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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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United States43203 Posts
On April 04 2018 12:31 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:11 KwarK wrote:
As for "if I were in Snowden's shoes", you're not. You have literally no idea what the NSA is capable of. Nor do I. Neither of us had access to the NSA's resources for years. If you were drunkenly shouting at a game of cricket on a small tv screen in a bar your opinion would count for more.
How do you know I'm not an employee of NSA?  Sure, I wasn't in Snowden's shoes, but that doesn't mean I can't ask questions about how he handled things by trying to think through how I would have handled things if I were in his position. I find his choices to be awful, to say the least. Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:11 KwarK wrote: If you were drunkenly shouting at a game of cricket on a small tv screen in a bar your opinion would count for more. How is this not a personal attack? It has nothing to do with what I've said. I've said no such thing about you.
You're insisting that your subjective opinion on what you'd do in Snowden's shoes is relevant. Pointing out that your insight into the inner workings of the NSA is less than your knowledge of the game of cricket is not a personal attack. You don't get to demand that whatever musings you spill onto the forum be treated as authoritative sources. You may very well reckon that you'd have done it differently, but that does not mean that we have to act like you're not talking out of your arse.
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On April 04 2018 12:34 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:27 TheLordofAwesome wrote:
He should have at the very least had a box of his own emails he sent off raising concerns about domestic spying. Even if they all disappeared into a black hole en route to other inboxes, he NEEDED to prove he sent them. That's evidence 101. When you are making accusations like "top US spy agency has totally broken internal oversight mechanism," the minimum you must prove is that you actually raised your concerns with said oversight.... He provided literally no such proof. the ONLY evidence that we have that Snowden sent any emails or letters or talked to anyone about "NSA is literally a panopticon" is his word. NSA says it has no such records, and Snowden has provided ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE for his claim. That's my point. I don't know why you think that I think Snowden was firing off emails to the head of the NSA saying "I think what you're doing is illegal, please confirm". I don't think he sent any such emails. I don't think he's a complete idiot. Only a complete idiot would do that. That was my point about it being in the same box as the DuPont emails admitting to leaking toxic chemicals. It's also completely irrelevant. We know the NSA was acting without oversight, the leaks revealed that. What the head of the NSA might have hypothetically said in reply to that email is moot because we don't need a confession when we have the evidence of the crime. Imagine you're a policeman and get a memo from the chief of police ordering cops under his command to plant evidence on citizens. You don't need to emaiil the chief asking him if he knows that this is unconstitutional. The memo is itself enough to whistleblow.
Of course you don't phrase it like that. You could say, "I just wanted some clarification what we're supposed to do if we encounter [insert situation that will trigger highly illegal actions here]." You don't have to make it accusatory at all! Just play a go-with-the-flow stupid guy! When you get a response saying, "Violate all 10 of their rights in the Bill of Rights, even if you have to buy them a house and grant them statehood to do it!" Well you, Mr. Whistleblower, are golden. Or if you don't get a response, you ask over and over and over again, and you present the evidence that you at least asked. If you want to be a real whistleblower, that's the legwork you have to put in.
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On April 04 2018 12:34 Aquanim wrote:
EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected.
For reference, my position is that Snowden started out trying to do the right thing by the public, which I would not precisely classify as "patriotism". I don't know whether that is where he ended up. I don't feel obliged to believe that Russia offered him effective asylum out of the goodness of their hearts.
Whatever are you talking about?! Putin's Russia is well known as a staunch guardian of civil liberties and free and fair elections!!! The FSB and GRU are not the kind of evil Gestapo organizations that would say "Tell the code to unlock the drive with 1.5 million Top Secret documents or we'll break your fingers one by one."
