is unknowingly breaking the law several times a day, then they can be targeted by unscrupulous agents of the State like prosecutors to further their own agendas, and can crush most opposition due to vast mismatch between the resources of the State and a private citizen.

While these technologies can be useful in assisting the Police and security serivces, there must be very strict limits placed on their use; including Judicial review and demonstration of "probable cause" to deploy such technology. If (insert agency here) believes that you or I are engaging in illegal activity, then they can apply for a warrent, demonstrate to a judge that there is probable cause to receive the warrent then go to town.


----------



## Edward Campbell

The problem with "judicial reviews" or "legislative reviews" is that they are, of necessity, somewhat public and some things are SECRET and secret means not public, not in any way public.

I had no problem when the Government of Canada, for example, refused to even confirm that CSEC existed. Of course many people, including journalists, knew it was there and knew, a wee bit, about what it did, but they also knew that reporting on it, using anything but journalistic veiled speech, would end their careers. I am less confident in the ability of various "oversight" bodies to keep secrets.

But, Thucydides is right - there has to be some "checks and balances,' but, by who? _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ I'm not sure - but: not a panel or committee of "outsiders?" So who are acceptable "insiders?" Parliamentarians? Judges? Very senior civil servants? Maybe one or more of those - certainly those who have sworn the oath of Privy Councillors.


----------



## George Wallace

cupper said:
			
		

> I think George was directing his statements more towards Mr. Snowden than to you.
> 
> But I could be mistaken.



You are correct.  However, it does prove a point in a way; some people are overly paranoid and think the world is out to get them.


----------



## Illegio

I just find it amusing when gov't representatives tell people to have faith in these institutions and branches when folks like the Director of National Intelligence, when asked point-blank about whether information on Americans is being gathered, answers "no," then subsequently claims he "misunderstood" the question, and finally admits (months later) that his statement may have been "erroneous." Under oath before Congress, no less. It's nearly as bad as when the CIA destroyed those tapes back in '05 of people undergoing "enhanced interrogation" for fear of how they would be perceived, and then turning around and denying that anything untoward (God forbid, "torture, ") might have taken place! 

One wonders at the cognitive dissonance some of these people must labour under.


----------



## Nemo888

It didn't make any sense to me why he applied for asylum in countries like France and Germany until I read this. I'm wondering if we should change some equipment at our embassy.

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1273313/us-bugged-38-embassies-including-allies-latest-snowden-leak-indicates

*US bugged 38 embassies, including allies, latest Snowden leak indicates*

US intelligence services spied on at least 38 foreign embassies and missions, including those of allies, according to the latest secret documents leaked by National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

It collected information with bugging devices, tapped cables and specialised antennas, the documents showed.

Among the sites listed on one document as "targets" are the European Union's missions in New York and Washington.
Along with traditional ideological adversaries and sensitive Middle Eastern countries, the list of targets also includes the French, Italian and Greek embassies, as well as those of a number of other American allies, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey. The list in the September 2010 document does not mention Britain or Germany.

One of the bugging methods mentioned is codenamed Dropmire, which, according to a 2007 document, is "implanted on the Cryptofax at the EU embassy, DC" - an apparent reference to a bug placed in a commercially available encrypted fax machine used at the Washington mission. The NSA documents note the machine is used to send cables back to foreign affairs ministries in European capitals.

The documents suggest the aim of the bugging exercise against the EU embassy in Washington is to gather inside knowledge of policy disagreements on global issues and other rifts between member states.

The new revelations come at a time when there is already considerable anger across the EU over earlier evidence provided by Snowden of NSA eavesdropping on America's European allies. Germany's justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, demanded an explanation from Washington, saying that if confirmed, US behaviour "was reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war".

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported at the weekend that some of the bugging operations in Brussels targeting the EU's Justus Lipsius building - a venue for summit and ministerial meetings in the Belgian capital - were directed from within Nato headquarters nearby.

The US intelligence service codename for the bugging operation targeting the EU mission at the United Nations is "Perdido". Among the documents leaked by Snowden is a floor plan of the mission in midtown Manhattan.


----------



## GnyHwy

Wow, nothing like being in a hole and reaching for a bigger shovel!

At first I didn't want to put him into the same category as the wikileaks/hackers bunch, but I guess that is where he wants to be... assuming the above article is true.

None of these persons distributing *information*... *IT IS NOT* intelligence, do not have the experience, knowledge, insight, mental capacity to rationalize what it is they are doing, let alone understand the follow effects.  They are mystified by their own beliefs (not truths), and believe that they are doing good, even though they haven't a clue of the boundary, ripple or follow on effects they are causing.

Heck, the guys in charge barely have a grip on it.  How the heck are these noobs going to know what they are talking about.  People spends their lives tying to comprehend this stuff, how can we expect Joe citizen to rationalize it, especially whens it's parceled out in small sporadic groups of miscellaneous information.  

No, I am not underestimating the public either.  The age old adage that the more you know, the more you realize what you don't know, holds true here.  The average citizen or potential "leaker"  doesn't know crap. 

Edited to add:  and for the record, neither do I.  I just know enough to know that I don't know!


----------



## Nemo888

I think all electronic communications should be considered compromised and our embassies use pen, paper and diplomatic bags until further notice. Any locations that were inspected by American sweepers or specialist contractors need to be considered compromised as well. This was rather unexpected if true.


----------



## Good2Golf

Imagine living in a country that affords its citizens with so many rights, that its national communication act specifically does not infringe on any citizen's right to freely receive radio-frequency signals presentin the airspace above that nation's territories...

Imagine too if someone were to create a magical box that could receive those freely available signals and then send more signals, those also freely available to other citizens...

Imagine if people from that mation were to understand the implications of their sending out information into a medium that they and their fellow citizens had every right to unrestictedly receive...

Hit 'send', understand the implications...naivetay on one person's part does not necessarily make something illegal on another's part. 

Caveat Emptor-electronus.


----------



## Good2Golf

> This was rather unexpected if true.



Thanks for the morning chuckle. :nod:


----------



## jollyjacktar

Seems as if someone wants Ed. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2355316/Russian-femme-fatale-Anna-Chapman-proposes-Edward-Snowden-Twitter.html

or Iceland

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356491/Icelands-Pirate-Party-wants-offer-Edward-Snowden-citizenship.html


----------



## CougarKing

jollyjacktar said:
			
		

> Seems as if someone wants Ed.
> 
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2355316/Russian-femme-fatale-Anna-Chapman-proposes-Edward-Snowden-Twitter.html



Understatement of the year when you're talking about marriage between those two... 


link



> *Ex-Russian spy Anna Chapman proposes marriage to Edward Snowden*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The rest of the world may not want him, but NSA leaker Edward Snowden has at least one potential taker: Anna Chapman. The ex-spy tweeted yesterday, *“Snowden, will you marry me?!”*
> 
> The former Russian spy may have sympathy for the man who spilled top-secret documents. Chapman, after all, is no stranger to run-ins with government authorities.
> 
> *The 31-year-old had been posing as a real-estate agent in the United States in 2010 when she was accused of gathering intel for Russia. She and nine others were deported back to Russia in a prisoner swap.
> 
> Now the ex-secret agent has become a celebrity in her homeland, most recently as host of the TV show, “Secrets of the World.”*
> 
> Snowden may have caught Chapman’s attention since he landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport to seek refuge. “@nsa will you look after our children?” She posted later.
> 
> But Snowden seems to be unavailable at the moment -- and may be rejected by Russia as well. After 11 days, the AP reports that “Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia had received no request for political asylum from Snowden and he had to solve his problems himself.”
> 
> The NSA contractor has been on the run since he spilled secrets on the classified NSA surveillance programs to the press. He has been in diplomatic limbo since having his passport revoked, and has had countless requests for asylum refused.


----------



## Robert0288

Well with this latest release of information, I don't think he can even pretend to be a whistle blower anymore.


----------



## CougarKing

Has Snowden finally found someone willing to take him in?  :

link



> *Nicaragua, Venezuela presidents say they are willing to grant asylum to Snowden*
> 
> CARACAS, Venezuela - The presidents of Nicaragua and Venezuela offered Friday to grant asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one day after leftist South American leaders gathered to denounce the rerouting of Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane over Europe amid reports that the American was aboard.
> 
> *Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua made their offers during separate speeches in their home countries Friday afternoon. Snowden, who is being sought by the United States, has asked for asylum in numerous countries, including Nicaragua and Venezuela.*
> 
> "As head of state, the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young American Edward Snowden so that he can live in the homeland" of independence leader Simon Bolivar and the late President Hugo Chavez without "persecution from the empire," Maduro said, referring to the United States.
> 
> (...)


----------



## Inquisitor

Good evening all. 

I have decided to do some more research on this topic  and have found a subject matter expert on the topic. 

Please welcome Lt. Col, Peter Schmidt formerly of the German Democratic Republic Ministry for State Security. 

Me: Good evening Sir, Thank you for joining us.  Please tell me what do you think of the magnitude of domestic spying in the United states under the Obgama administration?

Him: " A smile spread across his face. 

“You know, for us, this would have been a dream come true,” he said, recalling the days when he was a lieutenant colonel in the defunct communist country’s secret police, the Stasi.

In those days, his department was limited to tapping 40 phones at a time, he recalled. Decide to spy on a new victim and an old one had to be dropped, because of a lack of equipment. He finds breathtaking the idea that the U.S. government receives daily reports on the cellphone usage of millions of Americans and can monitor the Internet traffic of millions more. 

“So much information, on so many people,” 


Me. Sir, I note that you headed one of the most infamous departments in an infamous organization. How do you fell about the American Programme?

Him: "appalled ...  The dark side to gathering such a broad, seemingly untargeted, amount of information is obvious ... It is the height of naivete to think that once collected this information won’t be used ... This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people’s privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place.”

Me: Thank you Sir. I hope our members find your experience informative. 

Me: Please welcome our extra special guest "Stefan Wolle is the curator for Berlin’s East German Museum, which focuses in part on the actions of and reactions to the Stasi. "

Me: Sir, Good evening ... what can you share with us about these matters?

Him: “When the wall fell, I wanted to see what the Stasi had on me, on the world I knew,” he said. “A large part of what I found was nothing more than office gossip, the sort of thing people used to say around the water cooler about affairs and gripes, the sort of things that people today put in emails or texts to each other.

“The lesson,” he added, “is that when a wide net is cast, almost all of what is caught is worthless. This was the case with the Stasi. This will certainly be the case with the NSA.”

Me: Thank you Sir.  In ending let me add  that rather than fund for-profit corporations that these funds might be better used for purposes such as ending the ongoing debacle at the VA administration, or reducing taxes or any other valid purpose. 

Thank you ... I hope you had as much fun reading my little essay as I had writing it. 

Source material for quotes is here reproduced under the fair use provison of the copyright act. 
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/26/195045/memories-of-stasi-color-germans.html#.UdeIatxzaUl


----------



## kevincanada

Thucydides said:
			
		

> The real issue (which people like Snowden and Assange overlook as well) is the vast sweeping up of data without just cause puts everyone at risk of persecution by the State. Since (as noted upthread) there are so many laws and regulations that the average person cannot keep track of them and probably is unknowingly breaking the law several times a day, then they can be targeted by unscrupulous agents of the State like prosecutors to further their own agendas, and can crush most opposition due to vast mismatch between the resources of the State and a private citizen.
> 
> While these technologies can be useful in assisting the Police and security serivces, there must be very strict limits placed on their use; including Judicial review and demonstration of "probable cause" to deploy such technology. If (insert agency here) believes that you or I are engaging in illegal activity, then they can apply for a warrent, demonstrate to a judge that there is probable cause to receive the warrent then go to town.



Exactly, so the general public has nothing to worry about it.  The warrant and legal procedures stops the use of information from getting out of control.  Look at it from a official view.   You have a bomb scare, Some known terrorist name comes up.  You check the phone logs, another name comes up.  Run John Doe #2 record.  Find out he was has a record of assault and comes from a known country and area of terrorist activity.

It's not realistic to read everyone text messages, and even if you could it is impossible to prosecute.  Security agencies still needs a judge approval.  Sure you will get the odd guy that break the rules in that regard and step outside the law on it.  I'm hard pressed to see it being anything new that didn't already happen to begin with.

I almost feel naive. I have expected the government to collect as much information as imaginably possible all my life.  The only thing I think Ed Snowden has done is ruin his life.  Isn't Julian Assage still hiding out in a Ecuador embassy? 2-3? years later.  Man what a way to live.


----------



## CougarKing

Add Bolivia to the three countries now willing to give Snowden asylum:  :boring:

link



> *Bolivia's Morales says he would grant asylum to Snowden if asked*
> 
> Reuters – 53 minutes ago
> 
> LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Saturday he would grant asylum, if requested, to former U.S. intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden.
> 
> Morales' offer came after two other leftist Latin American leaders - Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega - also said they would help the U.S. fugitive, who is believed to be holed up in the transit area of a Moscow international airport.


----------



## cupper

S.M.A. said:
			
		

> Add Bolivia to the three countries now willing to give Snowden asylum:  :boring:
> 
> link



Well of course he would, after the supposed BS he went through earlier in the week. 

I'm surprised he isn't flying back to Moscow right now to grab Snowden and drag his sorry butt fly him to Bolivia.


----------



## Edward Campbell

The _Globe and Mail_ is reporting that "Snowden accepted Venezuela’s asylum offer, official says before tweet deleted." the article, from the _Associated Press_, goes on to says that, "The head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee says Edward Snowden has accepted Venezuela’s offer of political asylum ... Alexei Pushkov made the statement on his Twitter account Tuesday. The message did not clarify how he learned of Snowden’s purported acceptance, but Pushkov has acted as an unofficial point-man for the Kremlin on the Snowden affair ... However, the tweet appears to have been deleted from his Twitter feed shortly after it was posted."


----------



## Robert0288

This might be why the tweet was deleted:


> Soi-disant patriot hacker "The Jester" is taking aim at nations seen as offering aid and comfort to NSA sysadmin turned whistleblower Edward Snowden.
> 
> The Jester claimed responsibility for taking down a government-run Ecuadorian tourism site and the email server of the Ecuadorian stock exchange on Monday, before turning his attention to other potential targets.
> 
> "‪en.ecuador.travel ‬ - TANGO DOWN - Because fuck you Equador - Harboring Assange and hoping to give asylum to ‪#snowden‬," the contra-hacktivist said in a Twitter update.
> 
> Snowden applied for asylum to 20 countries in Latin America, Asia and Europe earlier this week. An additional request to apply for asylum in Russia was withdrawn after President Putin said he should stop "harming our American partners" as a pre-condition for a possible asylum request in Russia. Ecuador granted Snowden temporary travel documents that allowed him to travel between Hong Kong and Moscow two weeks ago but has since cooled on the possibility of offering asylum.
> 
> Several other countries rejected the possibility of granting Snowden asylum outright, while European nations mostly said that asylum requests can only be made by people physically in their territories, so further narrowing Snowden's options.
> 
> After Venezuela emerged as a likely candidate for refuge for Snowden, The Jester turned his attention towards the south American country.
> 
> "There's 52 VENEZUELEN Government servers visible to the internet, including 27 email servers. Who knew? ‪http://goo.gl/5kh2i‬," he tweeted.
> 
> The Jester is known for denial of service attacks against Jihadist recruitment websites as well as his antipathy towards Wikileaks in general, and founder Julian Assange (still lurking in Ecuador's London embassy) in particular. The Jester claimed responsibility for knocking Wikileaks servers offline back in late 2010, shortly after it began the controversial release of US State Department cables.
> 
> “As jihadis groom Muslims online to commit acts against us, so [Julian Assange] grooms government personnel like [Army private and accused leaker Bradley] Manning and Snowden to do his dirty work,” the Jester told FoxNews.com



http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/04/patriot_hacker_takes_aim_snowden_asylum_candidates/


----------



## jollyjacktar

Robert0288 said:
			
		

> This might be why the tweet was deleted:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/04/patriot_hacker_takes_aim_snowden_asylum_candidates/


I like the cut of his jib.


----------



## cupper

*NSA’s Snowden review focuses on possible access to China espionage files, officials say*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsas-snowden-case-review-focuses-on-possible-access-to-china-espionage-files-officials-say/2013/07/11/9ba0f004-e9a1-11e2-8f22-de4bd2a2bd39_story.html?hpid=z1



> A National Security Agency internal review of damage caused by the former contractor Edward Snowden has focused on a particular area of concern: the possibility that he gained access to sensitive files that outline espionage operations against Chinese leaders and other critical targets, according to people familiar with aspects of the assessment.
> 
> The possibility that intelligence about foreign targets might be made public has stirred anxiety about the potential to compromise the agency’s overseas collection efforts. U.S. officials fear that further revelations could disclose specific intelligence-gathering methods or enable foreign governments to deduce their own vulnerabilities.
> 
> “We’re deeply concerned,” said one senior intelligence official, who, like others interviewed for this article, was not authorized to speak on the record. “The more that this gets made public, the more capability we lose.”
> 
> Snowden was able to range across hundreds of thousands of pages of documents on NSA networks, said one former official briefed on the issue. Another intelligence official cautioned that, at this point in the investigation, he did not appear to have obtained “collected data,” or the raw intelligence that results from hacking and other collection operations.
> 
> “He got a lot,” the official continued, but it was “not even close to the lion’s share” of what the NSA is engaged in. Still, the official said, harm to the efforts “is a concern.”
> 
> Snowden, 30, burst into global prominence a month ago, when he revealed he had passed top-
> secret documents to The Washington Post and British newspaper the Guardian about classified U.S. surveillance programs. News reports based on the documents highlighted the U.S. government’s reach into the phone and Internet records of foreigners and ordinary Americans.
> 
> Snowden has told journalists that he has no desire to publicize information that describes the technical specifications or blueprints for how the NSA has constructed its eavesdropping network. At the same time, the former contractor has archived encrypted documents with people around the world, according to Glenn Greenwald, a journalist at the Guardian.
> 
> Greenwald told the online Daily Beast that “if anything happens” to Snowden, “the stories will inevitably be published.”
> 
> That has prompted concerns among U.S. officials that the documents are or could soon be outside of Snowden’s control.
> 
> It is not clear how many documents Snowden has given to others or whether those who have received the documents have the same set. Greenwald has said he has thousands of documents, but the Guardian has withheld “the majority of things that he gave us pursuant not only to his own instruction, but to our duty as journalists.” The Post has not said how many documents it has.
> 
> Investigators have largely determined what Snowden, who most recently worked at an NSA network operations center in Hawaii, was able to review within the agency’s systems. Their focus is determining which files he might have taken.
> 
> The damage assessment, being conducted by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, is ongoing, and officials there had no comment. NSA officials also had no comment.
> 
> Intelligence officials have said they have seen signs that several terrorist groups are changing their means of communication based on information that has been published. But those claims are impossible to verify independently.
> 
> That the United States is spying on China would be no revelation to the Chinese, although Snowden’s disclosures might constrain the United States’ ability to criticize the Chinese for theft of U.S. corporate secrets to aid its own industries. Snowden told the South China Morning Post newspaper that the NSA targeted civilian facilities in Hong Kong and mainland China.
> 
> He has denied reports that he provided classified information to the Chinese or Russian governments. He first sought refuge in Hong Kong and then fled to Moscow, where he is believed to remain.
> 
> The United States is engaged in high-level talks with Chinese officials this week on strategic economic and security issues, including the theft of U.S. corporate secrets by Chinese hackers to benefit Chinese industry.
> 
> But the release of information on how the NSA has penetrated Chinese networks would be especially damaging. “It’s not in the interests of the United States for the Chinese to know exactly how we do it,” said a former intelligence official. “It’s sources and methods.”
> 
> U.S. officials also fear that some of the documents Snowden has turned over to journalists disclose NSA methods of hacking into overseas networks, and, if published, will lead targets in other countries — in the Middle East, Europe, East Asia and South Asia — to take new defensive actions.
> 
> The Snowden leaks have set off a round of hand-wringing within the intelligence community and among allies about the inability to protect sensitive information. “There is a lot of annoyance at the United States,” the former official said.
> 
> The NSA, along with the rest of the intelligence community, began to put more information in computer networks after a government commission criticized intelligence and law enforcement agencies for failing to share information that could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Restrictions on access based on an individual’s “need to know” gave way to the presumption of a “need to share.”
> 
> But that also made it easier for systems administrators such as Snowden, whose job was to make sure the networks worked properly, to gain access to files.
> 
> The NSA director, Gen. Keith Alexander, has testified that the agency is instituting a “two-
> person” rule for oversight of systems administrators, to remove their ability to act unilaterally to gain access or make changes to restricted networks. It is similar to a rule created by the Pentagon after Army Pfc. Bradley Manning leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.


----------



## Nemo888

55% think Snowden is a whistleblower in the USA. Obviously even more outside the US.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/snowden-seen-as-whistlebloweer-by-majority-in-new-poll.html

I will say I preferred when regular law enforcement had to file a special form and ask the NSA to look people up. This "Team Sport" backdoor open to everyone stuff is past it's due date. It's been over ten years lets scale it back again.  This bargain basement Prism program can't get terrorists. They don't use Hotmail, but ordinary people do. Giving every FBI field agent and countless contractors of often dubious character with limited oversight access is asking for trouble. I liked it expensive, rare and so secret you would look around the room before you even mentioned it.


----------



## Inquisitor

Here's something that seems appropriate for a Friday Afternoon. 

The studios are quite concerned that some of their "Big Tent Pole" movies have not fared as well as they hope.  "White House Down" and "the Lone Ranger" being two that come to mind. 

Soooo, if you were an exec and your bonus and possibly job where on the line, what would you do????

Wait!!!! I have a great idea .... 

Reproduced under the fair use provision of the copyright act - Check it out

New RED 2 TV Spot Parodies NSA   
Source: Summit Entertainment 
 July 10, 2013 
summit Entertainment has chosen to have a little fun with their latest TV spot for the upcoming RED 2 which cuts in President Obama's speech on the latest NSA leaks in with footage from the film. We think it works pretty well, check it out below along with a " Espionage in a Social World infographic" for the film.

link here http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=106322


----------



## cupper

*Glenn Greenwald: Edward Snowden has NSA ‘blueprints’*

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/glenn-greenwald-edward-snowden-nsa-blueprints-94142.html?hp=r1



> Edward Snowden has very sensitive “blueprints” detailing how the National Security Agency operates that would allow someone who read them to evade or even duplicate NSA surveillance, a journalist close to the intelligence leaker said Sunday.
> 
> Glenn Greenwald, a columnist with The Guardian newspaper who closely communicates with Snowden and first reported on his intelligence leaks, told The Associated Press that the former NSA systems analyst has “literally thousands of documents” that constitute “basically the instruction manual for how the NSA is built.”
> 
> “In order to take documents with him that proved that what he was saying was true he had to take ones that included very sensitive, detailed blueprints of how the NSA does what they do,” Greenwald said in the interview in Brazil, where he lives. He said the interview took place about four hours after his last interaction with Snowden, with whom he said he’s in almost daily contact.
> 
> Snowden emerged from weeks of hiding in a Moscow airport Friday, and said he was willing to stop leaking secrets about U.S. surveillance programs if Russia would give him asylum until he can move on to Latin America.
> 
> Greenwald told The Associated Press that Snowden has insisted the information from those documents not be made public. The journalist said it “would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it.”
> 
> Despite their sensitivity, the journalist said he didn’t think that disclosure of the documents would prove harmful to Americans or their national security.
> 
> “I think it would be harmful to the U.S. government, as they perceive their own interests, if the details of those programs were revealed,” said the 46-year-old former constitutional and civil rights lawyer who has written three books contending the government has violated personal rights in the name of protecting national security.
> 
> He has previously said the documents have been encrypted to help ensure their safekeeping.
> 
> Greenwald, who has also co-authored a series of articles in Rio de Janeiro’s O Globo newspaper focusing on NSA actions in Latin America, said he expected to continue publishing further stories based on other of Snowden’s documents for the next four months.
> 
> Upcoming stories would likely include details on “other domestic spying programs that have yet to be revealed” which are similar in scope to those he has been reporting on. He did not provide any further details on the nature of those programs.
> 
> Greenwald said he deliberately avoids talking to Snowden about issues related to where the former analyst might seek asylum to avoid possible legal problems himself.
> 
> Snowden is believed to be stuck in the transit area of Moscow’s main international airport, where he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23. He’s had offers of asylum from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, but because his U.S. passport has been revoked, the logistics of reaching whichever country he chooses are complicated.
> 
> Still, Greenwald said that Snowden remains “calm and tranquil,” despite his predicament.
> 
> “I haven’t sensed an iota of remorse or regret or anxiety over the situation that he’s in,” said Greenwald, speaking at a hotel in Rio de Janeiro, where he’s lived for the past eight years. “He’s of course tense and focused on his security and his short-term well-being to the best extent that he can, but he’s very resigned to the fact that things might go terribly wrong and he’s at peace with that.”


----------



## cupper

More on the Greenwald interview, and why Greenwald needs to reassess his role in the affair if he still wants to retain some credibility as a journalist.

*Snowden documents could be 'worst nightmare' for U.S.: journalist*

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/13/us-usa-security-snowden-greenwald-idUSBRE96C08Q20130713



> (Reuters) - Fugitive former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden controls dangerous information that could become the United States' "worst nightmare" if revealed, a journalist familiar with the data said in a newspaper interview.
> 
> Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published the documents Snowden leaked, said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday that the U.S. government should be careful in its pursuit of the former computer analyst.
> 
> "Snowden has enough information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had," Greenwald said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro with the Argentinean daily La Nacion.
> 
> *"The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare."*
> 
> Snowden, who is sought by Washington on espionage charges after revealing details of secret surveillance programs, has been stranded at a Moscow airport since June 23 and is now seeking refuge in Russia until he can secure safe passage to Latin America, where several counties have offered him asylum.
> 
> Greenwald told Reuters on Tuesday that Snowden would likely accept asylum in Venezuela, one of three Latin American countries that have made that offer.
> 
> Snowden's leaks on U.S. spying secrets, including eavesdropping on global email traffic, have upset Washington's friends and foes alike.
> 
> Latin American leaders lashed out at the United States after Greenwald reported in a Brazilian newspaper that the U.S. targeted most of the region with spying programs that monitored Internet traffic.
> 
> Washington has urged nations not to give Snowden safe passage.
> 
> Greenwald said in his interview with La Nacion that documents Snowden has tucked away in different parts of the world detail which U.S. spy programs capture transmissions in Latin America and how they work.
> 
> "One way of intercepting communications is through a telephone company in the United States that has contracts with telecommunications companies in most Latin American countries," Greenwald said, without specifying which company.



Carl Bernstein calls Greenwald out on his comments, Greenwald counters by dismissing Bernstein as not any actual reporting in decades.  :facepalm: 

*Carl Bernstein: Greenwald 'out of line'*

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/07/carl-bernstein-greenwald-out-of-line-168286.html



> Veteran investigative reporter Carl Bernstein publicly criticized The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald on Monday over a statement he made about the National Security Agency secrets that could leak "if anything should happen" to former security contractor Edward Snowden.
> 
> "That statement by that reporter is out of line," Bernstein, who would not refer to Greenwald by his name, said on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
> 
> In a subsequent email to POLITICO, Greenwald dismissed Bernstein, a member of the duo that exposed Nixon's Watergate scandal, as someone who "hasn't done any actual reporting for a couple decades now."
> 
> According to Reuters, Greenwald had told an Argentinian paper over the weekend that “Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the U.S. government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States."
> 
> "The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare," Greenwald reportedly said. (Greenwald has called Reuters' report "wildly distorted.")
> 
> On Morning Joe, Bernstein called Greenwald's statement "awful" and "aggressive."
> 
> "With all my regard for The Guardian, which is considerable...  that's an awful statement, and the tone in which he made it," the former Washington Post reporter said. "It's one thing to say that Mr. Snowden possesses some information that could be harmful, and that could be part of the calculation that everybody makes here. It's another to make that kind of an aggressive, non-reportorial statement [that] a reporter has no business making."
> 
> "There are, at the same time, precautions... that Snowden has taken in terms of secreting some information in various places that definitely would disclose more things -- some of which might or might not be inimical to the interests of the United States," he continued. "But that statement by that reporter is out of line."
> 
> Greenwald returned fire on Bernstein in his email to POLITICO early on Monday.
> 
> "I realize Carl Bernstein hasn't done any actual reporting for a couple decades now, but he should nonetheless take the time to read what he's opining on," he wrote. "The Reuters article he's referencing is a complete distortion of what I actually said in that interview. The point I made is the opposite one: that Snowden has been as responsible as a whistleblower can be in ensuring that only information the public should know is revealed, but not gratuitously harmful information."
> 
> UPDATE (8:51 a.m.): Bernstein, in a meeting, tells POLITICO he will be back shortly with "a specific response." But in the meantime writes:
> _Re: 'no actual reporting for two decades," Mr. Greenwald might want to read my reportorial biography of Hillary Clinton -- published in 2008 in Britain as well as the U.S. and around the world -- as a starting point.  He also ought to take his beef to Reuters, if he feels he was misquoted by any of us who responded on Morning Joe to the specific quote attributed to him._


----------



## Inquisitor

Well after a couple of gaffes lets see if I do a bit better.

I feel the following may be of interest for the following reasons: 

Topic is very controversial, and the speaker is not well regarded by many in  the military (understatement).

However, he is one of the few remaining people able to make these statements with this level of authority. 

It would be very interesting if any of his successor chose to rebut him.

Ok, here is the headline "Jimmy Carter Defends Edward Snowden, Says America Has No Functioning Democracy
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/855289/jimmy-carter-defends-edward-snowden-says-america-has-no-functioning-democracy/#1OzySqgzr62bbMOp.99 

reproduced under the fair use provision of the copyright act 

"Speaking at a closed-door event of the Atlantik Brucke in Atlanta"

If you google the topic you will see this is only being reported in the alt press, with the exceptions of Salon (no detail)  and Der Spiegel, and that account is in German only. 

Here is another quote 


In an article for The New York Times last year, Cater also warned that the United States would “forfeit its moral authority” if it continued to strip away the civil rights of its citizens"
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/855289/jimmy-carter-defends-edward-snowden-says-america-has-no-functioning-democracy/#1OzySqgzr62bbMOp.99 

To extend RT, Russia Times is carrying this as is Der Speigel. I would love to be wrong but I feel that those have had the misfortune to live under TRULY tyrannical regimes have a much better appreciation as to how fragile democracy can be, as opposed to those, like myself who have known nothing else, and are perhaps too complacent.


----------



## Nemo888

I think the main lesson of the last century of COIN is that if you lose the moral high ground you lose the war. Doctrine trumps brute strength. I see us losing our way morally. The cost of this accrues interest at a high rate. We are not greeted as liberators anymore. Wars become longer, more expensive and eventually unwinnable. Needing the tools of a police state indicates corruption is eroding everything that made us special and successful as a nation.


----------



## tomahawk6

I disagree.COIN is manpower intensive.For COIN to work you must first defeat the bad guys.ISAF did not have the manpower required to fully implement the doctrine.Ultimately whether the taliban return to power is all about the effectiveness of the Afghan security forces.


----------



## jollyjacktar

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> I disagree.COIN is manpower intensive.For COIN to work you must first defeat the bad guys.ISAF did not have the manpower required to fully implement the doctrine.Ultimately whether the taliban return to power is all about the effectiveness of the Afghan security forces.


I do wonder, however, if the US had not become involved in Iraq would the outcome be different in Afghanistan?  If all their capacity had been brought to bear decisevly early on in when the Taliban were on the ropes instead of losing the momentum gained would we not now be looking at a stable country and our exit secure in the knowledge we wouldn't need to worry about the future?


----------



## Nemo888

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> I disagree.COIN is manpower intensive.For COIN to work you must first defeat the bad guys.ISAF did not have the manpower required to fully implement the doctrine.Ultimately whether the taliban return to power is all about the effectiveness of the Afghan security forces.


The Russians did have the manpower and much more murderous track record. This actually worked against them. They had more resources for COIN but they were so hated(doctrinal weakness) they lost just the same.


----------



## cupper

So tell me again how Snowden and COIN are related?


----------



## tomahawk6

cupper said:
			
		

> So tell me again how Snowden and COIN are related?



They arent.


----------



## cupper

My point.


----------



## Kat Stevens

Is this guy's fifteen minutes almost up?


----------



## cupper

Not until he ends up in some third world socialist workers utopia wondering why he ever decided to lift the veil. :nod:

Or the three letter agencies figure out a way to put a drone into Russian airspace and fry his butt. >


----------



## a_majoor

While Snowdon is undoubtedly _enjoying_ his stay with the FIS, I can see this story sending sales of disposable cell phones through the roof. On a more practical note, alternative means of communication will flourish because of this:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130723/12395923907/even-powering-down-cell-phone-cant-keep-nsa-tracking-its-location.shtml



> *Even Powering Down A Cell Phone Can't Keep The NSA From Tracking Its Location*
> from the making-a-strong-case-for-Snowden's-fridge-logic dept
> 
> We know how much information the NSA can grab in terms of cell phone usage -- namely, calls made and received and length of conversations, along with phone and phone card metadata like IMSI and IMEI numbers. It can even grab location data, although for some reason, it claims it never does. (No matter, plenty of law enforcement agencies like gathering location data, so it's not like that information is going to waste [bleak approximation of laughter]).
> 
> According to Ryan Gallagher at Slate, the NSA, along with other agencies, are able to something most would feel to be improbable, if not impossible: track the location of cell phones even if they're turned off.
> 
> On Monday, the Washington Post published a story focusing on how massively the NSA has grown since the 9/11 attacks. Buried within it, there was a small but striking detail: By September 2004, the NSA had developed a technique that was dubbed “The Find” by special operations officers. The technique, the Post reports, was used in Iraq and “enabled the agency to find cellphones even when they were turned off.” This helped identify “thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored insurgency in Iraq,” according to members of the special operations unit interviewed by the Post.
> 
> Normally, turning a cell phone off cuts the connection to towers, effectively taking it off the grid and making it only traceable to the last point it was connected. The Post article doesn't explain exactly how the NSA accomplishes it, but other incidents over the past half-decade offer a few indications of how this might be done.
> 
> In 2006, it was reported that the FBI had deployed spyware to infect suspects’ mobile phones and record data even when they were turned off... In 2009, thousands of BlackBerry users in the United Arab Emirates were targeted with spyware that was disguised as a legitimate update. The update drained users’ batteries and was eventually exposed by researchers, who identified that it had apparently been designed by U.S. firm SS8, which sells “lawful interception” tools to help governments conduct surveillance of communications.
> 
> The FBI's use, in which cell phones' microphones were remotely activated to record conversations (even with the phones turned off), probably had some bearing on Snowden's request that journalists power down their phones and place them in the fridge.
> 
> According to Gallagher, the NSA may be using mass updates to infect phones of targets overseas (and presumably, any "non-targets" applying the same faux update). This would be difficult, but not impossible, and considering what we've learned about the NSA's far-reaching surveillance net, certainly not implausible. A couple of details in support of that theory:
> 
> First, two telcos that provide service to millions of cell phone users are known to be overly cooperative with intelligence agencies. You may recall the fact that Verizon and AT&T notably did not sign the collective letter asking the government to allow affected companies to release information on government requests for data. Given this background, it's not unimaginable that Verizon and AT&T would accommodate the NSA (and FBI) if it wished to use their update systems to push these trojans.
> 
> Add to this the fact that Microsoft and others have allowed intelligence agencies early access to security flaws, allowing them to exploit these for a certain length of time before informing the public and patching the holes. Add these two together and you've got the means and the opportunity to serve snooping malware to millions of unsuspecting cell phone users.
> 
> Sparing usage, properly targeted isn't really an issue. But if updates containing spyware have been pushed to the thousands of non-targeted individuals just to ensure the targets are included, it becomes more problematic, and the track record of the two agencies who have used this technology is far from pristine.


----------



## Inquisitor

Regarding the previous post. I would imagine that any semi-competent terrorist would assume that they were under surve3illance at all times. OBL and his total disconnect from "The cloud" being a good example. 

It seems now that the bad guys are aware of this programmes like NSA surveillance are likely subject to diminishing returns.  Now that congress has voted to cointinue to fund the programme, I suggest that one of the main purposes is to continue the flow of corporate welfare to companies like Booz-Allen-Hamilton.  I may be wrong but one aspect I find especially ironic, if true,  is that the aforementioned firm is owned by a company in the mid-east. 

I am reminded of a book dating from the 80's titled "The Threat" the detailed the efforts of the denizens in  the five-sided funhouse on the Potomac to  keep the defence budget growing. Overstressing the capabilities of the Soviet military to pry more funds out of Congress.  

The "Long War" seems to "The Threat" on steroids. 

But, that's the way of the world.


----------



## Inquisitor

Edward Snowden won’t face death penalty, U.S. tells Russia

U.S. formally promises Russia not to execute or torture NSA leaker Edward Snowden if he is sent home to face charges of illegally disclosing government secrets.
link here http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/07/26/edward_snowden_wont_face_death_penalty_us_tells_russia.html

This is slightly off topic but I can't help but bring back memories of times past back in the 70's  Jokes like  Q "How do you tell when politician xxxxxxx is lying?  A: Their lips are moving!

Another,  Way back in the 70's the US had to deal with another bad boy. Salvador Allende democratically elected president of Chile. Allegedly he committed suicide by shooting himself in the back of the head, 27 times, pausing only twice to reload.  :sarcasm:  Those kinds of hijinks stopped, at least for a while when the public demanded an end to them.


----------



## George Wallace

Just to add  >


----------



## CougarKing

I doubt we'll be seeing the last of Snowden...

Link



> *Edward Snowden has left Moscow airport and entered Russia after being granted asylum: lawyer*
> 
> MOSCOW — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden left the transit zone of a Moscow airport and *entered Russia after authorities granted him a one-year asylum, his lawyer said Thursday.*
> 
> Anatoly Kucherena said that Snowden’s whereabouts will be kept secret for security reasons. The former NSA systems analyst was stuck at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23.
> 
> “He now is one of the most sought after men in the world,” Kucherena told reporters at the airport. “The issue of security is very important for him.”
> 
> The U.S. has demanded that Russia send Snowden home to face prosecution for espionage, but President Vladimir Putin dismissed the request.
> 
> (...)


----------



## cupper

*Edward Snowden’s Life Just Flat-Out Fun And Exciting*

http://www.theonion.com/articles/edward-snowdens-life-just-flatout-fun-and-exciting,33339/



> MOSCOW—Citing a whirlwind month and a half in which he leaked classified details of a massive government surveillance operation, secretly fled from the United States to Hong Kong, and became a figure of national and global intrigue, sources confirmed Thursday that the life of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is just straight-up fun, exciting, and full of action.
> 
> Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia after exposing the NSA’s PRISM data-mining program—which reports indicate is pretty much straight out of a goddamn Mission: Impossible movie—appears to have successfully evaded U.S. authorities attempting to extradite him on federal charges, in what many agree is as cool as it sounds.
> 
> Sources also verified that the 30-year-old’s life is sure as hell a lot more interesting and eventful than pretty much anyone else’s right now, no question about that.
> 
> “First, he spies on people as part of a top-secret government program, and if that wasn’t crazy enough, he then blows the lid on the whole operation and goes into hiding in Hong Kong,” said 34-year-old actuary Jason Leavitt of Kinston, NC. “Come on, how fucking fun is that? Essentially, he’s this young guy flying around the world, living as a fugitive, and doing whatever he wants with no consequences whatsoever. The guy is basically a walking, talking British spy novel and living every moment like it’s his last.”
> 
> “And on top of that, he’s famous and his face is all over TV and the internet,” Leavitt continued. “Beats my day-to-day, I can tell you that much.”
> 
> Given his current situation, those familiar with the fact that Snowden also has this gorgeous girlfriend who’s a pole dancer for Christ’s sake said that you’d be nuts not to want to walk in Snowden’s shoes and experience the constant thrill-a-minute ride that is his daily life.
> 
> Moreover, Barack Obama—the fucking President of the United States, sources stressed—holds press conferences and meetings with foreign leaders to talk about this guy.
> 
> “Must be pretty neat being on the front of newspapers and stuff and having everyone care about everything you say and do,” said 39-year-old Ethan Gurzau of Philadelphia, adding that if the past month is any indication, Snowden’s life will only get more awesome. “That’ll never happen to me. And it’s not like his life wasn’t sweet before this either. He was making 200k a year working at a cushy job and living in Hawaii. I mean, are you kidding me?”
> 
> When reached for comment, authorities were unable speculate on Snowden’s future plans given that it would be too difficult to pinpoint where someone so unpredictable and spontaneous and mysterious would end up. Officials went on to say they wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up sleeping with a supermodel or stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.
> 
> “I honestly can’t wait to get up every morning and check online to see what he’s up to,” said 26-year-old Boston-based real estate agent Samantha Upton, adding that there’s no telling what unbelievable adventure Snowden will go on next. “I’ve never even been past Missouri. Meanwhile, this guy is jetting from China to Moscow while the CIA chases after him and watches his every move. That’s insane.”
> 
> “I want to do that,” Upton added. “I want to do what he’s doing.”
> 
> At press time, officials were unable to confirm Snowden’s current activities, though sources noted that whatever he’s doing, it’s probably mind-blowing.



 :nod:


----------



## CougarKing

cupper said:
			
		

> *Edward Snowden’s Life Just Flat-Out Fun And Exciting*



You thinking of writing a screenplay titled "The Snowden Legacy"?  ;D


----------



## cupper

S.M.A. said:
			
		

> You thinking of writing a screenplay titled "The Snowden Legacy"?  ;D



Colour me Jealous.

Look at all the KHL action he will get to see live.

I wish I were in his shoes.


----------



## cupper

And he even pulls off a job with Russia's version of Facebook.

Lucky Bastard.

*Snowden offered job at Russia's top social network*

Hours after the fugitive was given temporary asylum in Russia, the country's hugely popular VKontakte site offers him work as a programmer.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57596666-93/snowden-offered-job-at-russias-top-social-network/



> It's likely that Russia's top social-networking site VKontakte won't be seeking references from previous employers when recruiting U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden to its staff.
> 
> Despite being a wanted fugitive, Snowden appears to have no problem finding work. VKontakte offered Snowden a job as a programmer on Thursday, according to The New York Times.
> 
> "We invite Edward to St. Petersburg and will be thrilled if he decides to join our stellar team of programmers at VKontakte," the social network's founder Pavel Durov said in a VKontakte post. "At the end of the day, there is no European Internet company more popular than VK. I think Edward might be interested in protecting the personal data of our millions of users."
> 
> Snowden has been hunkered down in a Moscow airport for the last several weeks but was finally able to leave on Thursday. Much to the consternation of the U.S. government, Russia offered Snowden temporary asylum for one year. The whistleblower was also offered full asylum by several Latin American countries but has been unable to travel to the region because the U.S. revoked his passport.
> 
> Snowden is wanted by the U.S. for leaking top-secret documents to the media over the National Security Agency's surveillance practices. This leak has led to the public discovering that the government has been working to spy on people via metadata from Internet companies and cellular records in two programs -- the 2015 Program and PRISM. The NSA and the Obama administration have said the goals of the surveillance programs were to track down foreign terrorists and terrorist threats.
> 
> Snowden's Russian asylum papers allow him to work in the country, which is probably why Durov offered him a job. VKontakte, which is nearly identical to Facebook, is Russia's most popular social networking site. The site claims to have more than 210 million registered users with up to 47 million people checking in daily.


----------



## Inquisitor

There is some speculation on the web that the Manning verdicts and the likely harsh sentences tipped the decision to grant asylum in Snowdens favour.


----------



## Inquisitor

In related news - seems like I'm not the only one that gets overexcited" 

This reproduced under the fair use provision of the copyright act  from "This can't be happening" link here http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/

"Sen. John McCain, who almost became president running against Obama in 2008, blustered that Russia's decision was a "slap in the face" to all Americans, though actually a majority of Americans are sympathetic to Snowden and think his leak exposing the unprecedented NSA spying on them was a good act. Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York State's senior senator, called for cancellation of the G-20 summit set to be hosted by Russia because of the decision -- surely the most absurd of demands, since most other leaders in the group would go anyway, making the US look even more childish. Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, who really appears to have lost his wits these days, called the decision a "game changer" in US-Russian relations, and said it showed Russian President Vladimir Putin's lack of respect for President Obama. But then, Republicans like Graham have been doing that for five years now, and polls show that most Americans don't respect the US president much either."


----------



## Nemo888

Snowden getting asylum is not the real story, XKeyscore should be what people are talking about. Basically every single thing about you is available for perusal by anyone with access. Websites you visited, videos you watched, chats, telephone conversations and email going back years. Throw in location data from your cell, high speed license plate cameras and facial recognition from countless CCTV cameras. Everyone is a suspect. George Orwell would be so proud.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data


----------



## George Wallace

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Snowden getting asylum is not the real story, XKeyscore should be what people are talking about. Basically every single thing about you is available for perusal by anyone with access. Websites you visited, videos you watched, chats, telephone conversations and email going back years. Throw in location data from your cell, high speed license plate cameras and facial recognition from countless CCTV cameras. Everyone is a suspect. George Orwell would be so proud.
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data



You know; I wonder what the people thought way back when, when the very first Police force was created?  Or way, way back when the first 'soldier' was hired to protect some wealthy land owner?  My God!  They must of really felt their freedoms infringed upon.

Freedom comes at a price.  It is not FREE.



Even Anarchy and Chaos have their prices.


----------



## Robert0288

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Basically every single thing about you is available for perusal by anyone with access.



And legal reason.  I'm sure the RCMP / CSIS / Local Police have the capability to find everything about you as well (kind of their job with wiretaps etc...), but they need a court order.  Take a look at the slides.  None of them say targeting Americans or targets on American soil.


----------



## cupper

Frankly, if some analyst at the NSA wants to check on what I've been perusing on the various porn sites, the cat videos that I keep getting e-mailed to me, all the game requests I keep ignoring on Face Book, or the insanity that is Army.ca, then all the power to them.

And if they want to listen in on the abuse I heap in the annoying telemarketers that keep calling, they can fill their boots.

But I will defend my right to bitch and complain that my tax dollars are being misused, and that they should be doing something more productive like tracking down those that would want to bring harm to the US, and other western democracies.

That seems to be the biggest thing that people miss in this whole debate. The Intelligence services like the NSA can vacuum up every tweet, FB post, e-mail, phone call metadata, or what ever else they feel they need. But the resources that would be necessary to examine each and every individual piece of data to determine if it raises a flag or not would bankrupt the Western countries. It would be like looking for a single atom of plutonium in the entire Atlantic Ocean.

Unless you are plotting to blow up something, fly a plane into something, or release nerve agents somewhere, You are not special enough for the NSA to take an interest in what you do online.

So you can go back and start checking out Tranny Panda Porn, rest assured that the Men in the Black SUVs won't be busting your door down.


----------



## Jarnhamar

I'm glad this guy ratted out the NSA if they're collecting information on their own citizens.


----------



## Flavus101

What if said citizens wished to cause harm to other citizens?

If someone plans to set off a bomb and this is the way that they must be caught I am fine with them having information on me. My life and others lives are more important to me than my internet history.


----------



## tomahawk6

Who do you think CSE is spying on ?


----------



## Inquisitor

cupper said:
			
		

> Frankly, if some analyst at the NSA wants to check on what I've been perusing on the various porn sites, the cat videos that I keep getting e-mailed to me, all the game requests I keep ignoring on Face Book, or the insanity that is Army.ca, then all the power to them.



Cupper makes the extremely relevant point that they don't have the processing power to separate the fly-sh*t from the peper

I say again, from one of my other posts that a point that everyone seems to be missing is the COST of this corporate welfare. 

Seriously - I'm thinking of calling into Rob Fords show on sunday and asking him what he thinks of this stuff. 

Gravy train indeed - Standby for update on Sunday


----------



## George Wallace

Inquisitor said:
			
		

> Cupper makes the extremely relevant point that they don't have the processing power to separate the fly-sh*t from the peper



They run programs that look for "key words" in conversations, text, etc.  Those programs cut down on the fly shit in the pepper.  

At the same time, don't forget; they are Government personnel, and as such face the same bureaucratic hurtles and hoops to jump through as any other Government employees.


----------



## Inquisitor

Thanks George - The way I understand it most are not Government employees. I think that point you are trying to make is that they would be paid anyway. 

Most are, the way I understand it, Contractors working for Firms like Booz-Allen-Hamilton. As such, just like contracted services here, their services receive a very healthy markup.

I also suggest that any committed evil-doer is not likely to use these means of communication.


----------



## muskrat89

> So you can go back and start checking out Tranny Panda Porn, rest assured that the Men in the Black SUVs won't be busting your door down.



But they will if your house Googles "backpacks" and "pressure cookers" at the same time....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/family-visited-by-joint-t_n_3690806.html


----------



## SupersonicMax

I think somebody famous sais this: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Having said that, he signed his clearance and agreef to not disclose classified information.  He was aware of the consequences.  He should be prosecuted for this.


----------



## Edward Campbell

SupersonicMax said:
			
		

> I think somebody famous sais this: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
> 
> Having said that, he signed his clearance and agreef to not disclose classified information.  He was aware of the consequences.  He should be prosecuted for this.




The "somebody famous" is alleged to have been Abraham Lincoln, but there is no evidence he ever said that. What he did say, in 1838, was:

     "All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or
      make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. 

      At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and
      finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." 

          (from "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois," 27 January 1838)


----------



## a_majoor

While the benign interpretation is that the data is mined for links to terrorism, the fact of the matter is we are living in a time where everything is politicized and "it is worth everything to win". 

Consider the example of IRS harassment of the press and political groups, using (or abusing) tax data. Now imagine if the powers that be really wanted to us politicized data to harm their political opponents: how difficult would it be to create a slanderous twisted narrative (think of Rob Ford, for a Canadian example), or even create a civil or criminal case based on information revealed by this sort of data mining? (People have been charged with federal crimes for getting lost in a snowstorm and crossing an arbitrary boundary, no "_mens rea_" was even implied here, but the charges went ahead anyway...).

The other thing to consider is your personal data could end up in the hands of people like Edward Snowden.

So while the way he went about it was wrong, the principle is correct.



> _About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter.* If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final*. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers._
> 
> Calvin Coolidge
> Address at the Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, Pa.
> July 5, 1926


----------



## Nemo888

The question is who gets access. Upper echelon NSA analysts or random lowest bidder contractors who misuse the database for kicks or profit? Snowden would be the second variety and obviously felt quite a bit bothered by how much power he had. Enough to throw his life away. He is a right leaning Republican and former military. What freaked him out so much? Something must be rotten.

Can it be used by conventional law enforcement? With the new releases we can admit that they basically vacuum up everything and retain it indefinitely. They have enormous amounts of computer power. More than enough to analyze everything. The electricity bill at a single NSA server location is 25 million dollars annually. What are the limits on the use of this dubious data? We don't know and we can't debate it because it's a secret. Giving secret organizations that can murder people based on the data mined no oversight is rather risky. Eventually political opponents disappear. Obama is the poster boy for what can happen. Lovely speeches about freedom and liberal values all while done striking American citizens with no trial. 

Lastly why do we need so much expensive surveillance? Not many terrorists use Hotmail. Why do you fear your own citizens so much? This only makes sense if you plan on treating them in ways that might make them upset enough to want to change who is in charge.


----------



## Inquisitor

"Obama Promise to Protect Whistleblowers Scrubbed From Website"
Link here http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/16184-obama-promise-to-protect-whistleblowers-scrubbed-from-website

snippet reproduced here under the fair use policy of the coyright act
"Memory hole: a hole in a small chute leading to an incinerator. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, information — printed evidence of history — that contradicted the ruling party’s official version of events from the past was sent down the memory hole

...

Specifically, in its analysis, Sunlight noticed:

While the front splash page for Change.gov has linked to the main White House website for years, until recently, you could still continue on to see the materials and agenda laid out by the administration. This was a particularly helpful resource for those looking to compare Obama's performance in office against his vision for reform, laid out in detail on Change.gov.

... 

Sunlight suggests that this artifact from the website might hold the key:

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process."

Comment: Wow, just Wow

Posted on the snowden thread as well


----------



## Inquisitor

I'll post the punchline  from the article first, under the fiar use provision of the copyright act

“We’re not going to subpoena reporters in the future. We don’t need to. We know who you’re talking to.” The Risen victory notwithstanding, recalling that statement sends chills down my spine 

Mine too, Yours as well I hope

BTW its at the bottom of the article

Link here http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news-media-law/news-media-and-law-summer-2011/lessons-wye-river


----------



## George Wallace

You two are really grasping at straws and really have no idea of what you are talking about.  That only adds to the nonsense that you are spewing.


----------



## Nemo888

George Wallace said:
			
		

> You two are really grasping at straws and really have no idea of what you are talking about.  That only adds to the nonsense that you are spewing.



Trust us because we are the government is the best you can do?


----------



## George Wallace

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Trust us because we are the government is the best you can do?



I didn't say that; but the trash you are spouting is good enough to qualify you for the Tin Foil Hat Brigade.  You have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about, as demonstrated in your not even knowing the legalities of what this subject is about.  As already pointed out to you, you have thrown Red Herrings into this discussion which have nothing at all to do with the topic.  

And as a matter of record, as this is cyber space, this will float around in cyberspace for many a millennium.  Generations will wonder what level of paranoia you two may have had.  Frankly, I highly doubt the government gives a damn about your posts, so you should have nothing to worry about.  Well.......other than what the future readers may opinionate about you; you are safe.


----------



## Inquisitor

George - Please I do not mean this as an insult - it is not directed at you. 

For those of you who did live in the era, as George and I did - The US government used every legal means and some not legal to suppress domestic dissent in the 60's and early 70's. 

They did the same thing during the "Red Scare" in the 50's. 

Now, with the benefit of history most would say that these events were at best an ham-handed overreaction. 

I was hoping to provide a link to Buffalo Springfild and "Somethings Happening" this is the best I could do. 

You know what I find even more ironic???? I was serving in Militia at the time. 

School was a b*tch at first, then the other kids settled down. 

Uniform in public? Never a problem. 

Fond memories of wandering over to Ontario Place after parade in combats for  beer and  oom pa pa band .  Prozit!

Matter of fact when we had Americans up we invited them to go drinking with us in uniform, never a problem.

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away


----------



## Nemo888

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I didn't say that; but the trash you are spouting is good enough to qualify you for the Tin Foil Hat Brigade.  You have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about, as demonstrated in your not even knowing the legalities of what this subject is about.  As already pointed out to you, you have thrown Red Herrings into this discussion which have nothing at all to do with the topic.
> 
> And as a matter of record, as this is cyber space, this will float around in cyberspace for many a millennium.  Generations will wonder what level of paranoia you two may have had.  Frankly, I highly doubt the government gives a damn about your posts, so you should have nothing to worry about.  Well.......other than what the future readers may opinionate about you; you are safe.



Instead of attacking our character could you come up with some factual arguments? 

The legalities of the US murdering citizens without trials is very worrisome. Death by presidential fiat for talking shite on the internet is too much power for a President to hold IMO. Before Obama no President did this as far as I know. They certainly didn't go on the news to crow about it.

If you want to talk legalities in Canada lets talk about the Minister for Public Safety. He can use _any and all_ government resources for a threat he deems conventional law enforcement "unable to handle" whatever that means. The law doesn't give any details. It is actually that broad. Let's think about that. Military, JTF, CSE, etc can be legally used on Canadian citizens now. If he tells the CSE track down a group of kiddie porn peddlers I can maybe get my head around it. Even if he believes the world is only 7000 years old. But what if the next Minister wants all the neonazis out of the military and searches all our internet and phone histories to find out who even once supported those ideas. What if he decides that certain pornography makes you unfit for service?  Maybe eventually it will be your politics.

Government is at it's very best mediocre. At it's worst it is the most terrifying force in human history. I like my government on a tight leash as they inevitably fall into the wrong hands. Why can't the powers of the security state be scaled back to what they were pre 9/11 Mr. Wallace? Why do they need unlimited power and unlimited secrecy?


----------



## George Wallace

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Instead of attacking our character could you come up with some factual arguments?



OK.  How about you explain the following and give us one example of:



			
				Nemo888 said:
			
		

> The legalities of the US murdering citizens without trials is very worrisome.




I find you very ignorant in your thinking on this statement, verging on the extreme paranoid:


			
				Nemo888 said:
			
		

> If you want to talk legalities in Canada lets talk about the Minister for Public Safety. He can use _any and all_ government resources for a threat he deems conventional law enforcement "unable to handle" whatever that means. The law doesn't give any details. It is actually that broad. Let's think about that. Military, JTF, CSE, etc can be legally used on Canadian citizens now. If he tells the CSE track down a group of kiddie porn peddlers I can maybe get my head around it. Even if he believes the world is only 7000 years old. But what if the next Minister wants all the neonazis out of the military and searches all our internet and phone histories to find out who even once supported those ideas. What if he decides that certain pornography makes you unfit for service?  Maybe eventually it will be your politics.




 :  There are laws in place that prevent your delusional musings of what could be.  They can't happen.



			
				Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Government is at it's very best mediocre. At it's worst it is the most terrifying force in human history. I like my government on a tight leash as they inevitably fall into the wrong hands. Why can't the powers of the security state be scaled back to what they were pre 9/11 Mr. Wallace? Why do they need unlimited power and unlimited secrecy?



 :  You really are grasping at straws.  

If you do not like the government, and you are a registered voter, then use your franchised rights and vote them out.  If you are not a Canadian citizen, go home to where you came from.  Seriously.  We have a democracy and we get the government we elect.  You have two options:  Elect another Government; or Leave.


----------



## Inquisitor

George - you asked for an example  of :

OK.  How about you explain the following and give us one example of:

Quote from: Nemo888 on Today at 23:17:59

The legalities of the US murdering citizens without trials is very worrisome.

Here is an example The speech came one day after the Obama administration declassified information about the 2011 drone strike that killed Anwar Awlaki, an American citizen who led external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as strikes that killed three other American citizens. 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-when-its-okay-to-kill-americans-drone-strikes-2013-5#ixzz2ayBJMYF7"

Reproduced under the fair use provision of the copyright act

I think most us would be hard pressed to disagree with the following statement from President Obama

But when a U.S. citizen goes abroad to wage war against America – and is actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens; and when neither the United States, nor our partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a plot – his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a swat team

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-when-its-okay-to-kill-americans-drone-strikes-2013-5#ixzz2ayBcwJ6i

So far so good?

The list has been expanded.  It's late and rather than me ramble on - let me point out potential problems for abuse ala  "Minority report" for just one example


----------



## Nemo888

George Wallace said:
			
		

> OK.  How about you explain the following and give us one example of:
> 
> 
> I find you very ignorant in your thinking on this statement, verging on the extreme paranoid:
> 
> :  There are laws in place that prevent your delusional musings of what could be.  They can't happen.
> 
> :  You really are grasping at straws.
> 
> If you do not like the government, and you are a registered voter, then use your franchised rights and vote them out.  If you are not a Canadian citizen, go home to where you came from.  Seriously.  We have a democracy and we get the government we elect.  You have two options:  Elect another Government; or Leave.



Anwar Awlaki is the perfect example of an American citizen murdered for talking shite on the internet by presidential order. 