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United States43203 Posts
On April 04 2018 12:40 TheLordofAwesome wrote: Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:34 KwarK wrote: On April 04 2018 12:27 TheLordofAwesome wrote: He should have at the very least had a box of his own emails he sent off raising concerns about domestic spying. Even if they all disappeared into a black hole en route to other inboxes, he NEEDED to prove he sent them. That's evidence 101. When you are making accusations like "top US spy agency has totally broken internal oversight mechanism," the minimum you must prove is that you actually raised your concerns with said oversight.... He provided literally no such proof. the ONLY evidence that we have that Snowden sent any emails or letters or talked to anyone about "NSA is literally a panopticon" is his word. NSA says it has no such records, and Snowden has provided ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE for his claim. That's my point. I don't know why you think that I think Snowden was firing off emails to the head of the NSA saying "I think what you're doing is illegal, please confirm". I don't think he sent any such emails. I don't think he's a complete idiot. Only a complete idiot would do that. That was my point about it being in the same box as the DuPont emails admitting to leaking toxic chemicals. It's also completely irrelevant. We know the NSA was acting without oversight, the leaks revealed that. What the head of the NSA might have hypothetically said in reply to that email is moot because we don't need a confession when we have the evidence of the crime. Imagine you're a policeman and get a memo from the chief of police ordering cops under his command to plant evidence on citizens. You don't need to emaiil the chief asking him if he knows that this is unconstitutional. The memo is itself enough to whistleblow. Of course you don't phrase it like that. You could say, "I just wanted some clarification what we're supposed to do if we encounter [insert situation that will trigger highly illegal actions here]." You don't have to make it accusatory at all! Just play a go-with-the-flow stupid guy! When you get a response saying, "Violate all 10 of their rights in the Bill of Rights, even if you have to buy them a house and grant them statehood to do it!" Well you, Mr. Whistleblower, are golden. Or if you don't get a response, you ask over and over and over again, and you present the evidence that you at least asked. If you want to be a real whistleblower, that's the legwork you have to put in. Yeah, I'm pretty confident in my earlier assessment that you're talking out of your arse here. "Why not just discretely express your doubts in a roundabout way to the NSA, even though you already have the documents showing that they're violating the constitution. Those folks at the NSA are notoriously slow, after all." This "real whistleblower" shit you're demanding is absurd. He already had proof that they were acting illegally, proof which he already gave you. Returning to the chief of police planting evidence example, if you already have the memo, that's enough. Snowden didn't need to exhaust all possible internal options to quietly express dissatisfaction with the illegality before revealing the illegality to the public. Quite the opposite, that would be referred to as a coverup. He immediately took the unconstitutional actions to the highest authority he believed in, the American people.
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United States43203 Posts
On April 04 2018 12:43 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:34 Aquanim wrote:
EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected.
For reference, my position is that Snowden started out trying to do the right thing by the public, which I would not precisely classify as "patriotism". I don't know whether that is where he ended up. I don't feel obliged to believe that Russia offered him effective asylum out of the goodness of their hearts. Whatever are you talking about?! Putin's Russia is well known as a staunch guardian of civil liberties and free and fair elections!!! The FSB and GRU are not the kind of evil Gestapo organizations that would say "Tell the code to unlock the drive with 1.5 million Top Secret documents or we'll break your fingers one by one."
Which is why no sane individual would ever take such a drive to Russia.
It's precisely because Russian intelligence would have no qualms about torturing him that makes the idea that he would put himself in Russian hands with anything of value to them so silly.
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On April 04 2018 12:49 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:43 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 Aquanim wrote:
EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected.
For reference, my position is that Snowden started out trying to do the right thing by the public, which I would not precisely classify as "patriotism". I don't know whether that is where he ended up. I don't feel obliged to believe that Russia offered him effective asylum out of the goodness of their hearts. Whatever are you talking about?! Putin's Russia is well known as a staunch guardian of civil liberties and free and fair elections!!! The FSB and GRU are not the kind of evil Gestapo organizations that would say "Tell the code to unlock the drive with 1.5 million Top Secret documents or we'll break your fingers one by one." Which is why no sane individual would ever take such a drive to Russia. It's precisely because Russian intelligence would have no qualms about torturing him that makes the idea that he would put himself in Russian hands with anything of value to them so silly.
Unless, of course, he gave them whatever was valuable. Which kind of makes your argument completely moot.
EDIT: In fact it kind of works the other way too - if he didn't give them anything valuable, what's to stop them torturing him to find out whether he has anything up his sleeve?
Why do you think Russia protects Snowden? I'll grant you that "being an ongoing embarassment to the US" isn't completely implausible.
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United States43203 Posts
Also if he was a Russian agent (which is an insane theory but whatever) wouldn't he have just gotten on a plane to Moscow and quietly defected? He wouldn't need to wait for the NSA to do some unconstitutional shit, he could just take the files and go. Why would his handlers tell him to stick it out, wait until he gets evidence of the NSA breaking into US data centers to spy on domestic communications, then blow the whistle on all that shit, then fly to Hong Kong, meet up with a bunch of journalists, film a brief documentary, then fly to Moscow, then negotiate with Moscow for a month while they work out he left all the files with the journalists, then wait for some of the journalists to release too much information, allowing some of it to get into Russian hands?
Is he just really bad at this spying thing? How exactly does the Ivan Snowdenovich theory work?