What are these limits on the Minister of Minister for Public Safety as I know of none.  The pretend ones in your head don't count.

I think of future generations. I don't think I am the last generation in history and screw everyone else. Leaving laws of convenience on the books leads to bizarre outcomes 50 or 100 years down the road.


----------



## armyvern

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> Government is at it's very best mediocre. At it's worst it is the most terrifying force in human history. I like my government on a tight leash as they inevitably fall into the wrong hands.
> 
> ...
> 
> Why can't the powers of the security state be scaled back to what they were pre 9/11 Mr. Wallace? Why do they need unlimited power and unlimited secrecy?



Because the sun rose on 09/12 and it was the dawn of a new age; they be on our soil now.  Or, did you miss that bit?



Not that anyone actually has "unlimited power and unlimited secrecy" as you claim.  :


----------



## Nemo888

The problem is that the statute gives the Minister of Public Safety and the Attorneys General of all the Provinces too much power with minimal oversight. Eventually this will bite us in the ass. It's a bad law and needs to be repealed or rewritten. Unlike those ridiculous security certificates to lock up people who had committed no crimes for years this one didn't expire. 

I can't get over that we locked up a 73 year old Egyptian for writing books about overthrowing Hosni Mubarak in Innes Rd for years. We did our ally a solid and locked up this scumbag fermenting revolution in Egypt. That is some serious police state overkill. Old men writing books. I feel like a real man now.


----------



## Good2Golf

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> What are these limits on the Minister of Minister for Public Safety as I know of none.  The pretend ones in your head don't count.



As for all Canadians, at its most restrictive, the Criminal Code of Canada.

...or do you have an issue with the Criminal Code of Canada not having enough checks and balances?


Anwar al Alwaki....for just talking shite?  Or, also for being tried in his second country of citizenship for coordinating terrorist acts against foreigners and acting as an Al Qaeda agent.  Perhaps the US Government had an agreement with the Yemeni Government to assist in the Yemeni court order to capture al Alwaki dead or alive... 

The positive thing in all this is that you are able to have the opinion you have, notwithstanding the apparently 'limited' rights or privileges you have in this country...


----------



## Nemo888

Alwaki was the Tony Robbins of English speaking jihadis. It's work to turn that into a capital crime but why not try him in absentia then kill him. Why blaze a new trail and allow murder of citizens by Presidential order. Murder by decree is a terrible precedent. It may be justifiable this time, but what happens 20 years from now?


----------



## Good2Golf

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> ...but why not try him in absentia then kill him...



Ummm, you do know that Yemen did exactly that, right?  

Do you know that the Yemeni and US Governments were not co-operating, and that as the two nations whose nationalities al Awlaki held, carried out the Yemeni sentence together?


----------



## jollyjacktar

Nemo, you seem to be the only one here crying over Alwaki's death.  I won't shed a tear on what or how it was done.  And I don't think I'm alone here on this.  You, on the other hand seem to be in the wilderness.  Hope the wolves don't eat you one day.


----------



## Nemo888

Then Samir Khan or Awlaki's 16 year old son. It doesn't really matter who the scumbag they use it on as a test case. The precedent has been set and the legal framework installed. This is a huge change and the eventual outcome of letting Presidents murder citizens who they decide are "bad"  will inevitably lead to abuse if it is let stand. This doesn't expire. Presidents can do this legally from now on. This time, of course, who gives a crap. But what about next time or the hundredth time?


----------



## kevincanada

What happen to this being about Snowden?


----------



## Nemo888

Snowden thought the state had taken more power than it needed and would eventually become a threat to it's own citizens and no one even noticed.  At least that is what 55% of Americans think. Only 34%  think he is a traitor. Some, like me, think he is both.

I've had some unpopular opinions over the years and come to logger heads with Army accepted wisdom. Iraq is a terrible idea without UN support. Torturing detainees will bite us in the ass. Afghanistan is unwinnable. The police state tactics we are using need to expire someday. I can live with that.


----------



## George Wallace

Inquisitor said:
			
		

> Anwar Awlaki, an American citizen who led external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as strikes that killed three other American citizens.



Just out of curiosity, and to do a little bit of speculation on my own; do either of you know Anwar Awlaki personally?  Do you know if he RENOUNCED his American Citizenship or not?  Perhaps he did.  None of us here know, and if he did then he was NOT an American citizen.  Just speculation of course, but why would anyone wage war on his country without renouncing citizenship to that country?  

On the topic of putting an old man into jail:  Publishing "Hate literature" is a Hate Crime in this country.  Age does not give you a "Get out of Jail FREE" card.


----------



## Nemo888

If only there was some way to get to the bottom of this,... Like a trial by a judge who uses a preponderance of evidence. Bwahahaha  >


----------



## George Wallace

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> If only there was some way to get to the bottom of this,... Like a trial by a judge who uses a preponderance of evidence. Bwahahaha  >



What would it matter to you?  You seem to find a conspiracy behind every door.  You have little knowledge of the legal checks and balances, nor the legal systems, in place to protect you, and use false speculation at every turn.


----------



## kevincanada

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Snowden thought the state had taken more power than it needed and would eventually become a threat to it's own citizens and no one even noticed.  At least that is what 55% of Americans think. Only 34%  think he is a traitor. Some, like me, think he is both.
> 
> I've had some unpopular opinions over the years and come to logger heads with Army accepted wisdom. Iraq is a terrible idea without UN support. Torturing detainees will bite us in the ***. Afghanistan is unwinnable. The police state tactics we are using need to expire someday. I can live with that.



I am feeling the need to say this again.  Am I that naive that I grew up expecting the state to collect information.  The problem is not power, the problem is not information.  The problem is *if* that power and information is being abused.  If there is no abuse don't worry about it.  If there is abuse then take it to the proper people or the courts.  The state is still not above the court and at the end of the day it is civilians that sit on the jury of the court.

The state will always have power may as well get use to it.  Without it there would be no healthcare system, there would be no armed forces.  We would of lost WW2.  Paul Bernardo would be free.  I wonder if thoughts like those four examples crossed Snowden's mind before he decided to betray the USA.

Talking about Anwar Awlaki.  I have read some about terrorism.  While I can only speculate, I would have to lay odds of infinity to 1.  He had personally but not officially revoked his American citizenship based on my own understanding of what is terrorism.  Terrorism and western world are in complete contrast of each other.  It is not in the the terrorist interest to revoke their USA citizenship, it is in their interest to try and keep that citizenship in good standing.


----------



## George Wallace

From another thread:



			
				tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> There is a law pertaining to whistle blowers - if you follow the procedures.Manning and Snowden are NOT whistle blowers.
> Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 provides protection only for individuals within the federal government. The coverage applies to current and former government employees, as well as people who are applying for a job with the federal government. Some federal employees do not receive protection from the 1989 act, including members of the FBI, the United States Postal Service and the National Security Agency.
Click to expand...



As neither one of these two gents went to their superiors to report their findings, but instead went clandestinely to international organizations, such as WikiLeaks, they can not be considered "Whistle-blowers" in all the legal sense of the intent.  They would more likely fall under any act, legislation, and/or law dealing with espionage.  To be a "Whistle-blower" is one thing quite different from "aiding and abetting your enemies".


----------



## Transporter

There would be far fewer Snowdens if we dealt more swiftly and more severely with the Mannings and Delisles.


----------



## George Wallace

Transporter said:
			
		

> There would be far fewer Snowdens if we dealt more swiftly and more severely with the Mannings and Delisles.



How much swifter can we act?  The detection and arrest of these culprits does not happen in a quick manner.  There is no magic means to instantly detect and arrest those who would put our freedoms at risk.  Then the legal system grinds on at a slow pace to ensure both the Prosecution and the Defence have ample time and resources to conduct their part of a fair trial.


----------



## Transporter

That's my point. In the 3+ years since Bradley Manning was arrested he has become a "cause celebre" for all the folks out there - even some still in uniform perhaps - who believe that this guy did absolutely nothing wrong. I understand the legalities of due process afforded by the civil and military justice systems, etc. But mark my words, there are more Mannings and Snowdens to come. Why? Because in the eyes of some in our twisted fame-whore society today, they've just watched these guys become famous, held up by some elements of society as great patriots, and to whom we should all be thankful for their bravery and sacrifices. Don't believe me? Wait and see how the Snowden affair plays out. Bet he's on the cover of Rolling Stone before Christmas.


----------



## George Wallace

Your point?

What point?  It is not magic.  How do you propose we detect these people in a timely manner?


----------



## armyvern

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> ... I can live with that.



Glad that you can.

Now, what I need to do is go grab the full metal jacket off of my baked potato and fashion it into some form of headwarmer, skip my meal entirely and go straight to my haloperidol and loxapine cocktail before I slip into a sound sleep of my own.


----------



## Inquisitor

Whats that music I hear - sounds like the background theme from Jaws - Is that a Mod I hear?

Nemo888 - May I suggest that you have brought a knife to a gun fight???? I speak as one who has on occasion. 

I suggest those that swim against the flow need to be carful about picking their ground. 

That said I understand the rationale but popping Al-wakis 16 year old son seemed a bit excessive. 

I also note something else I find troubling. It is reported that many of these strikes are a double-tap. I.e. One for the target, the next one a short time later as personnel are combing the wreckage looking for survivors.  A rhetorical question - If a neighbours house 5 doors down from you blew up unexpectedly what would you do? Sadly in cases like these the answer seems to be stay in doors - and bide your time.


----------



## GnyHwy

Transporter said:
			
		

> Don't believe me? Wait and see how the Snowden affair plays out. Bet he's on the cover of Rolling Stone before Christmas.



Is this how we measure success now?  You also alluded to more persons speaking in order to gain fame and fortune.  Believe me when I say, if these persons are so weak minded that they feel need for attention and acceptance from everyone else, chances are their information is not that valuable anyway.


----------



## Transporter

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> Is this how we measure success now?  You also alluded to more persons speaking in order to gain fame and fortune.  Believe me when I say, if these persons are so weak minded that they feel need for attention and acceptance from everyone else, chances are their information is not that valuable anyway.


 I respectfully disagree. Guys with Top Secret security clearances (and higher) a la Manning, Snowden, Delisle, etc have access to plenty of "valuable" information, as do scores of other "ideologues" on our team. The fact that the info they've released thus far might not be considered, by some, as injurious to the national interest (I disagree with that also), doesn't mean they wouldn't have given up much more valuable information if they had the chance - the intent was there all the same. Maybe I'm old school, but a good old firing squad would send a pretty unambiguous message that none of this sort of thing will be tolerated. And I'm telling you, there are more in the Manning/Snowden mold to come. Wait and see. 

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend


----------



## Fishbone Jones

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> Glad that you can.
> 
> Now, what I need to do is go grab the full metal jacket off of my baked potato and fashion it into some form of headwarmer, skip my meal entirely and go straight to my haloperidol and loxapine cocktail before I slip into a sound sleep of my own.



Go for the Mocha Java Vodka Valium Latte.


----------



## Inquisitor

I was just about to say that I should not have put the last 4 words on my last post. 

I also suggest that I find the "Good old firing squad" solution interesting. I have a great idea "Lets shoot the messenger" Seems to deal with the symptom very effectively. 

I suggest more effort be spent on fixing the problem. Two things that come to mind are better screening and monitoring. 

It seems leaking can work too ways. Tomahawk6 would probably like a leaker to put out details of presumed Benghazi malfeasance, as would I and others. I have heard reports that the CIA is using a lot more polygraph tests on its staff. 

An even better solution might be and more well thought out and articulated strategy for winning the long war. Playing whack-a-mole both overseas and at home doesn't seem to be playing out very well. 

Enjoy the weekend the CNE will soon be here, with whack-a-mole on the Midway!!!!


----------



## dimsum

Transporter said:
			
		

> Don't believe me? Wait and see how the Snowden affair plays out. Bet he's on the cover of Rolling Stone before Christmas.



So was the Boston Marathon Bomber; that doesn't mean the RS are supportive of his (their) actions.  Hell, Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938. 

I agree that Snowden will be on RS/Time/whatever, but not because he's supported.


----------



## GAP

Someone within the US Senate edited Edward Snowden's Wikipedia page to change his description from 'dissident' to 'traitor'

    The editor's IP address was tracked back to the US Senate
    The edit was made one day after Edward Snowden was granted political asylum in Russia

By Ryan Gorman   4 August 2013

A member of the US Senate was caught this week trying to make a rather conspicuous edit to Edward Snowden's Wikipedia page .

In a move sure to grind the gears of conspiracy theorists everywhere, a member of the US Senate recently edited Snowden’s Wikipedia page from describing him as a ‘dissident’ to a traitor, according to the entry’s changelog. The user’s IP address was quickly traced back to the US Senate.

It is not clear if the person is an active Senator, a staffer or an intern, but the change certainly came from the Senate.
more on link


----------



## George Wallace

What is news there, other than someone at Wiki leaking where the IP address is registered?  Anyone can edit Wikipedia pages.  The Site owners can trace any changes.  This is not news to anyone who know anything about Wikipedia.


----------



## Transporter

Dimsum said:
			
		

> So was the Boston Marathon Bomber; that doesn't mean the RS are supportive of his (their) actions.  Hell, Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938.
> 
> I agree that Snowden will be on RS/Time/whatever, but not because he's supported.


 There will be far more, and far more wide-spread, "support" for Snowden than Manning.

Snowden is a traitor, not a dissident.


----------



## George Wallace

Transporter said:
			
		

> There will be far more, and far more wide-spread, "support" for Snowden than Manning.
> 
> Snowden is a traitor, not a dissident.



Neither one of them is a 'Whistle-blower'.  Both made State secrets available internationally, thus selling out their country.  They are both traitors.  Julian Assange on the other hand, is nothing more than a common criminal handling 'stolen property'.


----------



## tomahawk6

Snowden is now a defector and has been granted asylum in Russia. Life for a defector in the old USSR wasnt much fun,I wonder if Snowden will be regretting his choice ?


----------



## Good2Golf

In Snowden's case, being a traitor AND a defector need not be mutually exclusive...I would argue that as of this week, he is both.


----------



## Inquisitor

Materially Regret his choice - Probably not - Good Job with the equiivilant of facebook, Hot Russian Ex Spy Chick wants to "Marry" him.

That said - I don't envy him, He'll always be looking over his shoulder. Hopefully he'll slide into obscurity. 

Many are grateful for exposing the  continued assault on human rights in the US.

He'll doubtless miss of the loss of his old country, as do many.  These are perilous days for Western Democracy.


----------



## tomahawk6

One way to look at it.How about another view ? One man took it upon himself to release highly classified documents that have the potential to jeapordize the lives of every American citizen.


----------



## Inquisitor

I see your point of view.  It's a heck of a problem.

There was a similar problem back in the 70's, a bitter public debate, strong worlds hurled by both sides.  Many of us up here watched in horror what was happening to your country. 

Tomahawk6 I Know what its like to be ridiculed for serving. 

What's the solution. In the 70's a consensus was reached, a solution was found and America rebounded. 

How do we do the same? If I thought singing Kumbyah my lord would help I would. ;D


----------



## Nemo888

George Wallace said:
			
		

> What would it matter to you?  You seem to find a conspiracy behind every door.  You have little knowledge of the legal checks and balances, nor the legal systems, in place to protect you, and use false speculation at every turn.



Then the US Department of Justice is part of my imagined conspiracy.
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/doj-lethal.pdf
You must have retired long ago. Your legal knowledge is from the last century.
If a "high level administration official" deems a citizen an "imminent threat" they can assassinate them legally now. That includes inciting people on the internet to attack America. Making kill orders based on opinions is now streamlined and easy. Not just for this administration, but for all future ones. Assassination by Presidential fiat without judicial oversight is now the law of the land. This is a huge change in policy and one that will reap a very bitter harvest in the future.


----------



## Inquisitor

It seems we face the modern equivilant of the  Gordian Knot?  An insoluble problem - link here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot

I prefer the versions that Alexander solved the problem of producing two ends by slicing it in half with his sword. thus winning many victories

What I am trying to say is that the problem is likely to worsen unless something happens to break a seeming stalemate. 

I never ever ever thought I would say this but in may ways Mike Harris in Ontario seems to have faced the same, and the sky has not fallen. 

Perhaps spend more time posting on some of the boards that I draw some of my sources from that they might want to reconsider as well

Weak again but it seems the best I can do.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Inquisitor said:
			
		

> It seems we face the modern equivilant of the  Gordian Knot?  An insoluble problem - link here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot
> 
> I prefer the versions that Alexander solved the problem of producing two ends by slicing it in half with his sword. thus winning many victories
> 
> What I am trying to say is that the problem is likely to worsen unless something happens to break a seeming stalemate.
> 
> I never ever ever thought I would say this but in may ways Mike Harris in Ontario seems to have faced the same, and the sky has not fallen.
> 
> Perhaps spend more time posting on some of the boards that I draw some of my sources from that they might want to reconsider as well
> 
> Weak again but it seems the best I can do.





			
				Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Then the US Department of Justice is part of my imagined conspiracy.
> http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/doj-lethal.pdf
> You must have retired long ago. Your legal knowledge is from the last century.
> If a "high level administration official" deems a citizen an "imminent threat" they can assassinate them legally now. That includes inciting people on the internet to attack America. Making kill orders based on opinions is now streamlined and easy. Not just for this administration, but for all future ones. Assassination by Presidential fiat without judicial oversight is now the law of the land. This is a huge change in policy and one that will reap a very bitter harvest in the future.



You two better stay exactly on topic. This thread is about Snowden, and him only. If you drag another thread down the rabbit hole, and off topic, with your conspiracy theories, you'll be headed for the warning ladder for contravention of the guidelines. This will serve as your only warning on the matter.

---Staff---


----------



## kevincanada

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Then the US Department of Justice is part of my imagined conspiracy.
> http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/doj-lethal.pdf
> You must have retired long ago. Your legal knowledge is from the last century.
> If a "high level administration official" deems a citizen an "imminent threat" they can assassinate them legally now. That includes inciting people on the internet to attack America. Making kill orders based on opinions is now streamlined and easy. Not just for this administration, but for all future ones. Assassination by Presidential fiat without judicial oversight is now the law of the land. This is a huge change in policy and one that will reap a very bitter harvest in the future.



I had a look although I'm not reading all that only the first page.  Since the main point of argument is "Executive Order 12333" to justify your and the author argument.   I thought I would call it up look for the word assassination in it and read the fine print at the bottom.  Here is a quote of the fine print from the CIA website.  While I am in no way a lawyer nor do I pretend to be, to me at the laymen level of interpretation of this.  It is a guideline that is not enforceable.

I quote:

https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/eo12333.html#2.11

3.7 General Provisions.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is intended only to improve the internal management of the executive branch and is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity, by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

/s/ Ronald Reagan
The White House
December 4, 1981

Personal Notes:
- Federal employee and up are immune, everyone else below the federal level can have the provisions legally enforced.
- Can we go back to this being about Snowden now?


----------



## Nemo888

The latest leak is that the DEA use NSA intercepts for criminal enforcement. That is my line in the sand. Hunt terrorists all you want by whatever means you can imagine. Fill your boots. But like most people once civilian law enforcement gets access to this data I start to worry. 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/dea-agents-directed-to-cover-up-secretive-investigative-program/article13607150/


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> The latest leak is that the DEA use NSA intercepts for criminal enforcement. That is my line in the sand. Hunt terrorists all you want by whatever means you can imagine. Fill your boots. But like most people once civilian law enforcement gets access to this data I start to worry.
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/dea-agents-directed-to-cover-up-secretive-investigative-program/article13607150/



Because Snowden gets mentioned off handedly at the end of the article doesn't mean the article is about him.

He is what this thread is about. You won't be warned again.

---Staff---

Edit - never mind, you were already warned. Have a nice time out.


----------



## Inquisitor

Don Murray: How Russia gains from sheltering Edward Snowden

Vladimir Putin's newest 'catch of the day'  

Link here http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/08/02/f-vp-murray-snowden-putin.html

I found it an interesting comment piece. A pawn in the great game.  Feeling in Russia seems mixed. "Viewed almost as a hero ... almost 50% polled support asylum" two parts seem kinda contradictory.


----------



## Inquisitor

Another article - this one longer from Foreign Policy
Snowden's Butterfly Effect

5 unlikely consequences of the NSA leaks. 

link here http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/05/edward_snowdens_butterfly_effect_unlikely_winners_losers?page=0,1

some comments reproduced under the fair dealings  provision  of the copyright act 

"Call it the Snowden Butterfly Effect. Snowden's leaks have resounded in nearly every corner of global politics, and their precise consequences are only beginning to emerge. Most obviously, the former NSA contractor's disclosures have sparked a renewed debate over the scope of intelligence-gathering and handed China a powerful argument in countering American complaints over Chinese hacking activities.

,,,


Microsoft, meanwhile, found itself in the embarrassing position of running an ad campaign that declared "your privacy is our priority" just as the Guardian exposed that the company had handed over user content to the NSA and undermined its own encryption protocols for the agency's benefit

...


Other governments are digesting the NSA revelations with a mixture of awe and anger, and now want their own NSA-like capabilities. As a result, they may force companies to relocate their servers from the United States to the countries in which they operate -- making it that much easier to spy on their own citizens. 

...

It isn't often that Tea Party Republicans and liberal Democrats find themselves on the same side of an issue, but in late July these two disparate factions united to very nearly pass an amendment in the House that would have defunded the NSA's bulk collection activities. 

 ... 

But for critics of the NSA and America's surveillance state, the vote marked the closest anyone has come to seriously curtailing an intelligence agency's powers in the post-9/11 era. Without Snowden, that would never have happened

...

In his State of the Union address this year, President Obama announced that he was launching talks for a free trade pact with the European Union. But on the heels of revelations that the NSA has been aggressively spying on European states and their citizens, those talks are now under significant strain

...

But no one, it seems, really wants to do business with Big Brother. "Our concern is that after the tragedy of 9/11 the U.S. security services may have run amok," Corien Wortmann-Kool, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, said in July. "We need to discuss the code of conduct and see that proper oversight is in place." 

... 

But even if the Obama administration has been unable to apprehend Snowden, the young NSA leaker forced the United States to flex its muscles - and, in so doing, helped prove just how influential a country America remains.

...

It is by no means obvious that the Russian president particularly relishes sheltering Snowden. The former KGB agent offered this choice comment on the benefits of keeping the NSA leaker in Russia: "It's like shearing a piglet. There's a lot of squealing and very little wool."

Hmmm Perhaps on that last note  I'll exit the thread


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Inquisitor said:
			
		

> Hmmm Perhaps on that last note  I'll exit the thread



Good plan. You're walking a fine line with your latest post.


---Staff---


----------



## tomahawk6

If you want to make God laugh,make a plan. ;D


----------



## Jarnhamar

Flavus101 said:
			
		

> What if said citizens wished to cause harm to other citizens?
> 
> If someone plans to set off a bomb and this is the way that they must be caught I am fine with them having information on me. My life and others lives are more important to me than my internet history.



So what's your email address and password?


----------



## cupper

:goodpost:


----------



## CougarKing

The Snowden scandal continues to leave a bad aftertaste...

Link



> *Spying scandal sets back U.S. chances for fighter jet sale to Brazil*
> Reuters
> 
> By Anthony Boadle and Alonso Soto
> 
> BRASILIA (Reuters) - U.S. hopes of landing a coveted deal worth more than $4 billion to sell 36 fighter jets to Brazil have suffered a setback with recent revelations that the United States collected data on Brazilian Internet communications.
> 
> When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sits down with Brazilian officials in Brasilia on Tuesday to prepare a state visit to the White House by President Dilma Rousseff, the sale of the warplanes will not be on the agenda, a Brazilian source said.
> 
> *"We cannot talk about the fighters now ... . You cannot give such a contract to a country that you do not trust," a high-level Brazilian government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.*
> 
> The official said Kerry's one-day visit to Brazil will focus on restoring the trust between Washington and Brasilia that was shaken by the spying disclosures, which set off a political uproar in the largest U.S. trade partner in South America.
> 
> Last month, Brazilian newspaper O Globo published documents leaked by fugitive former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that revealed U.S. surveillance of Internet communications in Brazil and other Latin American countries.
> 
> Angry Brazilian senators questioned Rousseff's planned visit to Washington in October and opposed awarding the United States the multibillion-dollar deal to overhaul the Brazilian Air Force's fleet of fighter jets.
> 
> *Boeing Co is competing with its F/A-18 Super Hornet against France's Rafale made by Dassault Aviation and Sweden's Gripen made by Saab to win a contract worth at least $4 billion, with probable follow-up orders that would greatly increase the value of the contract over time.*
> 
> That makes it a critical prize for defense companies at a moment when the United States and many European countries are tightening military budgets.
> 
> A senior U.S. official said Brazil's final decision should be based on which is the superior aircraft.
> 
> "We think we have the best product," he said of the F/A-18, adding that the United States has promised to transfer as much technology to Brazil as allowed under U.S. law regarding the fighter jet.
> 
> *BOEING'S F-18 WAS FAVORITE*
> 
> A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment on the current state of play of its bid but said the Brazilian contract was a good business opportunity for the U.S. aircraft manufacturer.
> 
> Brazil has been debating the replacement of its ageing fighter jets for more than a decade, spanning three presidents. Rousseff appeared to be close to a decision earlier this year, with Boeing the clear favorite after the U.S. Air Force bought 20 light attack planes from Brazilian plane maker Embraer for use in Afghanistan.
> 
> *Rousseff put off a decision on the fighter jets due to Brazil's economic slowdown and a deteriorating fiscal situation. The defense budget was slashed by 3.7 billion reais ($1.62 billion) in May and another 920 million reais last month.*
> 
> The massive street protests that shook Brazil in June, fueled by widespread frustration with poor public services and corruption, put the spotlight on government spending and all but ruled out a big-ticket item such as the fighter jets.
> 
> "I don't expect the president to decide on the fighter contract this year, and next year is an election year so it might have to wait until 2015," said another government official involved in defense procurement policy.
> 
> The defense ministry, however, still hopes Rousseff will sign off on the new fighter jets before the end of this year.
> 
> *The Brazilian Air Force has put pressure on the government to take a decision by announcing publicly that its French-made Mirage 2000s, which defend the Brazilian capital, will be obsolete and grounded on the last day of this year.*
> 
> The Internet surveillance scandal set off by whistleblower Snowden has roiled relations between the two countries just as they seemed to be on a upward spiral under Rousseff, a pragmatic leftist.
> 
> Relations between Washington and Brasilia chilled under her predecessor and mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who drew Brazil closer to Latin America's leftist governments and to Iran.
> 
> Rousseff's state visit on October 23 is the only one that President Barack Obama is offering a foreign head of state this year, indicating the importance his administration is placing on closer ties with Latin America's largest nation.
> 
> Brazilian officials say they never considered cancelling Rousseff's visit and that they believe relations between the two countries are strong enough to put the spying case behind them.
> 
> *But the Brazilian government wants a better explanation than it has got so far from Washington on what the NSA was up to and the extent of U.S. surveillance of Brazil's communications, the officials said.*
> 
> The senior U.S. official said the United States was trying to work through its differences with Brazil over NSA issues while keeping other parts of the relationship on track.
> 
> ($1 = 2.28 reais)
> 
> (Additional reporting by Warren Strobel; Editing by Todd Benson and Xavier Briand)


----------



## George Wallace

Just an excuse for them not being able to afford the jets.  We all know Brazil is no different than any other nation, and spies on its enemies and allies.  It is the nature of the game.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Once more *THIS* thread is about Snowden. Not the consequences of his actions.

---Staff---


----------



## Nemo888

recceguy said:
			
		

> Once more *THIS* thread is about Snowden. Not the consequences of his actions.
> 
> ---Staff---


I am curious about the reasoning behind this. So should a Consequences of Snowdens Actions thread be started? It seems redundant.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> I am curious about the reasoning behind this. So should a Consequences of Snowdens Actions thread be started? It seems redundant.



You can lump them in with the other derailed thread that's full of whistleblower conspiracy theories.

The one you and a couple of others already hijacked.


----------



## cupper

*Snowden reportedly began secret downloads at Dell in 2012*

Whistle-blower began downloading classified documents related to NSA data collection programs while a contractor at the company, Reuters reports.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57598782-38/snowden-reportedly-began-secret-downloads-at-dell-in-2012/



> NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden began downloading documents about secret U.S. government surveillance programs while employed by Dell in April 2012, according to a Reuters report.
> 
> The former intelligence contractor began working at Dell in 2009 as a contractor at a National Security Agency facility in Japan. While employed at Dell, Snowden left an electronic trail that indicates he downloaded documents regarding electronic surveillance programs run by the NSA and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, officials and sources close to the matter told Reuters.
> 
> Some of the documents Snowden reportedly accessed related to NSA data collection of Internet traffic and other communications from fiber-optic cables, including transoceanic cables, the sources said.
> 
> A Dell representative declined to comment on the report.
> 
> Snowden, who has been granted asylum in Russia, is wanted by the U.S. for leaking top-secret documents to the media about the NSA's surveillance practices. The NSA and the Obama administration have said the goals of the surveillance programs have been to track down foreign terrorists and terrorist threats.
> 
> The U.S. government has charged Snowden, 30, with espionage, theft, and conversion of government property. Since the leak, the U.S. government has revoked Snowden's passport and is working to extradite him back to the states.
> Snowden has said that he left Dell earlier this year for a job at Booz Allen Hamilton to gain access to more classified documents regarding the NSA programs. Snowden's brief tenure at Booz Allen Hamilton ended in June, when he fled to Hong Kong with top-secret documents he leaked to the media.
> 
> In addition to the documents about surveillance programs, Snowden reportedly has very sensitive "blueprints" describing how the NSA operates. The former contractor has "literally thousands of documents" that constitute "basically the instruction manual for how the NSA is built" that could aid in duplicating or evading NSA surveillance tactics, The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald told the Associated Press last month.


----------



## nn1988

.US sharing/giving Israel private information on Americans?


RT link

http://rt.com/news/nsa-shares-data-israel-723/


The Guardian Article

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents?CMP=ema_follow


----------



## gambierparry

Snowden should had brought his case to US Supreme Court even if he is in a far away land like Moscow. He is capable of doing it. His refusal to bring his case to SC is a sign of bad faith. There were so many red flags felt by his former company bosses. Why did they let him go knowing of his plan? Hmmmmmm.


----------



## Jarnhamar

I'm still glad he blew the lid on the NSA.


----------



## cupper

gambierparry said:
			
		

> Snowden should had brought his case to US Supreme Court even if he is in a far away land like Moscow. He is capable of doing it. His refusal to bring his case to SC is a sign of bad faith. There were so many red flags felt by his former company bosses. Why did they let him go knowing of his plan? Hmmmmmm.



What exactly are you talking about?


----------



## a_majoor

Well, this explains a lot. The United States is in the _very best_ of hands......

http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/595254?type=bloomberg



> *Company Behind Snowden Vetting Did Washington Shooter Check (2)*
> By Danielle Ivory September 19, 2013
> 
> The U.S. government contractor that vetted Edward Snowden, who leaked information about national surveillance programs, said it also performed a background check on the Washington Navy Yard shooter.
> 
> USIS, a unit of Falls Church, Virginia-based Altegrity Inc., owned by Providence Equity Partners LLC, did Aaron Alexis’s background investigation in 2007, Ray Howell, a USIS spokesman, said in an e-mail. “Today we were informed that in 2007, USIS conducted a background check of Aaron Alexis” for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Howell said.
> 
> Howell said yesterday that USIS hadn’t vetted Alexis, who killed 12 people at the Navy Yard on Sept. 16 and then died in a shootout with police. Alexis had a secret-level clearance that would have enabled him to get an access card needed to get on the base.
> 
> The company can’t comment further because it’s contractually prohibited from retaining information gathered during its background checks for the personnel office, he said.
> 
> U.S. lawmakers immediately called for fixes to the government’s vetting system.
> 
> “From Edward Snowden to Aaron Alexis, what’s emerging is a pattern of failure on the part of this company, and a failure of this entire system, that risks nothing less than our national security and the lives of Americans,” Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, said in a statement.
> 
> Nation’s Secrets
> “What’s most frightening is that USIS performs a majority of background checks for our government,” McCaskill said. “We clearly need a top-to-bottom overhaul of how we vet those who have access to our country’s secrets and to our secure facilities. I plan to pursue such an overhaul, and won’t rest until it’s achieved.”
> 
> U.S. Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, said there is “inadequate oversight of the background check process” that must be fixed through legislation.
> 
> “If this doesn’t make it even more clear that this has to be fixed, I don’t know what will,” Portman said in an e-mailed statement.
> 
> Patrick McFarland, inspector general of the personnel office, has said there may have been shortcomings in USIS’s vetting of Snowden, a former Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. (BAH:US) employee who worked for the National Security Agency.
> 
> Snowden, who leaked information about U.S. electronic surveillance programs, faces federal charges of theft and espionage and is in Russia under temporary asylum.
> 
> Criminal Investigation
> During a June congressional hearing on background checks, which are required for security clearances, McCaskill said USIS was under criminal investigation.
> 
> Merton Miller, associate director for federal investigative services at the Office of Personnel Management, said that the agency “has reviewed the 2007 background investigation file for Aaron Alexis, and the agency believes that the file was complete and in compliance with all investigative standards.”
> 
> Once an investigation is complete, Miller said, it’s submitted to the “adjudicating agency” -- in Alexis’s case, the Defense Department -- for review. The personnel office’s involvement with Alexis’s security clearance ended when it submitted the case to the Defense Department.
> 
> The Pentagon “did not ask OPM for any additional investigative actions after it received the completed background investigation,” Miller said.
> 
> Inspector General
> Susan Ruge, associate counsel to the Office of Personnel Management inspector general, today declined to answer questions about whether her office was conducting a criminal investigation of USIS.
> 
> Four lawmakers, including Portman and McCaskill, yesterday asked the personnel office’s inspector general to scrutinize Alexis’s background investigation.
> 
> The personnel office, which conducts most federal background investigations, paid USIS $253 million for its work last year. The company is the top provider of background checks to the government, which has increasingly outsourced the work.
> 
> USIS performs about 65 percent of all background investigations conducted by contractors, and more than half of all investigations conducted by personnel office, according to McCaskill’s office.
> 
> Almost 5 million people held security clearances as of Oct. 1, 2012, according to a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Federal clearances and background checks by the personnel office cost taxpayers about $1 billion last year, with the expense expected to rise to $1.2 billion by 2014, according to McCaskill’s office.
> 
> ‘Performing Poorly’
> The boost in security clearances has led “invariably to corners being cut and contractors performing poorly,” said Neil Gordon, an investigator at the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based watchdog group. “This company has a history of employees getting in trouble for performing falsifying background checks.”
> 
> This incident, compounded with Snowden’s vetting, “is definitely going to hurt their reputation,” Gordon said of USIS.
> 
> The contractor competes with CACI International Inc. (CACI:US) and Keypoint Government Solutions Inc., a unit of Veritas Capital, a New York-based private equity firm.
> 
> USIS’s prominence as a background check contractor is due to its origin as the Federal Investigations Division of Office of Personnel Management. The unit, originally known as U.S. Investigations Services Inc., was privatized in 1996 as part of then-Vice President Al Gore’s effort to “reinvent” government by reducing the size of the civil service, according to a 2011 report by the Congressional Research Service.
> 
> Save Money
> Contracting out security reviews was designed to help save the government money and secure new work for about 700 investigators who would no longer be needed because of a declining security clearance workload due to the end of the Cold War.
> 
> USIS was given a non-competitive, three-year contract for investigative work with the government personnel office and granted free access to federal computer databases that weren’t available to other firms.
> 
> The Carlyle Group LP (CG:US), a Washington-based private equity firm, and New York-based Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe LP invested in USIS. They agreed in 2007 to sell USIS to Providence, Rhode Island-based Providence Equity Partners for about $1.5 billion.
> 
> Falsifying Records
> Ten background-check workers employed by contractors have been convicted or pleaded guilty to falsifying records since 2006, according to the personnel office’s inspector general. Eight of them worked for USIS.
> 
> In one case, Kayla M. Smith, a former investigative specialist for USIS, submitted some 1,600 falsified credit reports, according to the inspector general’s office.
> 
> She pleaded guilty in August 2009 to falsifying one out of three credit checks she performed during an 18-month period, according to a Justice Department statement.
> 
> The investigator who had vetted Smith was convicted in a separate falsification case, McFarland said at a June 20 Senate hearing.
> 
> On Sept. 16, Alexis, a 34-year-old Navy contractor, entered the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters with a valid access card. He had a secret-level clearance obtained from the Navy in March 2008.
> 
> After leaving the Navy in January 2011, Alexis retained the clearance even with three arrests, a history of mental illness and a record of military misconduct. His clearance was good for 10 years and wasn’t subject to a reinvestigation, according to a defense official who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified.
> 
> To contact the reporter on this story: Danielle Ivory in Washington at divory@bloomberg.net
> 
> To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Stoughton at sstoughton@bloomberg.net


----------



## a_majoor

http://www.xkcd.com/1269/

Enjoy


----------



## a_majoor

More on what the NSA has been up to. This monster version of Facebook seems far less useful for finding terrorists than setting up the architecture of a Police State, or developing social analysis for politcal ends:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?_r=1&&pagewanted=all



> *N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens*
> By JAMES RISEN and LAURA POITRAS
> Published: September 28, 2013 851 Comments
> 
> WASHINGTON — Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.
> Enlarge This Image
> 
> Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
> Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, testified on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
> Multimedia
> 
> Documents on N.S.A. Efforts to Diagram Social Networks of U.S. Citizens
> 
> The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.
> 
> The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.
> 
> The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents. They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such “enrichment” data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.
> 
> N.S.A. officials declined to say how many Americans have been caught up in the effort, including people involved in no wrongdoing. The documents do not describe what has resulted from the scrutiny, which links phone numbers and e-mails in a “contact chain” tied directly or indirectly to a person or organization overseas that is of foreign intelligence interest.
> 
> The new disclosures add to the growing body of knowledge in recent months about the N.S.A.’s access to and use of private information concerning Americans, prompting lawmakers in Washington to call for reining in the agency and President Obama to order an examination of its surveillance policies. Almost everything about the agency’s operations is hidden, and the decision to revise the limits concerning Americans was made in secret, without review by the nation’s intelligence court or any public debate. As far back as 2006, a Justice Department memo warned of the potential for the “misuse” of such information without adequate safeguards.
> 
> An agency spokeswoman, asked about the analyses of Americans’ data, said, “All data queries must include a foreign intelligence justification, period.”
> 
> “All of N.S.A.’s work has a foreign intelligence purpose,” the spokeswoman added. “Our activities are centered on counterterrorism, counterproliferation and cybersecurity.”
> 
> The legal underpinning of the policy change, she said, was a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that Americans could have no expectation of privacy about what numbers they had called. Based on that ruling, the Justice Department and the Pentagon decided that it was permissible to create contact chains using Americans’ “metadata,” which includes the timing, location and other details of calls and e-mails, but not their content. The agency is not required to seek warrants for the analyses from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
> 
> N.S.A. officials declined to identify which phone and e-mail databases are used to create the social network diagrams, and the documents provided by Mr. Snowden do not specify them. The agency did say that the large database of Americans’ domestic phone call records, which was revealed by Mr. Snowden in June and caused bipartisan alarm in Washington, was excluded. (N.S.A. officials have previously acknowledged that the agency has done limited analysis in that database, collected under provisions of the Patriot Act, exclusively for people who might be linked to terrorism suspects.)
> 
> But the agency has multiple collection programs and databases, the former officials said, adding that the social networking analyses relied on both domestic and international metadata. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the information was classified.
> 
> The concerns in the United States since Mr. Snowden’s revelations have largely focused on the scope of the agency’s collection of the private data of Americans and the potential for abuse. But the new documents provide a rare window into what the N.S.A. actually does with the information it gathers.
> 
> A series of agency PowerPoint presentations and memos describe how the N.S.A. has been able to develop software and other tools — one document cited a new generation of programs that “revolutionize” data collection and analysis — to unlock as many secrets about individuals as possible.
> 
> The spy agency, led by Gen. Keith B. Alexander, an unabashed advocate for more weapons in the hunt for information about the nation’s adversaries, clearly views its collections of metadata as one of its most powerful resources. N.S.A. analysts can exploit that information to develop a portrait of an individual, one that is perhaps more complete and predictive of behavior than could be obtained by listening to phone conversations or reading e-mails, experts say.
> 
> Phone and e-mail logs, for example, allow analysts to identify people’s friends and associates, detect where they were at a certain time, acquire clues to religious or political affiliations, and pick up sensitive information like regular calls to a psychiatrist’s office, late-night messages to an extramarital partner or exchanges with a fellow plotter.
> 
> “Metadata can be very revealing,” said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University. “Knowing things like the number someone just dialed or the location of the person’s cellphone is going to allow them to assemble a picture of what someone is up to. It’s the digital equivalent of tailing a suspect.”
> 
> The N.S.A. had been pushing for more than a decade to obtain the rule change allowing the analysis of Americans’ phone and e-mail data. Intelligence officials had been frustrated that they had to stop when a contact chain hit a telephone number or e-mail address believed to be used by an American, even though it might yield valuable intelligence primarily concerning a foreigner who was overseas, according to documents previously disclosed by Mr. Snowden. N.S.A. officials also wanted to employ the agency’s advanced computer analysis tools to sift through its huge databases with much greater efficiency.
> 
> The agency had asked for the new power as early as 1999, the documents show, but had been initially rebuffed because it was not permitted under rules of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that were intended to protect the privacy of Americans.
> 
> A 2009 draft of an N.S.A. inspector general’s report suggests that contact chaining and analysis may have been done on Americans’ communications data under the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, which began after the Sept. 11 attacks to detect terrorist activities and skirted the existing laws governing electronic surveillance.
> 
> In 2006, months after the wiretapping program was disclosed by The New York Times, the N.S.A.’s acting general counsel wrote a letter to a senior Justice Department official, which was also leaked by Mr. Snowden, formally asking for permission to perform the analysis on American phone and e-mail data. A Justice Department memo to the attorney general noted that the “misuse” of such information “could raise serious concerns,” and said the N.S.A. promised to impose safeguards, including regular audits, on the metadata program. In 2008, the Bush administration gave its approval.
> 
> A new policy that year, detailed in “Defense Supplemental Procedures Governing Communications Metadata Analysis,” authorized by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, said that since the Supreme Court had ruled that metadata was not constitutionally protected, N.S.A. analysts could use such information “without regard to the nationality or location of the communicants,” according to an internal N.S.A. description of the policy.
> 
> After that decision, which was previously reported by The Guardian, the N.S.A. performed the social network graphing in a pilot project for 1 ½ years “to great benefit,” according to the 2011 memo. It was put in place in November 2010 in “Sigint Management Directive 424” (sigint refers to signals intelligence).
> 
> In the 2011 memo explaining the shift, N.S.A. analysts were told that they could trace the contacts of Americans as long as they cited a foreign intelligence justification. That could include anything from ties to terrorism, weapons proliferation or international drug smuggling to spying on conversations of foreign politicians, business figures or activists.
> 
> Analysts were warned to follow existing “minimization rules,” which prohibit the N.S.A. from sharing with other agencies names and other details of Americans whose communications are collected, unless they are necessary to understand foreign intelligence reports or there is evidence of a crime. The agency is required to obtain a warrant from the intelligence court to target a “U.S. person” — a citizen or legal resident — for actual eavesdropping.
> 
> The N.S.A. documents show that one of the main tools used for chaining phone numbers and e-mail addresses has the code name Mainway. It is a repository into which vast amounts of data flow daily from the agency’s fiber-optic cables, corporate partners and foreign computer networks that have been hacked.
> 
> The documents show that significant amounts of information from the United States go into Mainway. An internal N.S.A. bulletin, for example, noted that in 2011 Mainway was taking in 700 million phone records per day. In August 2011, it began receiving an additional 1.1 billion cellphone records daily from an unnamed American service provider under Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which allows for the collection of the data of Americans if at least one end of the communication is believed to be foreign.
> 
> The overall volume of metadata collected by the N.S.A. is reflected in the agency’s secret 2013 budget request to Congress. The budget document, disclosed by Mr. Snowden, shows that the agency is pouring money and manpower into creating a metadata repository capable of taking in 20 billion “record events” daily and making them available to N.S.A. analysts within 60 minutes.
> 
> The spending includes support for the “Enterprise Knowledge System,” which has a $394 million multiyear budget and is designed to “rapidly discover and correlate complex relationships and patterns across diverse data sources on a massive scale,” according to a 2008 document. The data is automatically computed to speed queries and discover new targets for surveillance.
> 
> A top-secret document titled “Better Person Centric Analysis” describes how the agency looks for 94 “entity types,” including phone numbers, e-mail addresses and IP addresses. In addition, the N.S.A. correlates 164 “relationship types” to build social networks and what the agency calls “community of interest” profiles, using queries like “travelsWith, hasFather, sentForumMessage, employs.”
> 
> A 2009 PowerPoint presentation provided more examples of data sources available in the “enrichment” process, including location-based services like GPS and TomTom, online social networks, billing records and bank codes for transactions in the United States and overseas.
> 
> At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday, General Alexander was asked if the agency ever collected or planned to collect bulk records about Americans’ locations based on cellphone tower data. He replied that it was not doing so as part of the call log program authorized by the Patriot Act, but said a fuller response would be classified.
> 
> If the N.S.A. does not immediately use the phone and e-mail logging data of an American, it can be stored for later use, at least under certain circumstances, according to several documents.
> 
> One 2011 memo, for example, said that after a court ruling narrowed the scope of the agency’s collection, the data in question was “being buffered for possible ingest” later. A year earlier, an internal briefing paper from the N.S.A. Office of Legal Counsel showed that the agency was allowed to collect and retain raw traffic, which includes both metadata and content, about “U.S. persons” for up to five years online and for an additional 10 years offline for “historical searches.”
> 
> James Risen reported from Washington and New York. Laura Poitras, a freelance journalist, reported from Berlin.


----------



## Nemo888

Thucydides said:
			
		

> More on what the NSA has been up to. This monster version of Facebook seems far less useful for finding terrorists than setting up the architecture of a Police State, or developing social analysis for politcal ends:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?_r=1&&pagewanted=all



This is the the most thoughtful and useful gift you could ever get a fascist dictator. I hope we never get to find out how good a gift it would be.


----------



## Crow_Master

Gosh! I really hope our Government is not spying on us à la NSA.


----------



## Jarnhamar

No wonder a blacked out van was watching me after I googled "take down assault rifle" and simultaneously the keywords  vegas assassinate and *the big P word*
 (looking for this  http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/You%27ll_Know_It_When_It_Happens )


----------



## cupper

Snowden for a Human Rights Award? Seriously?  :facepalm:

*Snowden Is A Finalist For European Human Rights Award*

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/01/228119707/snowden-is-a-finalist-for-a-top-human-rights-award?ft=1&f=&utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook



> Edward Snowden, the former NSA contract worker who leaked documents detailing America's secret and broad surveillance activities, is on the short list of nominees for Europe's Sakharov Prize, which recognizes those who fight for human rights.
> 
> Other finalists include Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who survived being shot in the head; and three political prisoners in Belarus.
> 
> Awarded by the European Parliament, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought honors "exceptional individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression," according to the parliament's website.
> 
> "The surveillance of whole populations, rather than individuals, threatens to be the greatest human rights challenge of our time," Snowden said in a statement that was read aloud in the Parliament on Monday, The New York Times reports.
> 
> Snowden's nomination came from Europe's Green Party and the leftist GUE/NGL group. His name was then chosen as a finalist by two committees. After a final vote, the prize's winner will be announced on Oct. 10. The front-runner is widely seen as Yousafzai, who was nominated by six different parties.
> 
> The award is named for Andrei Sakharov, the Russian scientist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his efforts to support human rights and curb the spread of nuclear weapons.
> 
> Snowden is currently living in Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum. U.S. authorities say he is a fugitive, having charged him with espionage.



We can only hope that if he wins, He'll have an audience with Putin, and Putin will ask to try it on, then walk away just like he's done before.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/06/putin-what-super-bowl-ring/


----------



## cupper

Didn't the 9-11 Commission make recommendations on information sharing amongst the agencies? Apparently information on employees moving from one agency to another didn't get included in the memo.

For want of a nail and all of that... :facepalm:

*NSA never heard CIA's concerns about Snowden -- report*
The CIA suspected that then-employee Edward Snowden wanted to break into classified computer files, a new report says. But that didn't prevent Snowden from moving on to a job as a contractor with the NSA.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57607199-38/nsa-never-heard-cias-concerns-about-snowden-report/



> The CIA suspected Edward Snowden of trying to get his hands on classified files when he worked for the outfit in 2009, a new report says, but that info didn't make it to the National Security Agency, where Snowden next worked as a contractor, and where he leaked the secret documents that have touched off a furor over NSA surveillance.
> 
> Snowden's supervisor at the CIA dropped a note into Snowden's personnel file, "noting a distinct change in the young man's behavior and work habits" as well as the suspicions over classified documents, The New York Times reports, citing two unnamed senior American officials. Snowden subsequently left the agency, his security credentials intact, and went to work for NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
> 
> The Times story says that at the time, "the electronic systems the CIA and NSA [used] to manage the security clearances for its full-time and contracted employees [were] intended to track major rule-based infractions, not less serious complaints about personal behavior...Thus, lesser derogatory information about Mr. Snowden was unlikely to have been given to the NSA unless it was specifically requested." That system has since been changed and such info is forwarded on, the Times reports.
> 
> The news may well add to concern about the management and communication processes of the NSA and the larger intelligence community, as well as to more specific questions about the issuing of security clearances and the use of private contractors.
> 
> Congress is examining the clearance process, after the Snowden leaks and the recent shootings at Washington's Navy Yard. The Times notes that contractor USIS handled checks on both Snowden and on Navy Yard suspect Aaron Alexis. In total, the company took care of 700,000 checks for the government, the paper says.
> 
> Private contractors, overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers, are also handling the building of the NSA's main data center, which has suffered a series of blow-outs in its electrical system that have kept the center offline for a year.
> 
> In both the security-clearance and construction situations, corner-cutting has been cited as part of the problem.
> 
> As for broader concerns about communication and management systems, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper recently suggested that the NSA doesn't always comprehend its own processes. Clapper attributed "compliance incidents" regarding illegal searches of Americans' phone records to the technological complexity of the system involved and to "gaps in understanding" among NSA staff.
> 
> In regard to the CIA's suspicions about Snowden, the Times said, "spokesmen for the CIA, NSA, and FBI all declined to comment on the precise nature of the warning and why it was not forwarded, citing the investigation into Mr. Snowden's activities."


----------



## cupper

*Spy chief Clapper: We've been snooping on our friends for years*

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/29/21233196-spy-chief-clapper-weve-been-snooping-on-our-friends-for-years?lite



> The nation's top intelligence official told Congress on Tuesday that the U.S. has been snooping on friendly foreign leaders for years, and getting spied on by allies in return.
> 
> As controversy swirled over reports that the National Security Agency monitored the calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper gave the impression he didn't know what all the fuss was about.
> 
> During a grilling by the House Intelligence Committee, Clapper said understanding "foreign leadership intentions" is one of NSA's basic goals.
> "That's a hardy perennial as long as I have been in the intelligence business,” he said, explaining that the U.S. needs to make sure what allies are telling America matches what's going on behind the scenes.
> 
> Asked whether allies also spy on the U.S., Clapper was unequivocal: "Absolutely."
> He suggested the outrage and surprise expressed by representatives of allies in recent days was naive or disingenuous and reminded him of a line from the movie "Casablanca."
> 
> "'My God, there's gambling going on here?' It's the same kind of thing," he said.
> 
> President Obama reportedly had to apologize to Merkel and to the presidents of France and Brazil after revelations about U.S. spying — disclosures that stem from former NSA and CIA contractor Edward Snowden's leaks of government documents.
> 
> As the White House tries to control the damage, Obama has promised a “complete review” of overseas spying operations and is reportedly considering whether to suspend monitoring of allies.
> 
> “What we've seen over the last several years is their capacities continue to develop and expand, and that's why I'm initiating now a review to make sure that what they're able to do doesn't necessarily mean what they should be doing," Obama said Monday in a televised interview.
> 
> NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander said overseas reports that the U.S. had collected tens of millions of phone calls in France, Spain and other European nations were "false."
> 
> He said the data cited came from foreign service agencies — "collected in defense of our countries and in support of military operations" — and was not culled from European citizens.
> 
> Clapper and Alexander appeared before the committee hours after a bipartisan team of Congress members introduced a bill that would sharply curb the NSA's collection of American's phone data, legislation that is expected to face a fight from others who think it goes too far.
> 
> Several protesters wearing clown-size sunglasses with the words "Stop Spying" scrawled on the lenses sat behind the two spy bosses.
> Both defended the data-sweeping program as lawful, aimed at foreign terrorists and successful in saving lives.
> 
> Clapper said he would support declassifying secret intelligence court orders to boost transparency and pointed to plans to hire a director of civil liberties and privacy. Alexander said an independent Senate-confirmed inspector general, one of the proposals the committee is considering, "won't hurt."
> 
> But Clapper also warned those looking to reform the NSA's activities that they must avoid “over-correcting.”
> 
> “We believe we have been lawful and that the rigorous oversight we’ve operated under has been effective,” Clapper said in his opening remarks.
> 
> “We do not spy on anyone except for valid foreign intelligence purposes and we do not violate the law.”
> Clapper conceded “we have made mistakes,” blaming them on human error or technical problems and said there has been an “erosion of trust in the in the intelligence community.”
> 
> But he urged the lawmakers to be cautious in responding to the errors.
> 
> “As Americans, we face an unending array of threats to our way of life. We need to sustain our ability to detect these threats,” he said.
> Months of leaks from Snowden are already “affecting our ability to conduct intelligence and keep our country safe,” he said.
> Alexander struck a similar note in his testimony.
> 
> “It is much more important for this county that we defend this country and take the beating than it for us to give up a program that would prevent this nation from being attacked,” he said.
> 
> Before the two testified, Rep. Charles Ruppersberger, D-Md., said more transparency and oversight of NSA activities may be needed but said the data collection is crucial to uncovering terrorist plots.
> 
> “I shudder to think what connections would be missed if the program were eliminated,” he said.
> 
> A move to significantly alter the program is already under way in the form of a bill that would essentially end the bulk collection of Americans' phone records under the Patriot Act.
> 
> Among those spearheading the legislation is Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., the main author of the Patriot Act, who said that while it has protected Americans since 9/11, it has also been abused.
> 
> "Somewhere along the way, the balance between security and privacy was lost," he said in a statement.
> 
> "It’s now time for the judiciary committees to again come together in a bipartisan fashion to ensure the law is properly interpreted, past abuses are not repeated and American liberties are protected.  Washington must regain Americans’ trust in their government."
> 
> The USA Freedom Act would require proof that phone data sought is relevant to an authorized investigation into international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities — and there is a link to a foreign power or agent. The government would also need court orders to search the communications of Americans collected during foreign intelligence operations.
> A similar measure failed in the House in July.



http://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME


----------



## a_majoor

Well, duh, a spy agency is _supposed_ to spy on foreign powers to see what is up and identify potential issues before they can become harmful for the "home team".

They are _not_ supposed to be snooping on their own citizens without cause or oversight. That is creating the architecture for a police state.


----------



## pbi

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Well, duh, a spy agency is _supposed_ to spy on foreign powers to see what is up and identify potential issues before they can become harmful for the "home team".
> 
> They are _not_ supposed to be snooping on their own citizens without cause or oversight. That is creating the architecture for a police state.



Agreed, and some of this Euro-indignation is a bit rich. One of the things that struck me in Afghanistan (04-05) was the degree to which "allies" were peeking on each other, incl French and Germans. I had thought that stuff was only in comic books. I don't think that anymore.

Extremely embarrassing for some Americans in the diplomatic sphere, perhaps, but my impression is that the average American really couldn't care less: them damned furriners can't be trusted anyway, so might as well spy on 'em. But they better not try that on us!

What really worries me is the second part: domestic snooping. I wonder to what extent some agencies parlay the terrorist/organized crime/kiddie porn threats into unustified but ever-expanding powers to spy and monitor. This isn't helped by a dialogue (such as we heard from the recent Minister of Public Safety) that you are either "for this bill or you support child pornographers" (or words to that effect).

This type of black and white, all or nothing ranting is used, IMHO, to deflect, belittle and just shut down the vitally important debate and transparency that we need to have if we are to remain a truly civil and free society. I am a big believer that all of these agencies and their powers should be subject to strict "sundown" clauses and reviews, with a view to forcing them to demonstrate that they actually need a power or capability.

All powerful agencies, whether we're speaking of the Govt, the police, the Church, big business or the military, will serve us much better (and harm us much less...) if they are subjected to regular and effective scrutiny. I didn't use to believe this during most of my military career, but as I get older I see it as inescapable. Bad things grow in the dark.


----------



## Edward Campbell

The Internet has made obeying the laws against domestic spying very, very hard to manage.

When the laws were written a telephone call or telegram between two Canadians was routed, almost entirely, within Canada ~ carried on Canadian networks, including Canadian satellites.

Now everything has changed ~ when two Canadians communicate their calls originate and are received in Canada, of course, but an E-mail or even a voice call may be routed through one or more foreign countries and it may be "detected" and then "intercepted" in that foreign country, or on one of it's satellite links, (by CSEC) and even fully analyzed before anyone figures out that it is between two Canadians. Life gets even worse when one or the other of those two Canadians uses any one of many techniques, like proxies, to _disguise_ where they are ~ tools that, for example, allow a Canadian to "look like" an American in order to access US copyright entertainment.