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On April 04 2018 12:47 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:40 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:27 TheLordofAwesome wrote:
He should have at the very least had a box of his own emails he sent off raising concerns about domestic spying. Even if they all disappeared into a black hole en route to other inboxes, he NEEDED to prove he sent them. That's evidence 101. When you are making accusations like "top US spy agency has totally broken internal oversight mechanism," the minimum you must prove is that you actually raised your concerns with said oversight.... He provided literally no such proof. the ONLY evidence that we have that Snowden sent any emails or letters or talked to anyone about "NSA is literally a panopticon" is his word. NSA says it has no such records, and Snowden has provided ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE for his claim. That's my point. I don't know why you think that I think Snowden was firing off emails to the head of the NSA saying "I think what you're doing is illegal, please confirm". I don't think he sent any such emails. I don't think he's a complete idiot. Only a complete idiot would do that. That was my point about it being in the same box as the DuPont emails admitting to leaking toxic chemicals. It's also completely irrelevant. We know the NSA was acting without oversight, the leaks revealed that. What the head of the NSA might have hypothetically said in reply to that email is moot because we don't need a confession when we have the evidence of the crime. Imagine you're a policeman and get a memo from the chief of police ordering cops under his command to plant evidence on citizens. You don't need to emaiil the chief asking him if he knows that this is unconstitutional. The memo is itself enough to whistleblow. Of course you don't phrase it like that. You could say, "I just wanted some clarification what we're supposed to do if we encounter [insert situation that will trigger highly illegal actions here]." You don't have to make it accusatory at all! Just play a go-with-the-flow stupid guy! When you get a response saying, "Violate all 10 of their rights in the Bill of Rights, even if you have to buy them a house and grant them statehood to do it!" Well you, Mr. Whistleblower, are golden. Or if you don't get a response, you ask over and over and over again, and you present the evidence that you at least asked. If you want to be a real whistleblower, that's the legwork you have to put in. Yeah, I'm pretty confident in my earlier assessment that you're talking out of your arse here. "Why not just discretely express your doubts in a roundabout way to the NSA, even though you already have the documents showing that they're violating the constitution. Those folks at the NSA are notoriously slow, after all." This "real whistleblower" shit you're demanding is absurd. He already had proof that they were acting illegally, proof which he already gave you. Returning to the chief of police planting evidence example, if you already have the memo, that's enough. Snowden didn't need to exhaust all possible internal options to quietly express dissatisfaction with the illegality before revealing the illegality to the public. Quite the opposite, that would be referred to as a coverup. He immediately took the unconstitutional actions to the highest authority he believed in, the American people.
Snowden himself stated that the reason he went public was that he tried going through NSA internal oversight and got shut down really hard. That's why we're talking about the fact that he's provided literally zero evidence for this claim. We have only his word that this is true, when it would be really easy for him to have produced evidence for it. I did watch citizenfour, and there are serious holes in it.
Let's turn to some other holes in Mr. Snowden's story for the time being. What's up with the 30th birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong? Why'd he take and keep 1.5 million files in the first place, if he only gave the journalists a couple thousand max? Why did he flee to China and then Russia instead of coming back to US and making his case in court? Why did he keep the drive with the 1.5 million files on him when he went to Russia? (Contrary to what you claim, Team Snowden have contradicted themselves on that very important detail. They have said both that he had and did not have the docs with him in Russia.)
On April 04 2018 12:49 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:43 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 Aquanim wrote:
EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected.
For reference, my position is that Snowden started out trying to do the right thing by the public, which I would not precisely classify as "patriotism". I don't know whether that is where he ended up. I don't feel obliged to believe that Russia offered him effective asylum out of the goodness of their hearts. Whatever are you talking about?! Putin's Russia is well known as a staunch guardian of civil liberties and free and fair elections!!! The FSB and GRU are not the kind of evil Gestapo organizations that would say "Tell the code to unlock the drive with 1.5 million Top Secret documents or we'll break your fingers one by one." Which is why no sane individual would ever take such a drive to Russia. It's precisely because Russian intelligence would have no qualms about torturing him that makes the idea that he would put himself in Russian hands with anything of value to them so silly.
Of course, you are assuming that he is in fact a whistleblower and not a defector to Russia.
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United States43203 Posts
On April 04 2018 12:53 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:49 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:43 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 Aquanim wrote:
EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected.