----------



## Edward Campbell

And former Canadian Ambassador to the UN Paul Heibecker proves, yet again, that he's a dolt, a very edudite and well educated dolt, but at dolt all the same in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _Globe and Mail_:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/world-insider/five-reasons-our-international-eavesdropping-isnt-worth-the-cost/article15153675/#dashboard/follows/


> Five reasons our international eavesdropping isn’t worth the cost
> 
> SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
> 
> Paul Heinbecker
> Special to The Globe and Mail
> 
> Published Wednesday, Oct. 30 2013
> 
> Few things can get a government leader into hot water with important international partners faster than getting caught intercepting their mail, literally or electronically, as both President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper can attest. Similarly, few things can be as seductive to government officials as intelligence, and few things more politically risky. What governments can do technologically should not dictate what they will do politically; capacity unbounded by a well-managed overarching political strategy can lead to errors in judgment with serious and far-reaching consequences.
> 
> The reality is that the value of intelligence can be, and frequently is, over-rated.
> 
> The revelations by Edward Snowden keep coming, undermining trust in the United States among its allies. The U.S. National Security Administration, one of reportedly 15 American intelligence agencies with an estimated cumulative budget of $75-billion, has been outed for gathering data from friend and foe alike. In France, the NSA apparently vacuumed up 70 million digital communications in a single month. In Spain, the number was reportedly 60 million electronic communications. The United Nations Secretary General has been a target as have Mexico’s current and former presidents and the German Chancellor. The Germans, who long endured the espionage predations of the old East German Stasi, and who considered themselves a steadfast ally of Washington, are particularly distressed that Chancellor Angela Merkel has been an NSA target.
> 
> What kind of ally would bug the German Chancellor’s mobile phone for a decade? In what respect exactly was Chancellor Merkel a security risk to the Americans? If Presidents Bush and Obama wanted to know what she thought, why did they not just pick up the phone and ask her, or meet with her at any of the numerous summits they attended together? The alleged bugging of the communications of 34 other leaders around the world that Mr. Snowden claims happened will doubtless produce more unhappy surprises. In Brazil the United States was revealed to be spying both on the communications of President Dilma Rouseff and on the Brazilian national oil company Petrobras. Meanwhile, Canada’s Communications Security Establishment was revealed to be spying on the Brazilian Ministry of Mining and Energy.
> 
> The repercussions are potentially very serious. The sheer scale of electronic eavesdropping and the impudence with which it is undertaken have hit nerves worldwide. Consumers in this digital age, who paradoxically are more ready to tolerate the pervasive incursions of foreign corporations into their lives than the snooping of foreign governments, are up in arms. Allied governments, whose outrage appears partly but not wholly tactical, are threatening a range of retaliations. The European Parliament has sent a delegation to Washington seeking explanations. The Germans, who want to be removed from the NSA targets list, as do others, have dispatched their intelligence chiefs to Washington this week to seek cooperation.
> 
> Meanwhile, the European Union parliament is threatening to delay U.S.-EU free trade negotiations and contemplating privacy legislation that would force American internet companies like Google and Yahoo on the pain of heavy fines to get EU approval before complying with U.S. warrants seeking e-mails and search histories of EU citizens. Germany and Brazil are promoting a resolution at the UN that would call on states to respect privacy rights under the 1976 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights particularly as regards the extraterritorial surveillance of private communications of citizens in foreign jurisdictions. Perhaps the most significant cost of the Snowden revelations is that American (and Canadian) policy to promote multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet and to limit its regulation by governments is in serious jeopardy. NSA meta-data dragnets around the world have made the case for greater national control of the Internet more persuasively than the Chinese, Russians and Iranians ever could. Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom among others is launching a new encrypted service using only data centres located on German soil. The Balkanization of the Internet looms.
> 
> The gap between American words and American deeds has grown too wide for foreign governments and their publics to ignore. This week’s protestations by American leaders that American spying saves lives, including European lives, are seen as self-serving piffle. No lives were at stake in the German Chancellor’s office, nor were there any terrorists, as one Brazilian legislator observed, at the bottom of any Brazilian oil well. The excuse that ”they all do it” is equally unpersuasive. Although the French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, the German Nachtrichtendienst and the Brazilian Agência Brasileira de Inteligência do do it, the point is not who else is dissembling but how effective intelligence is and at what political, financial and moral costs it is purchased. In Washington, after initially blowing off others’ concerns, the Obama administration and Congress are having second thoughts about the wisdom of spying on allies.
> 
> Here are five lessons we can draw from all this for Canada.
> 
> *First*, secrets are hard to keep in the digital world. The intelligence leadership and their political masters should presume that they will see their decisions on The front page of the Globe and Mail one day.
> 
> *Second*, intelligence is a means not an end, and not all its purposes – national security, counter-terrorism, communications security, commercial secrets and economic advantage – are equally compelling. Mature judgment is a must if sound decisions are to be made about the risks that are worth running – or not. For example, at a time when our Governor-General, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Trade Minster and other ministers had visited Brazil to court the government, was it really worth spying on the Brazilian Ministry of Energy and Mines, as we are alleged to have done?
> 
> *Third*, membership in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group (the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), which dates from the end of the Second World War, entails costs as well as benefits and needs to be kept under sober review. Rubbing shoulders with the American intelligence community can be intoxicating, a poor condition in which to make important judgments.
> 
> *Fourth*, intelligence can be and frequently is over-rated. Spending on intelligence and diplomacy needs to be re-balanced. While intelligence operates beyond the pale of international law, diplomacy is both legally sanctioned and uncontroversial, and effective, in its creation of trusting relationships, effective. It does not make sense at a time when intelligence expenditures have grown dramatically, and CSEC is erecting a billion-dollar building in Ottawa, that the Foreign Affairs department is selling off assets abroad to cover a shrinking budget.
> 
> *Fifth*, leadership matters. The key challenge is not so much to do things right as it is to do the right things. Oversight to ensure that Canadian laws are not being broken is important and needs reinforcement, but coherent, strategic policy leadership that ensures that the intelligence tail never wags the foreign policy dog is crucial. Technological capacity should never trump political judgment.
> 
> _Paul Heinbecker, who was the last Canadian Ambassador to sit on the UN Security Council, is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and inaugural Director of the Laurier University Centre for Global Relations._




First, Ambassador Heinbecker is quite correct when, in the second paragraph, he says "the value of intelligence can be, and frequently is, over-rated." But that's a problem with the people processing and using intelligence, people like Heinbecker himself when he was in government, not with intelligence, _per se_.

Then he goes badly wrong and then gets worse as he tries to go from that fundamental truth towards suggesting that Canada ought to stop building a new building for CSEC and, instead, buy new, luxury residences for foreign service officers abroad.

Paul Heinbecker is a living example of what went badly wrong with Canadian policies ~ foreign, defence and security ~ in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. He is a "do gooder" with a soft heart and a head to match.


----------



## George Wallace

If we dissect his five points, ERC's comments are amplified:



> First, secrets are hard to keep in the digital world. The intelligence leadership and their political masters should presume that they will see their decisions on The front page of the Globe and Mail one day.



This is true.  Secrets are hard to keep in a digital world if one is not vigilant.  If you think that justifies no one collecting information, then you are just ensuring that secrets are kept secret.  



> Second, intelligence is a means not an end, and not all its purposes – national security, counter-terrorism, communications security, commercial secrets and economic advantage – are equally compelling. Mature judgment is a must if sound decisions are to be made about the risks that are worth running – or not. For example, at a time when our Governor-General, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Trade Minster and other ministers had visited Brazil to court the government, was it really worth spying on the Brazilian Ministry of Energy and Mines, as we are alleged to have done?



I suppose it would have been wiser for our representatives to have gone totally unprepared for any eventuality.  Is Government any different from Private Enterprise when it comes to dealing with outside parties in negotiations?   It is naïve for anyone to suggest that they not do some "research" as to what to expect.



> Third, membership in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group (the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), which dates from the end of the Second World War, entails costs as well as benefits and needs to be kept under sober review. Rubbing shoulders with the American intelligence community can be intoxicating, a poor condition in which to make important judgments.



Naïve statement if I ever saw one.  Is he suggesting that we are not competent enough to come to our own conclusions/assessments of information presented/collected?



> Fourth, intelligence can be and frequently is over-rated. Spending on intelligence and diplomacy needs to be re-balanced. While intelligence operates beyond the pale of international law, diplomacy is both legally sanctioned and uncontroversial, and effective, in its creation of trusting relationships, effective. It does not make sense at a time when intelligence expenditures have grown dramatically, and CSEC is erecting a billion-dollar building in Ottawa, that the Foreign Affairs department is selling off assets abroad to cover a shrinking budget.



Perhaps Mr Heinbecker has been watching too many Hollywood films and TV programs.  



> Fifth, leadership matters. The key challenge is not so much to do things right as it is to do the right things. Oversight to ensure that Canadian laws are not being broken is important and needs reinforcement, but coherent, strategic policy leadership that ensures that the intelligence tail never wags the foreign policy dog is crucial. Technological capacity should never trump political judgment.



Perhaps Mr Heinbecker's perception of Canadian policies is flawed.  We do not have an "intelligence driven" policy.  Intelligence products are only to advise/inform, not dictate to,  a leader and assist in their decision making.   Our "Spymasters" do not make policies unrelated to their field of responsibility, negotiate with foreign governments, nor overrule our Diplomatic Corps.


----------



## pbi

Mr Heinbecker apparently knows very little about intelligence or why it is gathered.

For example:


> Mature judgment is a must if sound decisions are to be made about the risks that are worth running – or not.



Right. But try making decisions with no current information.



> Third, membership in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group (the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), which dates from the end of the Second World War, entails costs as well as benefits and needs to be kept under sober review. Rubbing shoulders with the American intelligence community can be intoxicating, a poor condition in which to make important judgments.



Yes, of course. All the Int folks I have known, who have ever worked with the US, have been completely  intoxicated by the experience. This is rubbish: where does he think a country of our limited means, but of our strategic importance, would get access to intelligence if not through its alliances?

But this one takes the dumb*ss comment award:



> Fourth, intelligence can be and frequently is over-rated.



Yes, let's do away with it altogether. Flying blind is much better.

All that slagging aside, I do agree with this:



> Fifth, leadership matters. The key challenge is not so much to do things right as it is to do the right things. Oversight to ensure that Canadian laws are not being broken is important and needs reinforcement, but coherent, strategic policy leadership that ensures that the intelligence tail never wags the foreign policy dog is crucial. Technological capacity should never trump political judgment.



But believing this doesn't entail accepting his other nonsense.


----------



## Good2Golf

pbi: Eeference your earlier post about Euro-indignation...wasn't it the French government that was found to have collaborated (theme word) with Air France to bug many of the first class and business class seats in key trams-Atlantic flights for intelligence purposes?


----------



## pbi

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> pbi: Eeference your earlier post about Euro-indignation...wasn't it the French government that was found to have collaborated (theme word) with Air France to big many of the first class and business class seats in key trams-Atlantic flights for intelligence purposes?



I can't recall, but nothing would surprise me, particularly where that nation is concerned. I'm sure that a "French Snowden" (or a "Snowden" from any significant country) would tell equally lurid and embarrassing tales.


----------



## The Bread Guy

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> pbi: Eeference your earlier post about Euro-indignation...wasn't it the French government that was found to have collaborated (theme word) with Air France to big many of the first class and business class seats in key trams-Atlantic flights for intelligence purposes?


Good memory - more here.


----------



## a_majoor

From today's Instapundit; the difference between the scale and scope of the private sector and the government (and the double standard when looking out for privacy rights)

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/



> SO MAYBE IT’S JUST ME, but this British “phone-hacking” scandal seems like weak tea now that we know that the British government, in cooperation with the NSA, was hoovering up billions of private communications without a warrant. Against that, journalists guessing voicemail passwords doesn’t sound like much. And yet, guess who’s on trial?


----------



## a_majoor

Now they don't even need black helicopters anymore:

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/11/this-is-how-the-internet-backbone-has-been-turned-into-a-weapon/



> *Our Government Has Weaponized the Internet. Here’s How They Did It*
> BY NICHOLAS WEAVER11.13.139:30 AM
> 
> Photo: Andreas H / Flickr
> The internet backbone — the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels — went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active weapon for attacks.
> 
> According to revelations about the QUANTUM program, the NSA can “shoot” (their words) an exploit at any target it desires as his or her traffic passes across the backbone. It appears that the NSA and GCHQ were the first to turn the internet backbone into a weapon; absent Snowdens of their own, other countries may do the same and then say, “It wasn’t us. And even if it was, you started it.”
> 
> If the NSA can hack Petrobras, the Russians can justify attacking Exxon/Mobil. If GCHQ can hack Belgacom to enable covert wiretaps, France can do the same to AT&T. If the Canadians target the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Chinese can target the U.S. Department of the Interior. We now live in a world where, if we are lucky, our attackers may be every country our traffic passes through except our own.
> 
> Which means the rest of us — and especially any company or individual whose operations are economically or politically significant — are now targets. All cleartext traffic is not just information being sent from sender to receiver, but is a possible attack vector.
> 
> Here’s how it works.
> 
> The QUANTUM codename is deliciously apt for a technique known as “packet injection,” which spoofs or forges packets to intercept them. The NSA’s wiretaps don’t even need to be silent; they just need to send a message that arrives at the target first. It works by examining requests and injecting a forged reply that appears to come from the real recipient so the victim acts on it.
> 
> In this case, packet injection is used for “man-on-the-side” attacks — which are more failure-tolerant than man-in-the-middle attacks because they allow one to observe and add (but not also subtract, as the man-in-the-middle attacks do). That’s why these are particularly popular in censorship systems. It can’t keep up? That’s okay. Better to miss a few than to not work at all.
> 
> Nicholas Weaver
> Nicholas Weaver is a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley and U.C. San Diego (though this opinion is his own). He focuses on network security as well as network intrusion detection, defenses for DNS resolvers, and tools for detecting ISP-introduced manipulations of a user’s network connection. Weaver received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley.
> 
> The technology itself is actually pretty basic. And the same techniques that work on on a Wi-Fi network can work on a backbone wiretap. I personally coded up a packet-injector from scratch in a matter of hours five years ago, and it’s long been a staple of DefCon pranks.
> 
> So how have nations used packet injection, and what else can they do with it? These are some of the known uses.
> 
> Censorship
> The most infamous use of packet injection prior to the Snowden leaks was censorship, where both internet service providers (ISPs) and the Great Firewall of China injected TCP reset packets (RST) to block undesired traffic. When a computer receives one of these injected RST packets, it closes the connection, believing that all communication is complete.
> 
> Although public disclosure forced ISPs to stop this behavior, China continues to censor with injected resets. It also injects the Domain Name System (DNS) — the system all computers use to turn names such as “www.facebook.com” into IP addresses — by inserting a fake reply whenever it sees a forbidden name. (It’s a process that has caused collateral damage by censoring non-Chinese internet traffic).
> 
> User Identification
> User cookies, those inserted by both advertising networks and services, also serve as great identifiers for NSA targeting. Yet a web browser only reveals these cookies when communicating with such sites. A solution lies in the NSA’s QUANTUMCOOKIE attack, which they’ve utilized to de-anonymize Tor users.
> 
> A packet injector can reveal these cookies by replying to an unnoticed web fetch (such as a small image) with a HTTP 302 redirect pointing to the target site (such as Hotmail). The browser now thinks “hey, should really go visit Hotmail and ask it for this image”. In connecting to Hotmail, it reveals all non-secure cookies to the wiretap. This both identifies the user to the wiretap, and also allows the wiretap to use these cookies.
> 
> So for any webmail service that doesn’t require HTTPS encryption, QUANTUMCOOKIE also allows the wiretap to log in as the target and read the target’s mail. QUANTUMCOOKIE could also tag users, as the same redirection that extracts a cookie could also set or modify a cookie, enabling the NSA to actively track users of interest as they move across the network — although there is no indication yet that the NSA utilizes this technique.
> 
> User Attack
> The NSA has a collection of FOXACID servers, designed to exploit visitors. Conceptually similar to Metasploit’s WebServer browser autopwn mode, these FOXACID servers probe any visiting browser for weaknesses to exploit.
> 
> All it takes is a single request from a victim passing a wiretap for exploitation to occur. Once the QUANTUM wiretap identifies the victim, it simply packet injects a 302 redirect to a FOXACID server. Now the victim’s browser starts talking to the FOXACID server, which quickly takes over the victim’s computer. The NSA calls this QUANTUMINSERT.
> 
> The NSA and GCHQ used this technique not only to target Tor users who read Inspire (reported to be an Al-Qaeda propaganda magazine in the English language) but also to gain a foothold within the Belgium telecommunication firm Belgacom, as a prelude to wiretapping Belgium phones.
> 
> One particular trick involved identifying the LinkedIn or Slashdot account of an intended target. Then when the QUANTUM system observed individuals visiting LinkedIn or Slashdot, it would examine the HTML returned to identify the user before shooting an exploit at the victim. Any page that identifies the users over HTTP would work equally well, as long as the NSA is willing to write a parser to extract user information from the contents of the page.
> 
> Other possible QUANTUM use cases include the following. These are speculative, as we have no evidence that the NSA, GCHQ, or others are utilizing these opportunities. Yet to security experts they are obvious extensions of the logic above.
> 
> HTTP cache poisoning. Web browsers often cache critical scripts, such as the ubiquitous Google Analytics script ‘ga.js’. The packet injector can see a request for one of these scripts and instead respond with a malicious version, which will now run on numerous web pages. Since such scripts rarely change, the victim will continue to use the attacker’s script until either the server changes the original script or the browser clears its cache.
> 
> Zero-Exploit Exploitation. The FinFly “remote monitoring” hacking tool sold to governments includes exploit-free exploitation, where it modifies software downloads and updates to contain a copy of the FinFisher Spyware. Although Gamma International’s tool operates as a full man-in-the-middle, packet injection can reproduce the effect. The injector simply waits for the victim to attempt a file download, and replies with a 302 redirect to a new server. This new server fetches the original file, modifies it, and passes it on to the victim. When the victim runs the executable, they are now exploited — without the need for any actual exploits.
> 
> Mobile Phone Applications. Numerous Android and iOS applications fetch data through simple HTTP. In particular, the “Vulna” Android advertisement library was an easy target,  simply waiting for a request from the library and responding with an attack that can effectively completely control the victim’s phone. Although Google removed applications using this particular library, other advertisement libraries and applications can present similar vulnerabilities.
> 
> DNS-Derived Man-in-the-Middle. Some attacks, such as intercepting HTTPS traffic with a forged certificate, require a full man in the middle rather than a simple eavesdropper. Since every communication starts with a DNS request, and it is only a rare DNS resolver that cryptographically validates the reply with DNSSEC, a packet injector can simply see the DNS request and inject its own reply. This represents a capability upgrade, turning a man-on-the-side into a man-in-the-middle.
> 
> One possible use is to intercept HTTPS connections if the attacker has a certificate that the victim will accept, by simply redirecting the victim to the attacker’s server. Now the attacker’s server can complete the HTTPS connection. Another potential use involves intercepting and modifying email. The attacker simply packet-injects replies for the MX (Mailserver) entries corresponding to the target’s email. Now the target’s email will first pass through the attacker’s email server. This server could do more than just read the target’s incoming mail, it could also modify it to contain exploits.
> 
> Amplifying Reach. Large countries don’t need to worry about seeing an individual victim: odds are that a victim’s traffic will pass one wiretap in a short period of time. But smaller countries that wish to utilize the QUANTUMINSERT technique need to force victims traffic past their wiretaps. It’s simply a matter of buying the traffic: Simply ensure that local companies (such as the national airline) both advertise heavily and utilize in-country servers for hosting their ads. Then when a desired target views the advertisement, use packet injection to redirect them to the exploit server; just observe which IP a potential victim arrived from before deciding whether to attack. It’s like a watering hole attack where the attacker doesn’t need to corrupt the watering hole.
> 
> ***
> 
> The only self defense from all of the above is universal encryption. Universal encryption is difficult and expensive, but unfortunately necessary.
> 
> Encryption doesn’t just keep our traffic safe from eavesdroppers, it protects us from attack. DNSSEC validation protects DNS from tampering, while SSL armors both email and web traffic.
> 
> There are many engineering and logistic difficulties involved in encrypting all traffic on the internet, but its one we must overcome if we are to defend ourselves from the entities that have weaponized the backbone.



I can see a very "Balkanized" Internet developing, as nations attempt to cut off access or reroute around the United States, both to reduce the ability of the NSA to eavesdrop, but also for the less savoury aspect of containing and "filtering" their own users, much in the Manner Iran is attempting to build an "Iran only" internet architecture and the "Great Firewall of China" blocks access to the outside world.


----------



## a_majoor

The push back begins. Twitter offers a form of the "one time pad" for encrypting their communications, expect to see much more of this, along with an increasing Balkanization of the Internet:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/twitter-toughening-its-security-to-thwart-government-snoops/?_r=1



> Twitter Toughening Its Security to Thwart Government Snoops
> By NICOLE PERLROTH and VINDU GOEL
> 
> Noah Berger for The New York Times
> Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, right, a security engineer at Twitter, had been pushing the company to adopt forward secrecy for some time, but did not get much support for the project until the recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices.
> FACEBOOK
> TWITTER
> GOOGLE+
> SAVE
> E-MAIL
> SHARE
> PRINT
> A year ago, hardly anyone, save for cryptographers, had heard of Perfect Forward Secrecy. Now, some customers are demanding it, and technology companies are adding it, one by one, in large part to make government eavesdropping more difficult.
> 
> On Friday, Twitter will announce that it has added Perfect Forward Secrecy, after similar announcements by Google, Mozilla and Facebook. The technology adds an extra layer of security to Web encryption to thwart eavesdropping, or at least make the National Security Agency’s job much, much harder. (Update: Twitter has announced the security change on its blog.)
> 
> Until Edward J. Snowden began leaking classified documents last summer, billions of people relied on a more common type of security called Transport Layer Security or Secure Sockets Layer (S.S.L.) technology to protect the transmission of sensitive data like passwords, financial details, intellectual property and personal information. That technology is familiar to many Web users through the “https” and padlock symbol at the beginning of Web addresses that are encrypted.
> 
> But leaked N.S.A. documents make clear that the agency is recording high volumes of encrypted Internet traffic and retaining it for later cryptanalysis. And it’s hardly the only one: Iran, North Korea, and China all store vast amounts of Internet traffic. More recently, Saudi Arabia has been actively trying to intercept mobile data for Twitter and other communication tools.
> 
> The reason governments go to great lengths to store scrambled data is that if they later get the private S.S.L. keys to decrypt that data — via court order, hacking into a company’s servers where they are stored or through cryptanalysis — they can go back and decrypt past communications for millions of users.
> 
> Perfect Forward Secrecy ensures that even if an organization recording web traffic gets access to a company’s private keys, it cannot go back and unscramble past communications all at once. Perfect Forward Secrecy encrypts each web session with an ephemeral key that is discarded once the session is over. A determined adversary could still decrypt past communications, but with Perfect Forward Secrecy the keys for each individual session would have to be cracked to read the sessions’ contents.
> 
> Perfect Forward Secrecy was invented more than 20 years ago, and Paul Kocher, a leading cryptographer, put support for Perfect Forward Secrecy into the S.S.L .protocol. But companies have been reluctant to use it because it slows website and browser performance, uses resources and because — until Snowden — most consumers did not even know it existed. Unlike S.S.L. technology, there is no indication to a user that Perfect Forward Secrecy is enabled.
> 
> This tougher security is quickly becoming a must-have for Internet companies.
> 
> Earlier this week, Marissa Mayer, the chief executive of Yahoo, announced that Yahoo would introduce new security features in 2014. But, on Twitter, some consumers were quick to point out that Perfect Forward Secrecy was conspicuously absent from her blog post.
> 
> “With security, there are always the things you know you ought to do,” Mr. Kocher said in an interview. “But it’s not until you have a clear adversary that it’s much easier to justify the resources to go fix the problem.”
> 
> At Twitter, Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, a security engineer, had been pushing the company to adopt forward secrecy for some time, but did not get much support for the project until the Snowden leaks.
> 
> That showed “there really were organizations out there in the world that were scooping up encrypted data just so they could try to attack it at a large scale,” said Jeff Hodges, another Twitter software engineer. “We were like, oh, we need to actually spend some more time and really do this right.”
> 
> Actually installing and turning on the technology took only a few months, once Twitter decided to do it, both men said in an interview. That was in part because Google, an early pioneer in the technology, had worked out many of the kinks in Perfect Forward Secrecy and shared its knowledge with the security community.
> 
> Perfect Forward Secrecy does add a slight delay to a user’s initial connection to Twitter — about 150 milliseconds in the United States and up to a second in countries like Brazil that are farther away from Twitter’s servers. But the company said the extra protection was worth the delay.
> 
> Twitter said it turned on Perfect Forward Secrecy on Oct. 21, although it refrained from publicizing the change immediately to make sure there were no problems.
> 
> Twitter said it hoped that its example would prompt other companies to adopt the technology.
> 
> “A lot of services that don’t think they need it actually do,” Mr. Hodges said.


----------



## cupper

When will it all end? Enough is enough.

*NSA Intercepted Children’s Letters To Santa*

http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/12/nsa-letters-to-santa/



> FORT MEADE, MD – The National Security Agency routinely intercepts children’s letters to Santa, internal agency documents have revealed.
> 
> The documents describe an operation known as MILK COOKIES, based out of Fort Meade and run in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service. COOKIES is the interception of the letters while MILK feeds them through a complex series of algorithms to spot any hidden messages.
> 
> Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander had previously testified to Congress in 2011 that the NSA would occasionally collect letters addressed to Santa, but insisted that it was totally accidental and that no one was actually reading or storing them.
> 
> The NSA is prohibited from directly monitoring American citizens under both Executive Order 12333 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. However, because the letters are addressed to the North Pole, which falls outside of U.S. territory, they are considered potential foreign intelligence signals which the NSA is authorized to intercept.
> 
> Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former senior administration official defended the program: ”We’re only looking for any unusual presents, like children who ask Santa for pressure cookers, large amounts of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, hyzadrine rocket fuel, things like that. I mean a six-year old with a hammer is bad enough; just try to imagine that same six-year old with a truck bomb.”
> 
> The leaked reports show that the NSA also routinely hacked Santa’s Naughty and Nice List for any information on world leaders, and at one point tried to smuggle surveillance devices disguised as lumps of coal into Santa’s sack. They also reveal the existence of a massive NSA data storage center at the North Pole, known as ELFCHELON, which dwarfs even the planned one at Utah, and is capable of storing letters dating back to 1952.
> 
> The documents were part of the massive data haul taken by fugitive whistleblower and Playgirl centerfold Edward Snowden, whom the former official referred to as “a very naughty boy.”
> 
> U.S. intelligence has closely monitored the Letters to Santa program ever since the U.S. Post Office first created it in 1912. Initially, children’s letters were reviewed by both Army and Navy Intelligence under the aegis of Project SHAMROCK until that program’s termination in 1975.
> 
> Four years later the NSA began MILK COOKIES in response to the Secret Santa program, which the agency initially thought was a Soviet operation after a flier for the program mistakenly replaced the picture of Santa with Karl Marx.
> 
> Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the NSA began an almost-relentless campaign to insert itself both legally and covertly into the Christmas spirit.
> 
> First the NSA managed to get language inserted into the PATRIOT Act which required Santa to file a flight plan with NORAD and submit to random TSA inspections at select chimneys. Then came the 2002 judgment in United States v. Kringle, when the NSA and the Justice Department ordered him to deliver multiple GPS devices to the location of Usama bin Laden and other high-ranking Al Qaeda leaders.
> 
> When Santa refused and was put on a no-fly list he briefly had to outsource all his American operations to Canada, which handles diplomatic issues for the North Pole.
> 
> In response to the scandal, the task force appointed by President Obama to review NSA activity has issued a further critique of the agency. Calling Santa a “close and traditional U.S. ally,” panel member Richard Clarke urged tough new restrictions on NSA collection against holiday figures.
> 
> He added, “We’re not in any way recommending the disarming of the intelligence community. The NSA can still spy on the Easter Bunny.”
> 
> Top NSA officials were skeptical. “What else would you expect from someone who asked Santa for a Barbie doll when he was nine?” Gen. Alexander was overheard remarking.
> 
> Some privacy advocate groups believe that the panel’s recommendations don’t go far enough. They are telling parents not to let their children use the U.S. Post Office to contact Santa this year, and risk having their children’s information indefinitely stored for whatever the government wants to use it for.
> 
> Parents are instead being urged to use organizations that have a higher regard for privacy, such as Google or Facebook.


----------



## a_majoor

Although we are all aware of the legalities of handling sensitive information, leakers and whistleblowers like Snowden have exposed an abusive system which is no longer being used to defend against foreign and domestic enemies but is deployed against the citizens of the nation. In that sense they are appealing to a higher law (in Snowden's case, the Constitution of the United States) which leads to them being viewed as the heros of this story and the Government as the Enemy:

http://reason.com/archives/2013/12/31/2013-the-year-defiance-of-the-state-beca/print



> *2013: The Year Defiance of the State Became Cool*
> J.D. Tuccille|Dec. 31, 2013 3:00 pm
> 
> Fred BenensonFor some high-profile people who publicly told the government to go to hell, 2013 was, personally, a bit rough. Information freedom activist Aaron Swartz took his own life under threat of a brutal prison sentence. Revealer of inconvenient government secrets Bradley/Chelsea Manning actually ended up in prison. And surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden went into exile in Russia to escape what promised to be a "fair" trial followed by a first-class hanging. But tough consequences aren't unusual for people who defy the state. What was different and encouraging was how many people rallied behind Swartz, Manning, Snowden, and other rebels, explicitly siding with them over the government, in opposition to the powers-that-be.
> 
> Swartz's case was supposed to be a warning to us all, after he violated the terms of service of the JSTOR archive by downloading academic papers in bulk instead of one at a time, the better to make them available far and wide. What should have been a civil matter between him and the archive became federal felony charges, with United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz threatening "up to 35 years in prison ... and a fine of up to $1 million."
> 
> This was all "pour encourager les autres," as an ambitious prosecutor sought to demonstrate how tough she could be on the high crime of intellectual property violations.
> 
> But after his death, Swartz, already known as a principled activist for making information accessible, quickly became a cause celebre. The case was immediately held up as an example of prosecutorial overreach, even inspiring the introduction of a law to rein-in such legal abuses. Swartz was posthumously inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. Americans didn't just support the activist; they despised his persecutors—people started talking about the end of Ortiz's political career.
> 
> Which is to say, Aaron Swartz, who started the year as a deliberate defier of the law, under criminal indictment, was immediately elevated by many people to the status of the good guy in the conflict. Government officials could either join the bandwagon or sputter in outrage that they were considered villains by their constituents.
> 
> Chelsea ManningChelsea Manning's case followed a similar, if less lethal, trajectory. Imprisoned by the United States government for leaking a treasure trove of sensitive and often embarrassing documents to WikiLeaks, the story quickly became one about government transparency, mistreatment of prisoners, and the lengths to which officials would go to target its critics.
> 
> Manning quickly disclaimed any association with pacifism, saying she acted for the sake of transparency. That was a credible argument, given her connection with WikiLeaks, and one that rang a bell at a time when the U.S. government is seen as both dangerously intrusive into people's lives, as well as excessively secretive about public officials' behavior. (President Obama's claims to run a transparent administration poll as a laugh riot.)
> 
> Truthfully, the government didn't help its case by mistreating Manning during detention, prompting the judge to award Manning with 112 days credit toward the ultimate sentence because of the illegal abuse. Yes, that's a small fraction of the 35 years eventually passed down. But it doesn't look good when jailers are forced to explain in court how they were ordered to keep a prisoner confined to a cell, naked and shivering.
> 
> Just as troubling were the lengths to which the federal government went to investigate people who merely supported Manning. Officials stalked David Maurice House so they would know when he'd left the country, making himself vulnerable to a search of his digital data at the border, beyond the protections of the Fourth Amendment.
> 
> Even after sentencing, in prison, Manning became spokesperson not just for government transparency, but for gender identity—that is the right to choose your own.
> 
> Laura Poitras / Praxis FilmsEdward Snowden is, of course, the 2013 poster child for deliberately working against the state. He did so in order to let Americans, and the world beyond, know just how subject to super-creepy spying they are by the United States government. Snowden took jobs that gave him access to troubling National Security Agency secrets—and then released them to journalists for publication after he left the country and whatever unpleasant fate might be planned for him. He's even believed to have retained an info-bomb of truly sensitive material that will "detonate" if the feds try to grab him from his current refuge in Russia or otherwise silence the whistleblower.
> 
> In years past, government officials would have counted on the public to boo and hiss at Snowden on command. You're not supposed to spill the government's secrets to the world at large.
> 
> But Americans are horrified by those secrets—published revelations of NSA snooping have helped drive public revulsion at "big government" to record high levels. Snowden himself gets more of a split decision, but over a third of people tell Reason-Rupe that what he did makes him a patriot (with even higher support for him among younger Americans). That's almost equal to the percentage of respondents who give him a thumbs-down. Those would have been unthinkable numbers in a different era.
> 
> And if powerbrokers in D.C. want to call Snowden a "traitor," lawmakers on the outs with the leadership have been moved by his actions to try to curtail the surveillance state.
> 
> Swartz, Manning, and Snowden have all incurred personal consequences for their actions. So did Ross William Ulbricht, who as the (alleged) "Dread Pirate Roberts," ran the famous (and still-functioning) Silk Road online drug marketplace. Before his arrest on federal charges, the Dread Pirate Roberts developed a following for setting up an illegal Website that emphasized honesty and allowed users to rate dealers. He also led libertarian political discussions, backing his illicit economic activity with activist conviction.
> 
> Cody Wilson, of Defense Distributed, shares similar activist convictions, though he hasn't suffered legal consequences for introducing the world to functioning firearms created by people, on their own, with 3D printers. The same can be said of "Satoshi Nakamoto," the pseudonymous creator of the Bitcoin virtual (and anonymous) currency that has eased transactions in illegal goods and the protection of wealth from tax collectors. They may have (they definitely have) angered the powers that be, but governments have yet to find a practical way to criminalize innovation that enables activities they don't like.
> 
> Wilson, "Nakamoto," and their creations have also won wide world-wide followings, exlicitly linked to the authority-defying power of what they've done.
> 
> Flipping the bird to the state doesn't guarantee universal acclaim. It certainly doesn't ensure personal safety. But more than at any time in recent memory, defying governments and their laws has a constituency—a large one—that sees such action as necessary and even heroic.
> 
> Government officials may still act against the rebels. But instead of whipping up the public into a shared two minutes hate against a common foe, they're increasingly finding themseves viewed as the enemy by people who cheer acts of defiance.



Interesting observation near the end: new technologies are providing means of escaping from various nets the State lay out for us (3D printing, Bitcoins), and the gatekeepers and elites who derive their wealth and privilage from the current system don't like it at all...


----------



## Jarnhamar

[quote author=Thucydides]
Although we are all aware of the legalities of handling sensitive information, leakers and whistleblowers like Snowden have exposed an abusive system which is no longer being used to defend against foreign and domestic enemies but is deployed against the citizens of the nation. In that sense they are appealing to a higher law (in Snowden's case, the Constitution of the United States) which leads to them being viewed as the heros of this story and the Government as the Enemy:
[/quote]


I admit that I don't know very much about this story but from what I have read he seems like he did a good thing to me.

Read this in a paper

June 5th- He leaked documents that the NSA was collecting digital information from Internet firms.

Aug 1th5- an internal audit showed that the NSA broke privacy rules or overstepped it's authority thousands of times each year since 2008 including for almost 3 years searching a massive phone record database inviolation of privacy rules.

Aug 29th- A national intelligence program budget revealed the NSA is paying US companies for access to their communications networks.

Oct 14th- Revealed that the NSA is gathering hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal emails and instant messaging accounts including those belonging to Amercans.

Oct 30th- Found that the NSA is tapping into Yahoo and Google data centers to collect data at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts.

Dec 4th- Revealed the NSA is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the where abouts of cellphones around the world


----------



## a_majoor

Mr Snowden might be finding the company of the FIS to be much friendlier than the company of his former colleagues:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/americas-spies-want-edward-snowden-dead



> *America’s Spies Want Edward Snowden Dead*
> 
> “I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official told BuzzFeed. The NSA leaker is enemy No. 1 among those inside the intelligence world.
> 
> posted on January 16, 2014 at 11:25pm EST
> Benny Johnson
> 
> Snowden’s Russian refugee document. Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
> 
> Edward Snowden has made some dangerous enemies. As the American intelligence community struggles to contain the public damage done by the former National Security Agency contractor’s revelations of mass domestic spying, intelligence operators have continued to seethe in very personal terms against the 30-year-old whistle-blower.
> 
> “In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself,” a current NSA analyst told BuzzFeed.
> 
> “A lot of people share this sentiment.”
> 
> “I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. “I do not take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single-handedly the greatest traitor in American history.”
> 
> That violent hostility lies just beneath the surface of the domestic debate over NSA spying is still ongoing. Some members of Congress have hailed Snowden as a whistle-blower, the New York Times has called for clemency, and pundits regularly defend his actions on Sunday talk shows. In intelligence community circles, Snowden is considered a nothing short of a traitor in wartime.
> 
> “His name is cursed every day over here,” a defense contractor told BuzzFeed, speaking from an overseas intelligence collections base. “Most everyone I talk to says he needs to be tried and hung, forget the trial and just hang him.”
> 
> One Army intelligence officer even offered BuzzFeed a chillingly detailed fantasy.
> 
> “I think if we had the chance, we would end it very quickly,” he said. “Just casually walking on the streets of Moscow, coming back from buying his groceries. Going back to his flat and he is casually poked by a passerby. He thinks nothing of it at the time starts to feel a little woozy and thinks it’s a parasite from the local water. He goes home very innocently and next thing you know he dies in the shower.”
> 
> There is no indication that the United States has sought to take vengeance on Snowden, who is living in an undisclosed location in Russia without visible security measures, according to a recent Washington Post interview. And the intelligence operators who spoke to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity did not say they expected anyone to act on their desire for revenge. But their mood is widespread, people who regularly work with the intelligence community said.
> 
> “These guys are emoting how pissed they are,” Peter Singer, a cyber-security expert at the Brookings Institute. “Do you think people at the NSA would put a statue of him out front?”
> 
> The degree to which Snowden’s revelations have damaged intelligence operations are also being debated. Shawn Turner, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, recently called the leaks “unnecessarily and extremely damaging to the United States and the intelligence community’s national security efforts,” and the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Dutch Ruppersberger said terrorists have been “changing their methods because of the leaks.” Snowden’s defenders dismiss those concerns as overblown, and the government has not pointed to specific incidents to bear out the claims.
> 
> On the ground, intelligence workers certainly say the damage has been done. The NSA officer complained that his sources had become “useless.” The Army intelligence officer said the revelations had increased his “blindness.”
> 
> “I do my work in a combat zone so now I have to see the effects of a Snowden in a combat zone. It will not be pretty,” he said.
> 
> And while government officials have a long record of overstating the damage from leaks, some specific consequences seem logical.
> 
> “By [Snowden] showing who our collections partners were, the terrorists have dropped those carriers and email addresses,” the DOD official said. “We can’t find them because he released that data. Their electronic signature is gone.”



While it is true that the information he released was damaging, the most damaging revelation has been the agency was spying on Americans without warrant or just cause: the signature of either a rogue agency or laying down the architecture of a police state. Perhaps most chilling was the unnamed person who wanted to recreate the murder of Georgi Ivanov Markov (killed with a ricin pellet) by the Bulgarian secret police and the KGB.


----------



## Edward Campbell

And the _Straits Times_ (Singapore) is reporting that "A former Norwegian minister nominated fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize Thursday in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee ... "He has contributed to revealing the extreme level of surveillance by nations against other nations and of citizens," former Socialist Left Party minister Baard Vegar Solhjell said, explaining his move."


----------



## tomahawk6

It seems that Snowden is a Russian agent and not a whistle blower.As such if he ever returns to the US he should stand trial.


----------



## Nemo888

After the threat of assassination Snowden did a 30 minute interview with Germany's NDR. Why is he a Russian agent?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f93_1390833151
or
http://vimeo.com/85153645


----------



## SupersonicMax

T6: speculation or proven fact?


----------



## Journeyman

It's been mentioned in multiple places that Snowden lacked the ability to do this all by himself -- that he was helped by others.  Snowden has repeatedly denied this, saying he worked alone.

Last weekend, the pot was stirred by the news show _Face the Nation_, which featured Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), who have been involved with Snowdon investigations.  Rogers _suggested_ that Russia helped Snowden, saying "I believe there's a reason he ended up in the hands - the loving arms - of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don't think that's a coincidence." 

When Feinstein was asked if she thought Snowden had been working for the Russians, she said, “he may well have.  We don't know at this stage."


You'll forgive me if I don't demand the expulsion of Russian diplomats just yet.


----------



## SupersonicMax

So speculation. Got it.


----------



## Jarnhamar

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> It seems that Snowden is a Russian agent and not a whistle blower.As such if he ever returns to the US he should stand trial.




Ed Snowden married a negro!
Ed Snowden is a homosexual! 
Ed Snowden is a spy!


----------



## tomahawk6

Was he a Russian agent before he took the trove of classified documents ? Probably not. But after the fact there is plenty of evidence to show that he has cooperated with FSB ,otherwise he wouldnt be their guest. Of course he can clear the air if he returns to the US.So what is keeping him from doing so ?


----------



## Journeyman

- The doubtful ability to get a fair trial

- As a contractor, he's not covered by the 'Whistleblower Protection Act'

- He can't travel because his passport has been revoked  


While I do not condone what he's done, he's being charged under the Espionage Act (1917), which still carries the death penalty.  I think I'd stay in Russia too.


----------



## Edward Campbell

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> It seems that Snowden is a Russian agent and not a whistle blower.As such if he ever returns to the US he should stand trial.




Notwithstanding where he is, now, and with whom he is cooperating, his _initial_ action ~ stealing all those files ~ seems, to me, to be subject to that old adage: *"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."*

I remain dismayed that he, anyone for that matter, had such easy access to so much information. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I believe that carelessness is a far bigger threat to security than either malice or faulty systems. My suspicion is that a lot of people in the NSA have a superiority complex that makes them feel invulnerable. That sort of thinking makes it easy to try to be _efficient_ when, as we all should know, _efficiency_ is the arch enemy of good security. That quest for efficiency explains, to me, anyway, why we end up with unsegregated files on computer drives. An _effective_ system would require a battalion of ladies (of a certain age and disposition) who would have to fetch tapes or  drives from locked cabinets and mount them onto network devices and then feed the information directly to a senior official who is _positively_ cleared to see it. But that would make some self-important senior(or middle manaement) official have to wait minutes, even an hour, for the information (s)he wants to see ... so we have _efficiency_ rather then _effectiveness_.


----------



## SupersonicMax

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Was he a Russian agent before he took the trove of classified documents ? Probably not. But after the fact there is plenty of evidence to show that he has cooperated with FSB ,otherwise he wouldnt be their guest. Of course he can clear the air if he returns to the US.So what is keeping him from doing so ?



He was trying to transit through Russia to South America.  He even had tickets.  But the US cancelled his passport before he could go beyond Russia.  

I have not found, in the mainstream media, any proof that he cooperated with the FSB or any other such agencies.


----------



## Nemo888

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> I remain dismayed that he, anyone for that matter, had such easy access to so much information.



You know who else was dismayed by that, Edward Snowden. He said this is a direct result of him working for a private contractor whose interests are making cash first and national security second. He mentions it in the NDR video. No one even knew he had taken thousands of files and they still have no idea what he took. If he was a spy he would be an incredibly rich man right now.


----------



## The Bread Guy

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> .... An _effective_ system would require a battalion of ladies (of a certain age and disposition) who would have to fetch tapes or  drives from locked cabinets and mount them onto network devices and then feed the information directly to a senior official who is _positively_ cleared to see it. But that would make some self-important senior(or middle manaement) official have to wait minutes, even an hour, for the information (s)he wants to see ... so we have _efficiency_ rather then _effectiveness_ ....


Also hard to do by those selling services under the "highest profit lowest tender" business outsourcing model the U.S. seems to be using to get help for the int community.


----------



## tomahawk6

The Federal Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 covers contractors working for the Federal Government.


----------



## a_majoor

Perhaps the real reason for the anger and dismay over Snowdon's revelations:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/183552/



> IN LIGHT OF YESTERDAY’S POST ON USING “PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION” to launder NSA surveillance in DEA prosecutions, reader Eric Klaus writes:
> The big unanswered question is… “Where else is Parallel Construction being used?”
> 
> Are there NSA insiders “tipping” off journalists at the National Enquirer as to potential political scandals involving political enemies?
> 
> Are there NSA insiders “tipping” off the Justice Department to the Political Contributions of Anti-Obama filmmakers such as Dinesh D’Souza?
> 
> Are there NSA insiders who’ve read the rest of the BridgeGate emails and are prepared to “tip” the necessary parties regarding Presidential Aspirant Chris Christie?
> 
> Are there NSA insiders who’ve already cataloged every single thing Ted Cruz has written and conversed about and gathering a dossier to “tip” off interested parties at the right time?
> 
> These are the big questions.
> 
> Just imagine the power there is in this database.
> 
> When you no longer can be sure that there are things the government wouldn’t do, you have to base your assessments on the things that it could do. As I’ve noted, making “crazy” conspiracy theories seem more-or-less sane is one of Obama’s toxic legacies.


----------



## Edward Campbell

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Notwithstanding where he is, now, and with whom he is cooperating, his _initial_ action ~ stealing all those files ~ seems, to me, to be subject to that old adage: *"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."*
> 
> I remain dismayed that he, anyone for that matter, had such easy access to so much information. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I believe that carelessness is a far bigger threat to security than either malice or faulty systems. My suspicion is that a lot of people in the NSA have a superiority complex that makes them feel invulnerable. That sort of thinking makes it easy to try to be _efficient_ when, as we all should know, _efficiency_ is the arch enemy of good security. That quest for efficiency explains, to me, anyway, why we end up with unsegregated files on computer drives. An _effective_ system would require a battalion of ladies (of a certain age and disposition) who would have to fetch tapes or  drives from locked cabinets and mount them onto network devices and then feed the information directly to a senior official who is _positively_ cleared to see it. But that would make some self-important senior(or middle manaement) official have to wait minutes, even an hour, for the information (s)he wants to see ... so we have _efficiency_ rather then _effectiveness_.




There is an article in the _Globe and Mail_ that explains how Mr Snowden got access to so much information: a piece of _web crawler_ software.

I stand by my thesis that it is idleness and carelessness, _ineptitude_ and simple stupidity within the bureaucracy, not foreign intrigue, that is to blame for this little disaster.


----------



## a_majoor

Still think domestic agencies collecting metadata is harmless?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/volunteers-in-metadata-study-called-gun-stores-strip-clubs-and-more/



> *Volunteers in metadata study called gun stores, strip clubs, and more*
> Stanford research shows even when offering up metadata, it's very revealing.
> 
> by Cyrus Farivar - Mar 12 2014, 5:00pm EDT
> 
> Since November 2013, researchers at Stanford University have been asking: What’s in your metadata?
> 
> Specifically, the study encouraged volunteers who also used Facebook to install an app called MetaPhone on their Android phones. The app was designed to act as a sort of slimmed-down version of the National Security Agency by attempting to gather the same metadata collected by telecom firms, and in turn, intelligence agencies. Volunteers who chose to participate allowed the researchers access to their calling and texting data, the date and time, and the duration of the call.
> 
> Since late last year, the team has been releasing interim results from the 546 people that chose to participate. On Wednesday, the team released its latest and most complete findings and was startled by what it found.
> 
> “At the outset of this study, we shared the same hypothesis as our computer science colleagues—we thought phone metadata could be very sensitive,” Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student leading the project, wrote on Wednesday.
> 
> “We did not anticipate finding much evidence one way or the other, however, since the MetaPhone participant population is small, and participants only provide a few months of phone activity on average. We were wrong. We found that phone metadata is unambiguously sensitive, even in a small population and over a short time window. We were able to infer medical conditions, firearm ownership, and more, using solely phone metadata.”
> 
> Mayer explained to Ars by phone that given the small sample size and the study duration of only a few months, the team had originally hypothesized that the information gathered would not be as revealing.
> 
> “I think it's very certainly strongly suggestive that a larger pool that spans more time would have remarkably more sensitive information in it,” he added.
> 
> The new results provide a strong, research-based analytical counterweight to the government assertion that metadata is somehow less revelatory than capturing actual call data.
> 
> A likely abortion?
> 
> So what was revealed, precisely? Mayer and his team showed that participants called public numbers of “Alcoholics Anonymous, gun stores, NARAL Pro-Choice, labor unions, divorce lawyers, sexually transmitted disease clinics, a Canadian import pharmacy, strip clubs, and much more.”
> 
> The researchers were even surprised that they had real-world results to support a classic nightmare scenario feared by many civil libertarians and privacy activists.
> 
> Participant A communicated with multiple local neurology groups, a specialty pharmacy, a rare condition management service, and a hotline for a pharmaceutical used solely to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis.
> 
> Participant B spoke at length with cardiologists at a major medical center, talked briefly with a medical laboratory, received calls from a pharmacy, and placed short calls to a home reporting hotline for a medical device used to monitor cardiac arrhythmia.
> 
> Participant C made a number of calls to a firearm store that specializes in the AR semiautomatic rifle platform. They also spoke at length with customer service for a firearm manufacturer that produces an AR line.
> 
> In a span of three weeks, Participant D contacted a home improvement store, locksmiths, a hydroponics dealer, and a head shop.
> 
> Participant E had a long, early morning call with her sister. Two days later, she placed a series of calls to the local Planned Parenthood location. She placed brief additional calls two weeks later, and made a final call a month after.
> 
> And the most surprising second step was the fact that these privacy researchers decided not to follow up with some of these willing voluntary participants.
> 
> “We were able to corroborate Participant B’s medical condition and Participant C’s firearm ownership using public information sources,” the team added. “Owing to the sensitivity of these matters, we elected to not contact Participants A, D, or E for confirmation.”
> 
> “Metadata surveillance endangers privacy”
> 
> Privacy activists and lawyers immediately lauded the Stanford findings.
> 
> Jennifer Granick, the director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society where Mayer is affiliated, concluded that this study “adds important empirical evidence to support what is now a growing consensus. Metadata surveillance endangers privacy.”
> 
> Meanwhile, Brian Pascal, who is a non-resident fellow at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, told Ars that it’s surprising that even those who knew they were being monitored appeared to not “skew calling habits towards the bland.”
> 
> “However, this does not appear to be the case,” he added. “For example, 2 percent of participants called ‘adult establishments,’ knowing that their calling metadata was being recorded. It’s not difficult to imagine that some users, knowing that MetaPhone gathers this information, might change their calling habits. Without a control group, though, it’s impossible to know just how much MetaPhone (or surveillance in general) changes behavior. Admittedly, MetaPhone focuses more on illustrating just how powerful metadata can be, rather than on the impact of surveillance on personal choice, but it’s an interesting implication nonetheless.”
> 
> Others drew a clear line between this work and the NSA’s rationale for collect-it-all.
> 
> “This just confirms what everyone's intuition suggested—phone metadata is incredibly revealing. It's great to have some empirical evidence to back up that intuition, and it only reinforces the intrusiveness of the NSA's mass collection of Americans' call records.”
> 
> “This is striking,” Fred Cate, a law professor at Indiana University, told Ars by e-mail.
> 
> “It highlights three key points. First, that the key part of the NSA’s argument—we weren’t collecting sensitive information so what is the bother?—is factually wrong. Second, that the NSA and the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] Court failed to think this through; after all, it only takes a little common sense to realize that sweeping up all numbers called will inevitably reveal sensitive information. Of course the record of every call made and received is going to implicate privacy. And third, it lays bare the fallacy of the Supreme Court’s mind-numbingly broad wording of the third-party doctrine in an age of big data: just because I reveal data for one purpose—to make a phone call—does not mean that I have no legitimate interest in that information, especially when combined with other data points about me.”


----------



## a_majoor

One good thing about the entire affair is more and more people are thinking about security and devising active means to increase it. Here is one example, and while the article suggests that many business may choose not to deploy such a system because they want to crunch the user's data, I suspect there may be a market niche for people who are concerned about security and would be willing to pay a monthly fee to protect their data. Government websites and banks should be _required_ to have this system deployed:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525651/new-approach-could-stop-websites-from-leaking-or-stealing-your-data/



> *New Approach Could Stop Websites from Leaking or Stealing Your Data*
> A system called Mylar makes it possible to build online services that can never decrypt or leak your data.
> 
> By Tom Simonite on March 25, 2014
> WHY IT MATTERS
> 
> Online services frequently have user data stolen, or are required to hand it over to authorities.
> 
> Reminders that data entrusted to online services can easily be leaked or stolen aren’t hard to find. Major companies commonly have passwords and other data taken by attackers, while governments have their own ways to get hold of user data.
> 
> Researcher Raluca Popa of MIT thinks many online services should and could be redesigned to guard against that. “Really, there’s no trusting a server,” she says. Popa has led the development of a system called Mylar for building Web services that puts that philosophy into practice. Services built using it keep data on their servers encrypted at all times and only ever decrypt it on a person’s computer.
> 
> 
> “You don’t notice any difference, but your data gets encrypted using your password inside your browser before it goes to the server,” Popa says. “If the government asks the company for your data, the server doesn’t have the ability to give unencrypted data.” Popa developed the software with colleagues from MIT and a Web development software company, Meteor Development Group. A paper on Mylar will be presented at the Usenix Symposium on Networks Systems Design and Implementation next month.
> 
> The idea of designing Web services that always keep data encrypted while it resides on their servers has been around for years, and researchers have developed tools to demonstrate how it might be done. But Popa says Mylar is more practical than previous efforts and could even be used to build services today.
> 
> The software is designed to work with a popular Web service building tool called Meteor, to make it easy for Web developers to use. Mylar’s design has code running inside a person’s browser take on most of the processing and presenting of information—work that a conventional service would do on its servers. But Mylar also includes some new cryptographic tricks that allow a server to do useful things with user data without having to descramble it. It is possible for a service built with Mylar to search across encrypted data stored on its servers, for example, so a person could search documents they had uploaded to a file storage service.
> 
> Mylar also lets individuals share data with other users, thanks to a system that can distribute the necessary encryption key in a way that protects it from ever being disclosed either to the server or to someone monitoring communications. An optional browser extension can be used to protect against the server stealing the key needed to decrypt a person’s data, in the event it has been taken over by an attacker or malicious insider.
> 
> A small group of patients at Newton-Wellesley hospital in Boston are already using a website built using Mylar to collect medical history information. The information a patient enters is only decrypted when viewed by the patient or his doctor. If that small trial is successful, it will be rolled out more widely, says Popa. She says using Mylar for a real use case shows it can be practical. “All they had to change is 28 lines of code out of 3,659 to secure their application,” she says. Popa and colleagues have also built chat, photo sharing, and calendar Web services to test their idea.
> 
> Ariel Feldman, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, says that Mylar manages to combine several useful features for an encrypted Web service not packaged together before. However, he notes that the chance of many Web companies opting to embrace encryption so thoroughly look slim.
> 
> “It would be a watershed moment if any of these types of systems actually got deployed to millions of users,” he says. “The real obstacles to adoption are usability and the business case for deploying them.”
> 
> A big usability challenge is that if anyone loses their password, they can permanently lose access to their information if the server can’t decrypt it, says Feldman. Although Popa says that the design of Mylar allows for the addition of a secure system for password recovery. Business challenges range from the added expense of building a more secure system, to the fact that many online companies rely on being able to crunch user data to make money from ads, says Feldman. He says Mylar may catch on in places where protecting data is seen as critical. “Enterprises or governments may be willing to pay for extra security,” he says.
> 
> Popa remains optimistic that the Wellesley trial will be only the first real-world use case of Mylar. She points to how she previously led development of a system called CryptDB, software that allows databases to be fully encrypted, which has since been adopted by Google and the business software giant SAP. “I think Mylar will be at least as useful, if not more,” she says.


----------



## a_majoor

More reaction to the NSA spying revelations, people moving to their own "cloud" networks. Millions of small networks will be much more cellular and granular than the internet dominated by giant ISP's like Google and Amazon, and I think it might be much "harder" as well, more able to withstand outages and attacks, so this is a good thing overall:

http://www.wired.com/2014/02/2203thompson/



> *t’s Time for You to Take the Cloud Back From Corporations*
> BY ARUN SUNDARARAJAN  02.28.14  |  6:30 AM  |  PERMALINK
> 
> It was a typical day in the cloud. I was at my desk, streaming music onto my phone, collaborating with colleagues on synced files hosted online; I then killed a little time by horsing around on a discussion board with some friends.
> 
> The difference was, this cloud wasn’t part of Google or Dropbox. It was … mine, hosted out of an old computer parked under my kitchen table. It streams, syncs files across computers, and does basic social networking. I can access it online from any computer or my mobile phone.
> 
> But it’s a “personal cloud”: I own and run the hardware. The simple act of building and running it has given me a glimpse of a possible alternate future for the Internet. It’s an increasingly popular one too.
> 
> THAT’S THE EDWARD SNOWDEN EFFECT: PEOPLE NOW KNOW THAT THE CLOUD ISN’T INTANGIBLE. IT’S HARDWARE RUN BY LARGE COMPANIES, SNOOPABLE BY SPY AGENCIES.
> 
> The software I used, Tonido, has been around a few years, but its user base doubled to more than 1 million people in 2012—mostly in the second half of the year. Last summer BitTorrent released personal-cloud software called Sync, and by December it had already amassed 2 million users. That’s partly the Edward Snowden effect: People now know that the cloud isn’t intangible. It’s hardware run by large companies, snoopable by spy agencies. “2013 was the year that everyone became aware of what a server was,” BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker says. “With Sync, if anybody wants to know what you’re doing, they can’t go and ask one of the big servers. They have to hand the warrant to you.”
> 
> But as I discovered, running a cloud brings with it deeper and weirder pleasures. When you’re master of your own domain, you subtly change your relationship to being online. In a thread with friends on my Tonido service, I discovered that I was far more willing to be jokey or nuts or to curse like a sailor. I was no longer worried about my postings suddenly becoming public without my knowledge, as when Facebook “revises” its privacy settings in the middle of the night.
> 
> Another outcome: You realize that, holy Moses, putting stuff online is not rocket science anymore. The “convenience” argument—we give up privacy to big cloud firms because they make things easy—begins to erode. Running a home server used to require nerd judo, but with Tonido it took me about 15 minutes to set up and a few minutes more to invite friends in. It’ll work on whatever decrepit laptop you’ve got lying around.
> 
> THE ‘CONVENIENCE’ ARGUMENT — WE GIVE UP PRIVACY TO BIG CLOUD FIRMS BECAUSE THEY MAKE THINGS EASY — BEGINS TO ERODE.
> 
> In fact, these tools can perform even better than corporate stuff: Since BitTorrent Sync has no data limits, users move 40 times more data over it than people sync on Dropbox.
> 
> Granted, personal clouds create new problems. A blizzard knocked out my DSL for a day, taking my cloud with it. A house fire destroys not just your laptop but your cloud backup as well. I don’t have a Google-size phalanx of programmers to keep hackers at bay. Tonido’s social software is functional but super-ugly, and, frankly, part of the point of huge public social networks like Facebook is that they are huge. And public.
> 
> So personal clouds will be used selectively—by people bringing the truly private parts of their lives (sensitive documents, personal discussions) back under their control. Imagine today’s teenagers realizing they can run a free, invitation-only social network on their computer or smartphone. The mind reels.
> 
> The cloud just might come back to earth.


----------



## Nemo888

I upgraded to a home cloud when I bought a new router. Cheap at only 150$ and 10$ a month for increased upload bandwidth.  I put an  external HDD on the router and an app on the families tablets/cell phones and done. You can even run a Bittorrent client on the router to save on your electric bill. Perhaps the cloud will go the way of big iron as prices drop. 
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_1046_1047&item_id=044938


----------



## cupper

Snowden may well get a late night knock at his door reminding him that he is a guest of the Russian Federation, and may want to think that through before his next attempt to put Putin in a corner.

Nobody puts Pooty-poot in a corner.