For reference, my position is that Snowden started out trying to do the right thing by the public, which I would not precisely classify as "patriotism". I don't know whether that is where he ended up. I don't feel obliged to believe that Russia offered him effective asylum out of the goodness of their hearts. Whatever are you talking about?! Putin's Russia is well known as a staunch guardian of civil liberties and free and fair elections!!! The FSB and GRU are not the kind of evil Gestapo organizations that would say "Tell the code to unlock the drive with 1.5 million Top Secret documents or we'll break your fingers one by one." Which is why no sane individual would ever take such a drive to Russia. It's precisely because Russian intelligence would have no qualms about torturing him that makes the idea that he would put himself in Russian hands with anything of value to them so silly. Unless, of course, he gave them whatever was valuable. Which kind of makes your argument completely moot. EDIT: In fact it kind of works the other way too - if he didn't give them anything valuable, what's to stop them torturing him to find out whether he has anything up his sleeve? Why do you think Russia protects Snowden? I'll grant you that "being an ongoing embarassment to the US" isn't completely implausible.
Ongoing embarrassment to the US is my theory.
A big part of Putin's political foundation is that western democracy is fundamentally hollow and bankrupt. He's working in an environment built on post-Soviet cynicism. The Russian people aren't going to suddenly believe that their leaders aren't corrupt, nor that the newspapers are telling the truth. Putin's trick has been not to try and convince them otherwise but rather to do the opposite and double down on their existing cynicism. Rather than tell them that his dictatorship is just as good as the west he tells them that the west is just as bad as his dictatorship. That sure, the oligarchs may be corrupt, but everywhere is corrupt. The Russian judicial system may be a joke, but the US constitution isn't worth shit either. Snowden is a useful reminder of that for Putin.
If you watch citizenfour, much of which was filmed during Snowden's first days in Hong Kong with Greenwald, you'll see him deliberately surrender all access to the files for precisely the reason I have stated. This was before he ended up stranded in a Moscow airport. And to be frank, I think that's the only safe way to do it. If you retain anything to give them then they'll never believe that that's all you had. Absolute and public deniability is the only way to protect yourself and your family.
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United States43203 Posts
Snowden has addressed the idea of making his case for whistleblowing in court countless times. You keep insisting that he'd be able to defend himself based on his patriotic motives and the illegality of the NSA programs he exposed. It's a fantasy. Snowden is guilty under the Espionage Act. Why he did it isn't ever going to come up in that court room. Whistleblowing is not a valid defence, that trial will start and end with the sentencing. Snowden is not required to spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement to make you feel better.
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On April 04 2018 10:12 KwarK wrote:
He also deliberately refused to be the arbiter of what was released out of a fear that by acting as a gatekeeper he would inadvertently politicize what was released. He believed that the material was too important to be entrusted to anyone, even himself.
This is factually incorrect, at least if we're to trust the Wikipedia page. There's a quote from Snowden saying he personally reviewed every single document given to journalists in order to screen the documents he was giving out.
I'm not too sure if he's a foreign agent myself, but I certainly wouldn't discount the possibility that in order to get out of Hong Kong, he cut some deals. What I do know is that the method he used was overinclusive, and apparently it resulted in Russian and Chinese intelligence getting access to the documents, which is a severe blow to US national security. I'm not convinced that Snowden needed to download 1.5 million documents in order for him to personally review (as he claims) a very small portion before handing the ones he reviewed over to journalists. It seems that if his idea was to personally review, he could have retrieved documents in a much more targeted manner and still provided proof of what the NSA was doing. I'm not convinced he needed to download 1 million+, which he could never hope to review.
At best, Snowden had admirable motivations and did blow the whistle on very important matters, but the method he chose unnecessarily resulted in great damage to US national security.