*Edward Snowden asks Vladi­mir Putin if Russia spies on its citizens*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/edward-snowden-asks-vladimir-putin-about-russian-spying-on-its-citizens/2014/04/17/bdbdcbdc-c62b-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html?hpid=z4



> MOSCOW — American fugitive Edward Snowden made a surprise appearance during Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s annual call-in meeting with the nation on Thursday, submitting what critics considered a softball question about domestic surveillance in the country where Snowden has taken refuge.
> 
> The Russian leader took full advantage — denying that his government engages in large-scale monitoring and deflating Snowden’s effort to cast himself as a spokesman for civil liberties.
> 
> “Mr. Snowden, you are a former agent, a spy,” Putin said in greeting him. “I used to work for an intelligence service. We can talk one professional language.”
> 
> Snowden, posing his question in English, asked whether Russia collected the communications of millions of its citizens in a manner similar to the U.S. surveillance. Putin responded by saying that such surveillance is conducted under the law. “You have to get court permission to stalk a particular person,” he said.
> 
> “Thank God, our special services are strictly controlled by the state and society, and their activity is regulated by law,” Putin said. Besides, he added, “We don’t have as much money as they have in the States, and we don’t have the technical devices that they have.”
> 
> The response was quickly dismissed by Russia experts, who noted that Russian security services collect data from domestic telecommunications companies and Internet providers as a matter of course.
> 
> In a tweet in Russian, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow offered the former National Security Agency contractor its own answer: “Snowden would probably be interested to know that Russian laws allow the control, storage and study of all data in the communication networks of the Russian Federation.”
> 
> Snowden’s question, submitted to Putin by video link, seemed to be aimed at putting Putin in the same rhetorical corner that caught U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. before the avalanche of National Security Agency leaks began.
> 
> When Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper during a congressional hearing whether the United States gathered data on millions of Americans, Clapper denied that it did so, an answer that was proved false by documents Snowden supplied to news organizations including The Washington Post.
> 
> Snowden has faced allegations that he was working on Russia’s behalf when he absconded with a massive trove of classified documents — a charge that he has consistently denied. He has also been painted by some as a hypocrite for fleeing to a country known for all-encompassing surveillance of its citizens.
> 
> After the exchange with Putin, Snowden’s critics scoffed at the episode.
> 
> “Snowden celebrates Pulitzer by turning into Putin’s propaganda tool,” former NSA general counsel Stewart Baker said in a comment posted on Twitter, referring to the Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The Post and the Guardian US this week for their Snowden coverage.



It would be interesting to see where he would end up if he pushed Putin too hard.


----------



## a_majoor

cupper said:
			
		

> It would be interesting to see where he would end up if he pushed Putin too hard.



Siberia, if not buried under the basement floor of the Lubyanka Building...


----------



## CougarKing

South China Morning Post



> *Glenn Greenwald on Hong Kong's key role in Snowden's NSA document leak*
> 
> Hong Kong's "brazen" defiance in the face of US attempts to extradite fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden was pivotal in shaping the global reaction to one of the biggest government leaks in modern American history, said a journalist instrumental in breaking the story.
> 
> A month before the first anniversary of Snowden's arrival in Hong Kong, Glenn Greenwald - one of the reporters who broke a series of stories based on a cache of classified documents leaked by the former NSA contractor - told the Sunday Morning Post that the Hong Kong government's refusal to honour an extradition request from the United States was one of his "favourite moments" in the past 11 months.
> 
> Two hours after Snowden, 30, flew out of the city bound for Moscow on June 23 last year, the Hong Kong government released a statement accusing Washington of failing to provide basic details, such as the whistle-blower's middle name.
> 
> 
> "I can almost recite [the statement] by memory because I've read it so many times," Greenwald told the Post.
> 
> (...EDITED)


----------



## CougarKing

Yahoo Finance/Business Insider



> *Ex-KGB Major: The Russians Tricked Snowden Into Going To Moscow*
> Business Insider
> By Michael B. Kelley
> 
> Ex-KGB Major Boris Karpichko told Nigel Nelson of The Mirror that spies from Russia’s SVR intelligence service, posing as ­diplomats in Hong Kong, convinced Snowden to fly to Moscow last June.
> 
> “It was a trick and he fell for it," Karpichko, who reached the rank of Major as a member of the KGB's prestigious Second Directorate while specializing in counter-intelligence, told Nelson. " Now the Russians are extracting all the intelligence he possesses.”
> 
> Karpichko fled Moscow in 1998 after spying on his native Latvia for the KGB and the post-Soviet FSB.  The 55-year-old  says he is still in contact with several of his old spy pals.
> 
> Snowden flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong on May 20, 2013 and identified himself to the world on June 9. The 30-year-old American became  stranded  in Moscow on June 23 after he landed with a void U.S. passport and an unsigned travel Ecuadorian document obtained by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
> 
> *Karpichko said that the Kremlin leaked Snowden’s planned flight to Moscow to provoke the U.S. into revoking Snowden's passport, which Washington did on June 22.  Assange also advised S nowden  that " he would be physically safest in Russia.
> *
> (...EDITED)


----------



## a_majoor

Well we were warned. An interesting question might be "are similar towers in Canada, or positioned along the Canadian border?":

http://www.popsci.com/article/gadgets/who-running-phony-cell-phone-towers-around-country?dom=PSC&loc=slider&lnk=1&con=who-is-running-phony-cell-phone-towers-around-the-country



> *Who Is Running Phony Cell Phone Towers Around The United States?*
> A multitude of opinions
> By Andrew Rosenblum Posted 09.15.2014 at 9:00 am
> 
> Who Is Running Interceptor Towers? Homeland
> 
> On August 29, Popular Science published a map of interceptor towers -- surveillance devices that masquerade as cell phone towers to intercept voice and data transmissions from every cell user in an area. 19 of the interceptors were found in the United States in August, and two more popped up on September 5: one in Garden City, NY, and another in downtown Las Vegas. They were spotted by owners of the CryptoPhone 500 device, a roughly $3,500 ultra-high-end phone that allows ordinary, if well-heeled, citizens to see surveillance invisible to standard phones.
> 
> Though the F.B.I. has been using a basic mobile phone interceptor that tracks phone location, known colloquially by the brand name of "Stingray" since at least 2008, federal, state, and local officials have tried to say as little as possible about use of the technology, even in court proceedings. This angers civil libertarians such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who view the use of interceptors without a warrant as an unlawful search. The government's silence has helped generate an information vacuum filled by conspiracy theory: one fringe news site recently claimed that the interceptors are a source of "smart grid mind control" made possible by "voice to skull technology."
> 
> Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, says that while it's "impossible" for him to definitively determine ownership of any given interceptor, he can offer some informed speculation.
> 
> "Two in Florida," he says, after taking a look at the 19 interceptors detected around the U.S. in August. "We know that a lot of Florida law enforcement agencies use these devices. A couple of sites right on the U.S.-Mexico border -- we know that U.S. Customs and Immigration uses these devices. A couple of pings in Arizona, California, one location near Seattle -- we know that law enforcement agencies in those areas have these technologies."
> 
> Since filing an amicus brief with the EFF on the first case in the country challenging the constitutionality of "Stingray" surveillance in 2012, the ACLU has used press reporting and analysis of government records to establish that 43 different state and local law enforcement agencies in 18 states have the technology. On the federal level, at least 12 agencies have purchased interceptors, including the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and all the branches of the U.S. military. But amidst this thicket of government and police surveillance, security experts cannot rule out the possibility that foreign spies or criminal hackers are also using the cell tower simulators in the United States. The most sophisticated interceptors cost roughly $100,000, though a skilled, determined hacker could cobble together a basic interceptor for less than $2,000.
> 
> ESD America CEO Les Goldsmith says that we don't know for sure who's using the interceptors, but he speculates that owners might be the U.S. government, foreign spies, or possibly criminal hackers.
> 
> When asked about the interceptor detected on July 30 near the Mayport Naval Air Station, in eastern Florida, near Jacksonville, the Navy declined comment.
> 
> "We really don't have anything to say about that," says William Townsend, a spokesperson for the Mayport Naval Air Station.
> 
> "I haven't seen evidence that the military is using [interceptors] inside the U.S., but it is more than plausible that they could be using them to protect bases," says Wessler.
> 
> A shroud of secrecy surrounds the technology, with the government trying to avoid admitting usage of interceptors, even in criminal trials where cell phone surveillance has provided key pieces of evidence.
> 
> In June, an ACLU of Florida public records request in Sarasota, Florida, showed that the police there had a policy to conceal the use of "Stingray" tech used to track suspects -- preventing "the criminal element," as well as judges and defense attorneys, from knowing the source of the surveillance. In March, police officers in Tallahassee admitted to using the technology at least 200 times since 2010 without telling a judge, due to a non-disclosure agreement signed with the technology manufacturer Harris Corporation. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2011 that the FBI has a longstanding policy to expunge any mention of "Stingray" use from official reports.
> 
> "The justification [government lawyers] put forward publicly, is if they were to disclose their use of this technology, it would allow criminals to evade detection, and hamper their ability to fight crime," says Wessler. "To think that a savvy criminal won't have figured out that their cell phone might get tracked is kind of silly at this point."
> 
> Given the proximity of some of the interceptors to military bases, the portability and sub-$100,000 price tag for sophisticated devices has raised fears of foreign governments using them for espionage. (Here are a range of interceptors offered to government and defense industry clients by a company based in Soghi, India). Many are small enough to be driven in a car or even carried by hand.
> 
> "There's nothing preventing some foreign government from rolling these out throughout the United States," says Mathew Rowley, a mobile security expert for Matasano Security. "Who knows? I don't want to say that 'it is the case that it's foreign governments' -- but I can't say 'it's not the case.'"
> 
> The Federal Communications Commission has formed a task force to investigate usage of interceptors on American soil by foreign spy services or criminal organizations.
> 
> There is also the possibility that a particularly skilled hacker could build a DIY interceptor using off-the-shelf components. A rudimentary cell tower combined with a radio peripheral connected with a PC running open-source base tower software can be built for less than $2,000. Doing so might allow the theft of credit card numbers, or allow tracking of a famous person's subscriber number as she traveled near the interceptor.
> 
> "It's possible for someone who has enough free time on their hands" to build a DIY interceptor using off-the-shelf components, says Rowley. "You have to understand how things are configured, how GSM networks work, how to communicate with backend systems legitimately. All the data is encrypted. And to decrypt it is the hard part. That's not to say it's not possible."
> 
> So should we worry about interceptors?
> 
> The most expensive interceptors are capable of sophisticated attacks that eavesdrop on calls or texts, push spyware to the phone, or even spoof calls or texts. But in court, Wessler has only seen the state introduce evidence from the simpler "Stingray" devices capable solely of geolocation tracking. In other words, the interceptor pairs with the suspect's phone's subscriber number and pings to see where the phone goes, so long as the device remains within the interceptor's range.
> 
> As to the dangers to law-abiding citizens posed by police or government geo-location surveillance, Wessler points to the example of the interceptor found in downtown Las Vegas.
> 
> "You can imagine quite sensitive information that the location of someone's phone can reveal," says Wessler. "You can tell it was my phone that was at the casino until 2 am, drove out to the brothel at 4 am, and then back to the casino at 6 am. Or someone goes to an abortion clinic. Or an NRA meeting. Or an AA meeting."
> 
> "It looks a whole lot like a dragnet search."
> Rowley, a security expert who studies the hacking of mobile phones, considers interceptor use more of an anomalous "edge case" than something the average person should fear.
> 
> "I don't think this means that this means that our current model of how cell phone communication works is flawed. From what I know about GSM, it's pretty secure, assuming everything is configured properly. I think there [are] edge cases for just about everything in technology. In my opinion, this shouldn't bother the general public."
> 
> Wessler also points out that it's impossible to target just one phone -- instead, the interceptor tricks all phones in the vicinity into connecting.
> 
> "When police are using it to track the location of a phone, it inherently collects information not just about that phone, but about every phone in the area. It looks a whole lot like a dragnet search," says Wessler. "A second and related problem is they're not just sending signals out through the open air, but in houses, offices, other private spaces. So you end up tracking people to different rooms in the house or apartment building....within a meter or two of where the phone is."
> 
> Oliver Day, the president of Securing Change, a privacy-minded non-profit that provides technology services to other non-profits?, objects to indiscriminate surveillance of all citizens -- what Wessler characterizes as a "dragnet search." Day makes a distinction between targeted surveillance of a particular suspect, and mass surveillance, in which the government gathers information about everyone, without a warrant, and then seeks usable intel after the fact.
> 
> "My dad was in the Army, I totally understand the need for intelligence. The NSA needs to exist -- the CIA needs to exist. They just need to be controlled and monitored," says Day. "But targeted surveillance is a whole different thing. Everyone is a worthwhile target when you're doing mass surveillance."



The act of locating and publishing the locations of the Interceptor towers is part of a movement known as "Sousveillance" where the public undertakes to monitor the official realm of government and bureaucracy. Locating and publishing the locations of these devices makes it harder to carry out the unwarranted surveillance of ordinary civilians, and if these are being set up and used by criminal or foreign intelligence agencies, then knowing they are there allows them to be either cooped or neutralized.


----------



## CougarKing

"To Russia with love" oh well.  ;D

Agence-France-Presse



> *'LOVE IS LOVE' | Snowden's girlfriend joins him in Russia*
> By: Anne Smolchenko and Jennie Matthew, Agence France-Presse
> October 12, 2014 3:11 AM
> 
> MOSCOW/NEW YORK - US fugitive Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum by Moscow after revealing the extent of US global surveillance, has been reunited with his girlfriend in Russia, his lawyer said Saturday.
> 
> Snowden's longtime partner, American dancer Lindsay Mills, joined him in Moscow in July, it emerged Friday.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Love is love," Snowden's Kremlin-connected lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told AFP. "She lives with him when she comes here. Moral support is very important for Edward."
> 
> He said Mills does not live in Russia permanently because of visa constraints but visits frequently.
> 
> The couple, who previously lived in Hawaii, have been busy exploring Russia, he added. "They go to theatres and cultural events together."
> 
> (...SNIPPED)


----------



## Kat Stevens

Seems like it's all coming up aces for him, how nice... :


----------



## tomahawk6

He is asking to stand trial in the US,which may be better than living in Russia.


----------



## cupper

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> He is asking to stand trial in the US,which may be better than living in Russia.



Maybe he's had enough of the girlfriend. ;D


----------



## a_majoor

And now we know "why" it is so important to mine data on citizens and be able to gain backdoor entry into civilian computers, cell phones and other electronic devices. It is probably a good idea to have a "clean" computer that you use only for certain tasks (like banking), and a totally separate computer (ideally with a different IP address and separate connection to the Internet) for surfing. This goes for cell phones as well: one for work related issues and one for private conversations (reading upthread we se that there are "pirate" cell towers which harvest cell phone data in various places). Disposable phones are a good idea as well:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/10/27/sharyl-attkissons-computer-intrusions-worse-than-anything-nixon-ever-did/



> *Sharyl Attkisson’s computer intrusions: ‘Worse than anything Nixon ever did’*
> By Erik Wemple October 27
> 
> The intrusions into former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computers constitute the narrative spine of the reporter’s new book “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.” The book starts with not really a word, but a sound: “Reeeeeeeeeee.”
> 
> That’s the noise that Attkisson’s Apple computer was making at 3:14 one morning. A Toshiba laptop computer issued by CBS News did the same thing a day earlier, around 4 a.m. All this goes down in October 2012, right in the midst of the Benghazi story. A person who’s identified as “Jeff” warns Attkisson: “I’ve been reading your reports online about Benghazi. It’s pretty incredible. Keep at it. But you’d better watch out.” “Jeff,” like several of the names in “Stonewalled,” is a pseudonym.
> 
> Now we know why Attkisson has been so stingy for so long with details of her computer intrusions: She wanted to have some material for her book. The story debuted in May 2013, when Attkisson appeared on a Philadelphia radio show and declared that there may be “some relationship” between her computer troubles and the sort of tracking that descended upon Fox News reporter James Rosen in a much-discussed leak case. On a subsequent appearance on Fox News’s “O’Reilly Factor,” Attkisson said she thought she knew who was responsible for the ruckus.
> 
> All of which was just enough to whet the appetite for the treatment in “Stonewalled.” On one level, the book is a reminder of all the ways people can mess with you. It’s not just her computers that showed signs of tampering, says Attkisson, who bolted CBS News earlier this year. “*y November 2012,” she writes, “there are so many disruptions on my home phone line, I often can’t use it. I call home from my mobile phone and it rings on my end, but not at the house.” More devices on the fritz at Attkisson Central: “My television is misbehaving. It spontaneously jitters, mutes, and freeze-frames,” she writes, noting that the computers, TVs and phone all use Verizon’s FiOS service. At one point, “Jeff” inspects the back of Attkisson’s house and finds a “stray cable” attached to her FiOS box. That cable, he explains, could be used to download data. (Read more: The bizarre tale of Sharyl Attkisson’s spare wire)
> 
> Next big moment: Attkisson gets her computer checked out by someone identified as “Number One,” who’s described as a “confidential source inside the government.” A climactic meeting takes place at a McDonald’s outlet at which Attkisson and “Number One” “look around” for possibly suspicious things. Finding nothing, they talk. “First just let me say again I’m shocked. Flabbergasted. All of us are. This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America.” That’s all coming from “Number One.”
> 
> The breaches on Attkisson’s computer, says this source, are coming from a “sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, or the National Security Agency (NSA).” Attkisson learns from “Number One” that one intrusion was launched from the WiFi at a Ritz Carlton Hotel and the “intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool.”
> 
> To round out the revelations of “Number One,” he informs Attkisson that he’d found three classified documents deep inside her operating system, such that she’d never know they were even there. “Why? To frame me?” Attkisson asks in the book.
> 
> So CBS News hires an independent computer analyst whom Attkisson identifies as “Jerry Patel,” also a pseudonym. He finds a massive amount of suspicious activity in the computer, including the removal of all kinds of log messages. The author describes the scene as “Patel” does his work: “Now he’s breathing heavily. It alarms me because it alarms him and he’s not easily alarmed. His voice becomes more formal and he launches into what sounds like a speech for posterity. ‘In my professional opinion, someone has accessed this box … I see evidence that shows a deliberate and skilled attempt to clean the log files of activity.’” Intrusions of this caliber, concludes “Patel,” are “far beyond the the abilities of even the best nongovernment hackers.”
> 
> In summing up, Attkisson writes, “Everything Patel has found serves to confirm my January source and analysis. Patel tells me that only a few entities possess these skills. One of them is the U.S. government. I already know this from Number One. But now CBS knows it, too. And it will all be in his final report.”
> 
> More drama arises in September 2013. As White House officials pressure CBS News executives over Attkisson’s Benghazi reporting, something goes haywire with her computer. “That very night, with [White House spokesman Eric] Schultz, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line in a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone.” Attkisson grabbed her iPhone to record the madness.
> 
> Don Allison, a security specialist at Kore Logic, takes a close look at Attkisson’s iMac. The results turn up scandalous, as Attkisson writes: “While a great deal of data has been expertly wiped in an attempt to cover-up the deed, Don is able to find remnants of what was once there. There’s key evidence of a government computer connection to my computer. A sort of backdoor link that leads to an ISP address for a government computer that can’t be accessed by the general public on the Web. It’s an undeniable link to the U.S. government.”
> 
> The expert explains to Attkisson: “This ISP address is better evidence of the government being in your computer than the government had when it accused China of hacking into computers in the U.S.”
> 
> The Erik Wemple Blog has reached out to Allison; we’ll update as soon as we hear from him and will write an astounding number of posts related to “Stonewalled.”
> 
> Update: We heard back from his security firm, whose president says they can’t talk because of a confidentiality agreement
> 
> 
> Erik Wemple writes the Erik Wemple blog, where he reports and opines on media organizations of all sorts.
> *


----------



## cupper

I say he just hasn't been there long enough, but then again, the defectors that Hayden used for reference were already drunken bastards anyway.

*A sober Snowden deems life in Russia ‘great’*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/09/a-sober-snowden-deems-life-in-russia-great/?hpid=z4



> MOSCOW — Edward Snowden would like everyone – especially his critics – to know that he is happy with life in Russia. Happy, and also sober.
> 
> “They talk about Russia like it’s the worst place on earth. Russia's great,” the former NSA contractor told journalist James Bamford during an interview in Moscow for the PBS program "NOVA," which released a transcript of the conversation Thursday.
> 
> During the interview, Snowden focused on a speech that former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden had given in which he predicted that Snowden would be depressed and drunk.
> 
> “It was funny because he was talking about how I was – everybody in Russia is miserable. Russia is a terrible place,” Snowden recalled, hat-tipping Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman’s coverage of the September 2013 speech. “And I’m going to end up miserable and I’m going to be a drunk and I’m never going to do anything.”
> 
> Hayden’s exact prediction during that speech was that Snowden would “end up like most of the rest of the defectors who went to the old Soviet Union: isolated, bored, lonely, depressed – and most of them ended up alcoholics.”
> 
> But even after two Russian winters, vodka’s siren song apparently has no sway over Snowden.
> 
> “I don’t drink. I’ve never been drunk in my life,” Snowden said.
> 
> Snowden has been living in Moscow for more than a year, ever since the Russian government gave him asylum after the U.S. government revoked his passport, leaving him stranded at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.
> 
> Snowden became the subject of an international manhunt after he revealed himself as the source of highly publicized leaks detailing previously unknown U.S. surveillance programs that led to articles in The Washington Post and the British newspaper the Guardian. He is wanted in the United States on theft and espionage charges.
> 
> Snowden, who is about six months into his three-year asylum term, has apparently been settling into life in Russia rather well. His exact whereabouts haven’t been publicized, but his girlfriend moved to Russia to be with him in July, according to the recent documentary “Citizenfour."
> 
> And Snowden clearly wanted to tell a U.S. audience how much he is enjoying life in Russia, because he was not specifically asked about it during the PBS interview.
> 
> Snowden’s opinions about his new home only came up because toward the end of the interview, the producer offered him a cup of coffee.
> 
> “I actually only drink water,” Snowden said, before launching into an explanation of how Hayden wrongly predicted that he would end up drunk, sad and alone, and that nobody expected how much he would like Russia.


----------



## CougarKing

China fires back against what Snowden said about its espionage and hacking efforts:

Reuters



> *China calls Snowden's stealth jet hack accusations 'groundless'*
> 
> BEIJING (Reuters) - *China dismissed accusations it stole F-35 stealth fighter plans as groundless on Monday, after documents leaked by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden on a cyber attack* were published by a German magazine.
> 
> *The Pentagon has previously acknowledged that hackers had targeted sensitive data for defense programs such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but stopped short of publicly blaming China for the F-35 breach.
> 
> Defense experts say that China's home-grown stealth jets had design elements resembling the F-35.*
> 
> The Pentagon and the jet's builder, Lockheed Martin Corp, had said no classified information was taken during the cyber intrusion.
> 
> (...SNIPPED)


----------



## CougarKing

Not exactly the best role model to be the centrepiece of a "world affairs conference" for high school students...

CTV



> *NSA leaker Edward Snowden to address Toronto school from Russia*
> 
> U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden is set to address hundreds of high school students at a world affairs conference being held Monday night at a Toronto private school.
> 
> The former NSA contractor is the keynote speaker at the annual World Affairs Conference, which was organized by students from Upper Canada College and Branksome Hall in Toronto.
> 
> The moderated discussion is called “Privacy vs. Security: A Discussion of Personal Privacy in the Digital Age.”
> 
> (...SNIPPED)


----------



## CougarKing

Aww...poor old Snowden is homesick...   :

Reuters



> *Fugitive ex-U.S. spy Snowden in talks on returning home: lawyer*
> 
> MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian lawyer for Edward Snowden said on Tuesday the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of the government's mass surveillance programs was working with American and German lawyers to return home.
> 
> Anatoly Kucherena, who has links to the Kremlin, was speaking at a news conference to present a book he has written about his client. Moscow granted Snowden asylum in 2013, straining already tense ties with Washington.
> 
> "I won't keep it secret that he... wants to return back home. And we are doing everything possible now to solve this issue. There is a group of U.S. lawyers, there is also a group of German lawyers and I'm dealing with it on the Russian side."
> 
> (...SNIPPED)


----------



## Robert0288

US response should be easy enough as they could probably read it off a monopoly card.

Go to Jail,
Go directly to Jail,
Do not pass Go,
Do not collect $200


----------



## jollyjacktar

S.M.A. said:
			
		

> Aww...poor old Snowden is homesick...   :
> 
> Reuters



Or he's been sucked dry by the Ivans and/or is no longer useful or relevant.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Do you guys think him reporting to the US public that their government was illegally spying on them and collecting information was a good thing or a bad thing?


----------



## cupper

S.M.A. said:
			
		

> Aww...poor old Snowden is homesick...   :
> 
> Reuters



I think he's had enough of the girlfriend again, tried running to Putinland to get away from her, and now he's willing to go to jail to get away from her. >


----------



## Robert0288

Jarnhamar said:
			
		

> Do you guys think him reporting to the US public that their government was illegally spying on them and collecting information was a good thing or a bad thing?



Regardless of what I think, there was ways and mechanisms in place to actually be a whistle blower without releasing the exact methods and means to the world without due care and attention to the information being released or it's impact on intelligence gathering on foreign targets.


----------



## cupper

Jarnhamar said:
			
		

> Do you guys think him reporting to the US public that their government was illegally spying on them and collecting information was a good thing or a bad thing?



Apparently one US Citizen and his lawyer do. This is so batcrap crazy, you really can't make this up.

*Everything About the Edward Snowden / 'Citizenfour' Lawsuit Is Batshit Crazy*

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/everything-about-the-edward-snowden--citizenfour-lawsuit-is-batshit-crazy



> A very misguided man in Kansas is suing Edward Snowden, ​Laura Poitras, and the ​official promoters of Citizenfour in one of the most annoyingly insane lawsuits in recent memory.
> 
> ​The lawsuit, filed in December on behalf of the entire population of the United States, has been ​pretty well covered elsewhere, but some new developments, not least of which is Citizenfour's Oscar win, ​have made it noteworthy again. The general premise of the suit is that the film contains classified information, so it should be removed from release and re-edited in order to preserve national security.
> 
> Also, Poitras and Snowden should have to pay the government "billions of dollars to achieve restitution" for the damages done by Snowden's leaks.
> 
> The plaintiff, Horace Edwards, is a regular guy (as in, not a federal attorney) who identifies himself as a former naval officer. His and his attorney's actions since filing the suit, however, have only gotten more desperate and weird as it becomes ever apparent that the lawsuit is backfiring.
> 
> Reading the court case from start to finish is like taking a master's course in the Streisand effect and is a dictionary-perfect definition of frivolous litigation. Here is a rough timeline of events, which get increasingly odd as we move along in the proceedings.
> 
> October 10, 2014: Citizenfour is screened at the New York Film Festival.
> 
> October 17, 2014: Citizenfour is screened at the BFI London Film Festival.
> 
> December 12, 2014: Citizenfour is in 105 theaters in the United States.
> 
> December 19, 2014: Edwards and his attorney, Jean Lamfers, file their initial "billions" complaint, asking the judge to prevent the release of the film.
> 
> January 13, 2015: Lamfers files an "amended" complaint to include "United States of America" as a plaintiff. Yes, Lamfers attempts to sue on behalf of the US government.
> 
> January 15, 2015: Citizenfour is nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary.
> 
> January 23ish, 2015: Lamfers requests that Citizenfour not be allowed to be entered as evidence. Instead, it should be screened to the judge and to the judge only, she argues.
> 
> January 24ish: Poitras and her attorney deliver a copy of the film to the Lamfers. She does not take it well.
> 
> "I said I did not want to take possession of it. This was because of my understanding the film contains classified information based on my having seen the film. I received no response to [my] request from defendants' counsel [to bar the film from being entered as evidence in court]," Lamfers wrote in an email sent to the judge presiding over the suit. "To the contrary defendant's counsel delivered a copy of the DVD to my office (which remains unopened and under lock and key)."
> 
> February 10, 2015: Poitras and her legal team are allowed by the judge to enter the film into evidence. Two DVD copies and a transcript of the film are submitted to the court
> 
> February 12, 2015: Edwards and Lamfers become concerned that the film has been entered into evidence. They file a motion to seal the DVDs, lest someone actually see the film.
> 
> Note that this injunction would only seal those two specific copies of the DVD. Citizenfour is still being screened in many theatres worldwide, and, in fact, was slated to premiere in seven new cities on the 13th.
> 
> February 13, 2015: Motion denied: "Given the inherently public nature of this film, the Court can discern absolutely no interest that could justify sealing this exhibit. Moreover, even if this DVD contained some sort of confidential information for which Plaintiff had an interest in preventing public disclosure, it has already been publicly filed," the judge wrote.
> 
> February 14, 2015: Cryptome, a site that posts hacker documents and that sort of thing, incorrectly assumes that, because the film was entered as evidence, it has entered the public domain and is free for anyone to use. Cryptome posts two copies of the full film for download on its website.
> 
> Defense provided 2 DVDs of Citizenfour as exhibit in Edwards suit. So film in public domain as unsealed record. On HBO 2/23/15. Leaking $.— Cryptome (@Cryptomeorg) February 14, 2015
> 
> "I personally doubt this use of the film would avoid copyright infringement of uses of the film that were not otherwise fair, eg, comment on legal issues pertaining to the film," Jerome Reichman, a professor at Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, told me.
> 
> In other words, you can probably download and watch the film to comment on whether or not this lawsuit has any merit. Edwards and Lamfers, therefore, have, by filing this lawsuit, perhaps indirectly exposed classified information to more people. In any case, there are now easy-to-access, direct download links to the film.
> 
> February 14, 2015: Lamfers is required to remove the United States government as a plaintiff in the case.
> 
> February 17, 2015: Lamfers calls the court on an "emergency basis" in an attempt to temporarily seal the DVDs pending appeal.
> 
> February 18, 2015: Court emails Lamfers back, urging the lawyer to not make random emergency calls to the court.
> 
> February 19, 2015: Lamfers emails the judge, at 12:46 AM local time (according to the court record), chastising the court for endangering national security and for not immediately responding to her call.
> 
> "This situation has placed the plaintiff in an untenable position regarding avoiding  irreparable harm and obtaining appropriate relief sought on a serious issue in a timely manner," she wrote. "The denial of a sealing motion has furthered the irreparable harm and relief necessary to address such harm, among other things, by the continuing injury through repetition of classified, stolen information that reaches a broader constituency of extremists with each showing."
> 
> February 19, 2015: In a "supplemental memorandum pursuant to emergency contact with court via email," Lamfers suggests that "better safe than sorry" is not merely a turn of phrase, but that, literally, the DVD should have been put into a safe where it could never, ever be seen.
> 
> February 22, 2015: The court formally asks Lamfers to stop calling:
> 
> February 22, 2015: Citizenfour wins an Oscar.
> 
> February 23, 2015: Citizenfour is screened on HBO.
> 
> The case is still underway.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Ooops ... this just in and reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _BBC News_:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33125068


> UK agents 'moved over Snowden files'
> *UK intelligence agents have been moved because Russia and China can read files stolen by a US whistleblower, a senior government source has told the BBC.*
> 
> _The Sunday Times_ is reporting that Russia and China have cracked the encryption of the computer files.
> 
> The government source told the BBC the countries "have information" that led to agents being moved but added there was "no evidence" any had been harmed.
> 
> Edward Snowden, now in Russia, leaked intelligence data two years ago.
> 
> The former CIA contractor left the US in 2013 after leaking details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence to the media.
> 
> His information made international headlines in June 2013 when the Guardian newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans.
> 
> Mr Snowden is believed to have downloaded 1.7 million secret documents before he left the US.
> 
> *'Hostile countries'*
> 
> The government source said the information obtained by Russia and China meant that "knowledge of how we operate" had stopped the UK getting "vital information".
> 
> Intelligence officials have long warned of what they see as the dangers of the information leaked by Mr Snowden and its potential impact on keeping people in the UK safe - a concern Prime Minister David Cameron has said he shares.
> 
> According to the _Sunday Times_, Western intelligence agencies have been forced to pull agents out of "hostile countries" after "Moscow gained access to more than one million classified files" held by Mr Snowden.
> 
> "Senior government sources confirmed that China had also cracked the encrypted documents, which contain details of secret intelligence techniques and information that could allow British and American spies to be identified," the newspaper added.
> 
> *'Huge setback'*
> 
> Tim Shipman, who co-wrote the Sunday Times story, told the BBC: _"Snowden said 'nobody bad has got hold of my information'._
> 
> "Well, we are told authoritatively by people in Downing Street, in the Home Office, in the intelligence services that the Russians and the Chinese have all this information and as a result of that our spies are having to pull people out of the field because their lives are in danger.
> 
> "People in government are deeply frustrated that this guy has been able to put all this information out there."
> 
> The newspaper quoted Sir David Omand, former director of UK intelligence agency GCHQ, saying the fact Russia and China had the information was a "huge strategic setback" that was "harming" to Britain, the US and their Nato allies.




Mr Snowden has now learned that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and all that.


----------



## CougarKing

: Surely the whole audience will be full of govt. conspiracy nuts with their tinfoil hats just waiting for the Q&A portion. 

Vancity Buzz



> *Edward Snowden to speak to Vancouverites at Queen Elizabeth Theatre*
> By
> Lauren Sundstrom
> 3:16 PM PST, Wed February 17, 2016
> 
> Controversial public figure Edward Snowden will speak at a Vancouver event *via web-link* on the power and perils of big data, according to Simon Fraser University.
> 
> The event will be hosted by SFU’s Public Square and will highlight the ways big data practices are evolving in regards to governments and corporations.
> 
> “Snowden is a transformative figure in the field of big data,” said Catherine Murray, Professor, Communication at Simon Fraser University in a release.
> 
> “No other leak was of this scale, this importance to global and national security, and this revealing of the degree of challenges to privacy that big data may pose.”
> 
> Snowden is a former CIA employee who leaked classified information from the United States National Security Agency back in 2013, revealing numerous global surveillance programs. Snowden was granted asylum by the Russian government and he currently resides in Moscow
> 
> (...SNIPPED)
> 
> *When: Tuesday, April 5; doors open at 6 p.m.*
> Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre – 650 Hamilton Street, Vancouver
> Tickets: $10 to $20. They’ll be available soon.


----------



## jollyjacktar

I bet that will look like the scene from the Matrix where everyone is shucking and jiving down below when you pack in all those lefties for the show.


----------



## tomahawk6

At what point I wonder will Snowden be arrested on the outstandin warrant from the US ?Before the showor after the show ?


----------



## larry Strong

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> At what point I wonder will Snowden be arrested on the outstandin warrant from the US ?Before the showor after the show ?



He will be a big "talking head" on a screen.......I would be very surprised if he has the intestinal fortitude to show up in NA.....

Cheers
Larry


----------



## Oldgateboatdriver

However, it shows just how far some of our alleged institution of higher learning have been co-opted by left wing Canadians that will not hesitate a moment before doing something that will piss on our neighbour and good friend the US ... almost looks like its being done on purpose.

It  :rage: me !!!!!


----------



## Good2Golf

OGBD, SFU has been the flagship institution in that regard for decades. :nod:  I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of American tourists 'visiting' from Va. to "check out the scene..."  (i.e. Keep their files up to date) ;D

op:


----------



## cupper

Oldgateboatdriver said:
			
		

> However, it shows just how far some of our alleged institution of higher learning have been co-opted by left wing Canadians that will not hesitate a moment before doing something that will piss on our neighbour and good friend the US ... almost looks like its being done on purpose.
> 
> It  :rage: me !!!!!





			
				Good2Golf said:
			
		

> OGBD, SFU has been the flagship institution in that regard for decades. :nod:  I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of American tourists 'visiting' from Va. to "check out the scene..."  (i.e. Keep their files up to date) ;D
> 
> op:



When I started at Saint Mary's it was a bastion of right leaning though, and Dalhousie the left. When I went back to SMU a few years later it was the complete opposite. But I'm proud to say at my true alma mater The Technical University of Nova Scotia were were either too busy or too drunk to give a rat's patooty about such things.  ;D


----------



## Cloud Cover

Ron Diebert from Citizens Lab will also be hosting a "Fireside Chat" with Snowden at the RSA conference in San Francisco.  Now, I get all the piling on Snowden for what he did, and I have built an entire career working in that space, and I will tell you it really was getting out of hand. The checks and balances went from grey to blur to gone. If Snowden and others thought that stealing documents and leaking them would trigger a re-boot of the system towards a more transparent intelligence collection system of laws, then he really doesn't understand what Intelligence is all about anyway. 

The driving issue issue here, as always, was and is money- defence and other security contractors constantly pushing new ideas for projects towards a chequebook with an unlimited overdraft account. We had to hire project managers just to manage the inflow of unsolicited proposals and fit them under somebody's empire or silo, and that was 10 years ago. It did not stop under Obama (or Cameron or Harper), and these leaks really have not slowed anyone down. 

I see that Snowden is also aligning himself with Apple on the encryption issue, which is probably driving Tim Cook straight to the bottle of Scotch for pain relief.


----------



## CougarKing

So if he loses, the CIA/FBI will be happily waiting for him outside the Norwegian court? (Not sure if the US has an extradition treaty with Norway)

Reuters



> *Snowden to take Norway to court to secure free passage*
> World | Thu Apr 21, 2016 11:51am EDT
> 
> Reuters/Andrew Kelly
> 
> Edward Snowden will take the Norwegian state to court in a bid to secure free passage there, a Norwegian law firm representing the former U.S. spy contractor said on Thursday.
> 
> Snowden has been invited to Norway to receive a freedom of speech award from the local branch of writers' group PEN International, but is worried that he would be handed over to the United States, his lawyers say.
> 
> "The purpose is to get legally established that Norway has no right to extradite Snowden to the U.S.," the law firm, Schjoedt, said in a statement.
> 
> 
> (...SNIPPED)


----------



## CougarKing

And the Snowden saga movie trailer is out:

(first 10 seconds of trailer is the part where he tries to go through US Army Basic despite injured limbs.)

*Snowden: 2016 movie trailer*


----------



## The Bread Guy

Go figure ...


> ... In a remarkable interview this week, *Franz Klintsevich, a senior Russian security official, explained the case matter-of-factly: “Let’s be frank. Snowden did share intelligence. This is what security services do. If there’s a possibility to get information, they will get it.”*
> 
> With this, Klintsevich simply said what all intelligence professionals already knew – that Snowden is a collaborator with the FSB. That he really had no choice in the matter once he set foot in Russia does not change the facts ...


----------



## CougarKing

If Trump becomes president, can he reverse a pardon if Obama gives it?

ABC News



> *Snowden Says He Deserves a Pardon From Obama*
> 
> Former NSA contractor and American fugitive Edward Snowden said overnight he deserves to be pardoned before President Obama leaves office, suggesting that his actions, while maybe against the letter of the law, changed the country for the better — an argument that has so far fallen on deaf ears at the White House.
> 
> "Yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing, but that is perhaps why the pardon power exists — for the exceptions, for the things that may seem unlawful in letters on a page but when we look at them morally, when we look at them ethically, when we look at the results, it seems these were necessary things, these were vital things," Snowden told The Guardian in an interview from Moscow. "I think when people look at the calculations of benefit, it is clear in the wake of 2013 the laws of our nation changed. The Congress, the courts and the president all changed their policies as a result of these disclosures. At the same time, there has never been any public evidence that any individual came to harm as a result."
> 
> *Snowden has been living in Russia since the summer of 2013, after he stole a huge trove of electronic documents from a National Security Agency office in Hawaii and leaked them to journalists, exposing the incredible breadth and power of the NSA's foreign and domestic surveillance capabilities. After the leak, Snowden — seen as a civil liberties hero by some and a traitor by others — was charged with espionage-related crimes.
> *
> "Mr. Snowden has been charged with serious crimes, and it's the policy of the [Obama] administration that Mr. Snowden should return to the United States and face those charges," White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday. "He will, of course, be afforded due process, and there are mechanisms in our criminal justice system to ensure that he's treated fairly and consistent with the law."
> 
> *Earnest said that the way Snowden chose to act "harmed our national security and put the American people at greater risk."
> 
> But the Snowden disclosures prompted the Obama White House to re-evaluate the way the NSA did its job, especially through the mass collection of communication metadata, and an expert panel created by the White House to study the issue came back with some sweeping suggested changes — many of which were implemented to better protect Americans' privacy.*
> 
> Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism adviser and current ABC News consultant, was on the White House panel.
> 
> "What Mr. Snowden did is treason, was high crimes, and there is nothing in what we say that justifies what he did," Clarke said after the panel recommendations were made in December 2013. "Whether or not this panel would have been created anyway, I don't know, but I don't think anything that I've learned justifies the treasonous acts of Mr. Snowden."


----------



## cupper

Snowden seems to be missing the point that in order for him to apply for a pardon, he would need to have been convicted of the charges, completed any sentence that was given and then complete a waiting period of 5 years from date of release from confinement or from date of sentencing if no confinement was given in the sentence.

So, if he wants a pardon, he needs to get his ass back to the US, stand trial, be convicted and serve his sentence. Based on all that, He would need to apply for his pardon sometime after Donald Trump has completed his second term.  :facepalm:


----------



## expwor

cupper said:
			
		

> Snowden seems to be missing the point that in order for him to apply for a pardon, he would need to have been convicted of the charges, completed any sentence that was given and then complete a waiting period of 5 years from date of release from confinement or from date of sentencing if no confinement was given in the sentence.
> 
> So, if he wants a pardon, he needs to get his *** back to the US, stand trial, be convicted and serve his sentence. Based on all that, He would need to apply for his pardon sometime after Donald Trump has completed his second term.  :facepalm:



I agree with your sentiment but history has examples of Presidential Pardon's both of people who never were charged and convicted of offences. Best example of that, President Nixon being pardoned by President Ford, yet Nixon never was charged or convicted of anything.  
I'm sure if I went to the library or Google searched I could find more examples.  But I'll bet Presidential Pardon Power has been used so people didn't even have to face up at all to any legal consequences of their actions.  It should IMHO only be applied after the person has been arrested, charged and convicted.
But what do I know.

Tom


----------



## cupper

expwor said:
			
		

> I agree with your sentiment but history has examples of Presidential Pardon's both of people who never were charged and convicted of offences. Best example of that, President Nixon being pardoned by President Ford, yet Nixon never was charged or convicted of anything.
> I'm sure if I went to the library or Google searched I could find more examples.  But I'll bet Presidential Pardon Power has been used so people didn't even have to face up at all to any legal consequences of their actions.  It should IMHO only be applied after the person has been arrested, charged and convicted.
> But what do I know.
> 
> Tom



That is true. And the US Constitution does not limit the power of presidential pardons to only those who have been charged and / or convicted, so it is within the President's power to pardon someone for crimes that he may have committed but has not been charged. 

An interesting point on the implication of a pardon is that the Supreme Court has held that a pardon carries an "imputation of guilt" and acceptance of a pardon "is an admission of guilt". A person who is granted a pardon is within their right to refuse to accept the pardon with it's implication of an admission of guilt.

But I cannot see any president from Obama onwards issuing a pardon to Snowdon.


----------



## cupper

The House Select Committee on Intelligence approved the committee report on it's investigation into the Snowden Affair. 

*House Intel Panel: Edward Snowden 'Was No Whistleblower'*

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/15/494157921/house-intel-panel-edward-snowden-was-no-whistleblower



> Summarizing its investigation of Edward Snowden, the House Intelligence Committee says the former National Security Agency contractor did tremendous damage to the U.S.
> 
> The Committee published the summary findings of a two-year investigation today as a new film about Snowden opens across the country.
> 
> Snowden stole 1.5 million classified government documents that he had access to as an NSA contractor. He then fled to Russia via Hong Kong.
> 
> As NPR's David Welna reports,
> 
> Most major congressional reports are rolled out with news conferences, floor speeches and press releases. Not this one. There is only a three-page unclassified summary of the House Intelligence Committee's actual 36-page report, which remains classified. Devin Nunes is the California Republican who chairs that panel.
> 
> Nunes:
> 
> The report is based on facts, so it's just all the facts that we gathered over a two-year process, and the report ... I think, speaks for itself.
> The summary is available here. It contains five major points:
> 
> Snowden caused "tremendous damage to national security" and the documents he stole had nothing to do with programs effecting individual privacy interests. Rather, the documents pertained "to military, defense, and intelligence programs of great interest to America's adversaries." The report says the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to mitigate the damage Snowden caused.
> 
> Snowden is not a whistle blower, but a disgruntled employee whose actions infringed on the privacy of thousands of government employees and contractors. A real whistleblower, the report suggests, would have remained in the U.S. and not fled to China and Russia.
> Two weeks before he began the massive download of 1.5 million documents, Snowden had a "workplace spat" with NSA managers.
> 
> Snowden is "a serial exaggerator and fabricator" who told a series of untrue stories about his health, education, and performance reviews.
> The Committee says it is concerned that NSA and intelligence community in general have not done enough to prevent "another massive unauthorized disclosure of documents."
> 
> The Committee unanimously voted to endorse the report and all members signed a letter to President Obama urging him not to pardon Snowden.
> 
> The Committee's report may or may not have anything to do with the release of the new bio-pic, Snowden, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Joseph Gordon-Leavitt in the title role.
> 
> NPR's David Welna also reports that committee member Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla.) was especially bothered by the trailer he's seen for the movie.
> 
> Welna:
> The Edward Snowden portrayed in that trailer by actor Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Rooney says, is not the serial exaggerator and fabricator the committee's report says he is.
> 
> Rooney:
> He was like this little guy fighting this behemoth of oppressive government, when that's exact, not at all what it was. But, you know, I guess it makes for good, uh,cinema.
> 
> [Welna] — Do you plan to see the movie?
> 
> —Absolutely. I absolutely will see the movie.



Link to the unclassified Executive Summary:

http://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_snowden_review_-_unclass_summary_-_final.pdf


----------



## cupper

Interesting Op-Ed by the Washington Post Editorial Board about the Pardon Snowden movement. Considering that Snowden was their source for some major award winning reporting, they have no qualms about throwing him to the winds.

*No pardon for Edward Snowden*

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/edward-snowden-doesnt-deserve-a-pardon/2016/09/17/ec04d448-7c2e-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html?utm_term=.3e0e72bde5e0



> EDWARD SNOWDEN, the former National Security Agency contractor who blew the cover off the federal government’s electronic surveillance programs three years ago, has his admirers. After the inevitably celebratory Oliver Stone film about him appears this weekend, he may have more. Whether Mr. Snowden deserves a presidential pardon, as human rights organizations are demanding in a new national campaign timed to coincide with the film, is a complicated question, however, to which President Obama’s answer should continue to be “no.”
> 
> Mr. Snowden’s defenders don’t deny that he broke the law — not to mention oaths and contractual obligations — when he copied and kept 1.5 million classified documents. They argue, rather, that Mr. Snowden’s noble purposes, and the policy changes his “whistle-blowing” prompted, justified his actions. Specifically, he made the documents public through journalists, including reporters working for The Post, enabling the American public to learn for the first time that the NSA was collecting domestic telephone “metadata” — information about the time of a call and the parties to it, but not its content — en masse with no case-by-case court approval. The program was a stretch, if not an outright violation, of federal surveillance law, and posed risks to privacy. Congress and the president eventually responded with corrective legislation. It’s fair to say we owe these necessary reforms to Mr. Snowden.
> 
> The complication is that Mr. Snowden did more than that. He also pilfered, and leaked, information about a separate overseas NSA Internet-monitoring program, PRISM, that was both clearly legal and not clearly threatening to privacy. (It was also not permanent; the law authorizing it expires next year.) Worse — far worse — he also leaked details of basically defensible international intelligence operations: cooperation with Scandinavian services against Russia; spying on the wife of an Osama bin Laden associate; and certain offensive cyber operations in China. No specific harm, actual or attempted, to any individual American was ever shown to have resulted from the NSA telephone metadata program Mr. Snowden brought to light. In contrast, his revelations about the agency’s international operations disrupted lawful intelligence-gathering, causing possibly “tremendous damage” to national security, according to a unanimous, bipartisan report by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. What higher cause did that serve?
> 
> Ideally, Mr. Snowden would come home and hash out all of this before a jury of his peers. That would certainly be in the best tradition of civil disobedience, whose practitioners have always been willing to go to jail for their beliefs. He says this is unacceptable because U.S. secrecy-protection statutes specifically prohibit him from claiming his higher purpose and positive impact as a defense — which is true, though it’s not clear how the law could allow that without creating a huge loophole for leakers. (Mr. Snowden hurt his own credibility as an avatar of freedom by accepting asylum from Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin, who’s not known for pardoning those who blow the whistle on him.)
> 
> The second-best solution might be a bargain in which Mr. Snowden accepts a measure of criminal responsibility for his excesses and the U.S. government offers a measure of leniency in recognition of his contributions. Neither party seems interested in that for now. An outright pardon, meanwhile, would strike the wrong balance.



And predictably, Glenn Greenwald is not happy with the Post's viewpoint.

*Washpost Makes History: First Paper to Call for Prosecution of its Own Source After Accepting Pulitzer*

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/18/washpost-makes-history-first-paper-to-call-for-prosecution-of-its-own-source-after-accepting-pulitzer/


----------



## MarkOttawa

More on House committee's bipartisan damning of Snowden by the inimitable ex-NSA John Schindler:
http://observer.com/2016/09/the-real-ed-snowden-is-a-patsy-a-fraud-and-a-kremlin-controlled-pawn/

His blog, _The XX Committee_:
https://20committee.com/

Mark
Ottawa


----------



## FJAG

Yet one more:



> Insider's View: How 'Snowden' Gets It Dangerously Wrong
> By RICHARD CLARKE
> NEWS ANALYSIS — Sep 26, 2016, 9:58 AM ET
> 
> Richard Clarke is an ABC News national security consultant. He held senior national security positions in the White House during the administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Following the Snowden disclosures, he served as a member of President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Information Technology.
> 
> Oliver Stone’s movie "Snowden" is apparently part of a campaign by Edward Snowden and his supporters to obtain a legal pardon from President Obama for Snowden’s violation of U.S. criminal law.
> 
> Snowden, who was a technician working for a company contracted to support the National Security Agency (NSA), illegally downloaded thousands of documents classified Top Secret, fled the country with them and gave the documents to people who published them online. He remains in exile in Moscow.
> 
> I recently watched the movie from the perspective of a private citizen, but one who had once worked in the government in world of intelligence, counter-terrorism and security. I am also one of the five people who President Obama asked to serve on the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, a panel he created to review the issues raised by the Snowden revelations. Our conclusions and recommendations are all publicly available on the White House website.
> 
> As part of that Review Group, I had unrestricted access to what NSA was doing and came to some personal judgments about their value and about the effects of Snowden’s revelations.
> 
> There was one NSA program that I had not heard of before and which gave me pause. Without a clear Congressional authorization, NSA was collecting telephone “metadata” on calls made in the U.S. Metadata in this case means not the content of the calls, but the “to/from” numbers and the duration of the calls. They were collecting that information on all calls on certain networks, not just calls made by specific people identified in a court order.
> 
> That process reversed the American legal tradition of only collecting such data with the permission of a judge and only narrowly targeting people who had raised suspicion of illegal activity. Although I understood the motivation in collecting that data to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed an over-reach. However, other than a handful of incredibly rare, superficial instances, there was no evidence that NSA or any other government agency had abused that data access to in anyway harm or damage innocent Americans.
> 
> The Review Group recommended that program be terminated. The President and the Congress agreed and it was shut down. Snowden pointed to that action, shutting down that one program, as justification for his massive leak of Top Secret information to the world.
> 
> Snowden, however, did not just reveal that one somewhat dubious NSA collection program -- he revealed scores of NSA collection activities.
> 
> Those other programs were effectively tracking the activities and individuals in terrorist groups, drug cartels, human trafficking rings, nuclear proliferation programs, cyber crime gangs and foreign espionage agencies like Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB), the successor of the Cold War KGB.
> 
> After Snowden's revelations of how the U.S. tracked those activities, many of the targeted groups changed the way they communicated to evade NSA’s collection. The U.S. suddenly had less ability to prevent terrorist attacks, cocaine smuggling, and espionage.
> 
> It is true that the U.S. may ultimately re-gain some of the access it lost because of Snowden -- some but not all. Gaining any new ability to track terrorists, criminals and spies will likely cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
> 
> With that knowledge, it was hard to reconcile what I saw on the big screen in "Snowden" or what Snowden himself says in interviews with what I know to be the facts.
> 
> Edward Snowden was not ever a trained "spy", as he claims, nor did he conduct special programs on the direct orders of the number two person in NSA, as shown in the movie. He was a computer network technician employed by a contractor, working to support NSA. He never met the Deputy Director of NSA.
> 
> Edward Snowden also did not heroically act as a whistle blower on one questionable program. He indiscriminately collected and dumped information on dozens of valuable programs designed to keep Americans and our allies safe. Americans, you and me, are less safe because of what he did.
> 
> Edward Snowden is a hero, however. He is a hero in the eyes of people in groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, in the minds of drug cartel kingpins and in the view of the leadership of enemy intelligence agencies, places like the FSB headquarters in Moscow. For Snowden, now a resident of Moscow, has made their jobs easier, their lives safer.
> 
> I know movies have to take liberties with facts to fit a story into two hours. I recognize that directors like Oliver Stone have every right to create cinema with a point of view, ignoring facts and giving just one side of the story. The U.S. president, however, knows the facts and is painfully aware of the damage Snowden did.
> 
> If Snowden thinks he can persuade a jury of his peers that what he did was right or a federal judge that he deserves a light sentence for the myriad laws he broke, then he can get on any of the daily flights from Moscow to the U.S. No one is stopping him.
> 
> If, however, he is waiting in Moscow for a presidential pardon before he returns to the U.S., he is likely to wait there forever.



http://abcnews.go.com/International/insiders-view-snowden-dangerously-wrong/story?id=42361611

 :cheers:


----------



## jollyjacktar

I hope he never gets a pardon and is thrown to the trash heap once the Russians are done sucking him dry.  Just what a traitor deserves.


----------



## expwor

He should just stay in Moscow till old age and when he dies he can be buried next to Kim Philby.
Snowden betrayed the United States (and by extension it's allies)
He's no hero, he's a traitor

Tom


----------



## MarkOttawa

Reviews of Edward J. Epstein book on Snowden, _HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS
Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft_:
https://www.amazon.ca/How-America-Lost-Its-Secrets/dp/0451494563

1) _The Economist_:



> How Edward Snowden changed history A damning account of a devastating intelligence breach
> http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21714318-damning-account-devastating-intelligence-breach-how-edward-snowden-changed?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/how_edward_snowden_changed_history



2) _NY Times_--more dubious about the book:



> Is Edward Snowden a Spy? A New Book Calls Him One.
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/books/review/is-edward-snowden-a-spy-a-new-book-calls-him-one.html?smid=tw-share



Relevant from Oct. 2016, another case:



> US Intelligence and Insider Threat: NSA Contractor Maximum “Holy Cow!”
> https://cgai3ds.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/mark-collins-us-intelligence-and-insider-threat-nsa-contractor-maximum-holy-cow/



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## cupper

So, How did you like Obama's pardoning of Snowden in his final days.

Oh, wait. Snowden got left off the list.

Too bad, so sad.

 :rofl:


----------



## cupper

There is a story going around that the Russians may be considering sending Snowden back to the US as a "gift".

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/Russia-Eyes-Sending-Snowden-to-US-as-Gift-to-Trump-Official-413453243.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_DCBrand


----------



## jollyjacktar

I'm sure once they've sucked him dry, he'll be discarded like an empty slurpee cup.


----------



## cupper

jollyjacktar said:
			
		

> I'm sure once they've sucked him dry, he'll be discarded like an empty slurpee cup.



He's saying in online interviews that he hasn't seen or heard anything that would indicate the Russians were going to send him back. And he naively states that this proves he isn't working for the Russians, why would they give up a spy who could be a valuable asset.  :facepalm:


----------



## The Bread Guy

cupper said:
			
		

> He's saying in online interviews that he hasn't seen or heard anything that would indicate the Russians were going to send him back.


----------



## GR66

​


> Edward Snowden granted Russian citizenship​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY
> Image caption,
> Edward Snowden wants to go back to the US but faces espionage charges if he returns
> *Former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked extensive US intelligence surveillance operations, has been granted Russian citizenship.*
> The decree was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
> Mr Snowden, 39, has been living in exile in Russia since exposing the National Security Agency (NSA) programme affecting millions of Americans in 2013.
> Mr Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the US, has made no public comments.
> In 2020, the NSA surveillance of millions of Americans' telephone records was ruled unlawful by the US Court of Appeals.
> Mr Snowden said afterwards that he felt vindicated by the ruling.
> 
> Top US intelligence officials had publicly insisted the NSA had never knowingly collected data from private phone records, until Mr Snowden exposed evidence to the contrary.
> Following the revelation, officials said the NSA's surveillance program had played a crucial role in fighting domestic terrorism, including the convictions of Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, Mohamed Mohamud, and Issa Doreh, of San Diego, for providing aid to al-Shabab militants in Somalia.
> Mr Snowden's lawyer Anatoliy Kucherena was on Monday quoted by Russian state-run news agencies as saying that his client has never served in the Russian army, and therefore would not be called up as part of a partial mobilisation announced by President Putin last week.
> The Russian authorities say they want to enlist 300,000 army reservists to fight in Ukraine, amid growing public opposition.
> Reports in opposition Russian media suggest that up to one million people could be called up.



Too bad about the highlighted part.


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## medicineman

GR66 said:


> ​
> Too bad about the highlighted part.


Funny thing - he did serve in the US Military...which, if push came to shove, might have someone pay him a visit to have him sign up.  I'm willing to bet though that he's got a sugar daddy in the FSB that'll be keeping him out of harm's way 

Trivial fact - after my Dad left the Canadian Army in the late 60's and got a job as a computer programmer, he was offered a job in the US, where, along with his green card, would have been liable to the draft and was told this outright...as a qualified gun number on a piece of artillery currently in US service and a trained arty radio operator, well, he decided he didn't want to go to Vietnam and declined the job.


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## OldSolduer

medicineman said:


> Too bad about the highlighted part.


Many years ago there was this fellow who defected to the USSR, tried to fit in, had difficulties, came back to the USA and involved himself in politics "Fair Deal for Cuba" or something like that. Lee Harvey Oswald. 

Interesting.


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## dapaterson

Probably just Russia seeing a man under 65, so they granted citizenship so they can draft him into the Army.


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## Blackadder1916

medicineman said:


> Trivial fact - after my Dad left the Canadian Army in the late 60's and got a job as a computer programmer, he was offered a job in the US, where, along with his green card, would have been liable to the draft and was told this outright...as a qualified gun number on a piece of artillery currently in US service and a trained arty radio operator, well, he decided he didn't want to go to Vietnam and declined the job.



Interesting.  One of the exemptions for the draft was (and still is):









						Immigrants & Dual Nationals | Selective Service System
					






					www.sss.gov
				



"A non-citizen who served at least a year in the military of a country with which the U.S. is involved in mutual defense activities will be exempt from military service if he is a national of a country that grants reciprocal privileges to citizens of the U.S."

Such an individual would be classified as 4-A-A.









						32 CFR § 1630.48 - Class 4-A-A: Registrant who has performed military service for a foreign nation.
					






					www.law.cornell.edu


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## dapaterson

Ignorance of US immigration law among US officials is common.

I know someone born in Maryland, who was told that they were a US citizen, the diplomatic immunity of their parents notwithstanding.


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