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United States43203 Posts
On April 04 2018 13:01 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:47 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:40 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:27 TheLordofAwesome wrote:
He should have at the very least had a box of his own emails he sent off raising concerns about domestic spying. Even if they all disappeared into a black hole en route to other inboxes, he NEEDED to prove he sent them. That's evidence 101. When you are making accusations like "top US spy agency has totally broken internal oversight mechanism," the minimum you must prove is that you actually raised your concerns with said oversight.... He provided literally no such proof. the ONLY evidence that we have that Snowden sent any emails or letters or talked to anyone about "NSA is literally a panopticon" is his word. NSA says it has no such records, and Snowden has provided ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE for his claim. That's my point. I don't know why you think that I think Snowden was firing off emails to the head of the NSA saying "I think what you're doing is illegal, please confirm". I don't think he sent any such emails. I don't think he's a complete idiot. Only a complete idiot would do that. That was my point about it being in the same box as the DuPont emails admitting to leaking toxic chemicals. It's also completely irrelevant. We know the NSA was acting without oversight, the leaks revealed that. What the head of the NSA might have hypothetically said in reply to that email is moot because we don't need a confession when we have the evidence of the crime. Imagine you're a policeman and get a memo from the chief of police ordering cops under his command to plant evidence on citizens. You don't need to emaiil the chief asking him if he knows that this is unconstitutional. The memo is itself enough to whistleblow. Of course you don't phrase it like that. You could say, "I just wanted some clarification what we're supposed to do if we encounter [insert situation that will trigger highly illegal actions here]." You don't have to make it accusatory at all! Just play a go-with-the-flow stupid guy! When you get a response saying, "Violate all 10 of their rights in the Bill of Rights, even if you have to buy them a house and grant them statehood to do it!" Well you, Mr. Whistleblower, are golden. Or if you don't get a response, you ask over and over and over again, and you present the evidence that you at least asked. If you want to be a real whistleblower, that's the legwork you have to put in. Yeah, I'm pretty confident in my earlier assessment that you're talking out of your arse here. "Why not just discretely express your doubts in a roundabout way to the NSA, even though you already have the documents showing that they're violating the constitution. Those folks at the NSA are notoriously slow, after all." This "real whistleblower" shit you're demanding is absurd. He already had proof that they were acting illegally, proof which he already gave you. Returning to the chief of police planting evidence example, if you already have the memo, that's enough. Snowden didn't need to exhaust all possible internal options to quietly express dissatisfaction with the illegality before revealing the illegality to the public. Quite the opposite, that would be referred to as a coverup. He immediately took the unconstitutional actions to the highest authority he believed in, the American people. Snowden himself stated that the reason he went public was that he tried going through NSA internal oversight and got shut down really hard. That's why we're talking about the fact that he's provided literally zero evidence for this claim. We have only his word that this is true, when it would be really easy for him to have produced evidence for it. I did watch citizenfour, and there are serious holes in it. Let's turn to some other holes in Mr. Snowden's story for the time being. What's up with the 30th birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong? Why'd he take and keep 1.5 million files in the first place, if he only gave the journalists a couple thousand max? Why did he flee to China and then Russia instead of coming back to US and making his case in court? Why did he keep the drive with the 1.5 million files on him when he went to Russia? (Contrary to what you claim, Team Snowden have contradicted themselves on that very important detail. They have said both that he had and did not have the docs with him in Russia.) Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:49 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:43 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 Aquanim wrote:
EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected.
For reference, my position is that Snowden started out trying to do the right thing by the public, which I would not precisely classify as "patriotism". I don't know whether that is where he ended up. I don't feel obliged to believe that Russia offered him effective asylum out of the goodness of their hearts. Whatever are you talking about?! Putin's Russia is well known as a staunch guardian of civil liberties and free and fair elections!!! The FSB and GRU are not the kind of evil Gestapo organizations that would say "Tell the code to unlock the drive with 1.5 million Top Secret documents or we'll break your fingers one by one." Which is why no sane individual would ever take such a drive to Russia. It's precisely because Russian intelligence would have no qualms about torturing him that makes the idea that he would put himself in Russian hands with anything of value to them so silly. Of course, you are assuming that he is in fact a whistleblower and not a defector to Russia.
He literally revealed that the organization he worked for was breaking the law. The assumption that he is a whistleblower is pretty fucking solid. The very most you could argue is that he was a Russian spy who decided to whistleblow on the NSA on the way out. But he definitely whistleblew on the NSA. That definitely happened. It was pretty big news at the time. You'd have heard about it.
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On April 04 2018 13:03 KwarK wrote:... And to be frank, I think that's the only safe way to do it. If you retain anything to give them then they'll never believe that that's all you had. Absolute and public deniability is the only way to protect yourself and your family.
I wouldn't count on the Russians believing that whether you give them anything or not, and in that case you might as well get what mileage you can out of gratitude (and Russia wanting to trade on a reputation for not horribly mistreating people who give them things they want).
I'll take your word for what is portrayed in the documentary, but then again if Snowden had sold secrets to Russia for his safety (or whatever) I would hardly expect there to be any evidence of it in said documentary.
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Guess who was trying to downspin the odds that Russia hacked the DNC? I wonder if he will update this position now that we know GRU/FSB was behind the DNC hacks.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On April 04 2018 12:57 KwarK wrote:
Also if he was a Russian agent (which is an insane theory but whatever) wouldn't he have just gotten on a plane to Moscow and quietly defected? He wouldn't need to wait for the NSA to do some unconstitutional shit, he could just take the files and go. Why would his handlers tell him to stick it out, wait until he gets evidence of the NSA breaking into US data centers to spy on domestic communications, then blow the whistle on all that shit, then fly to Hong Kong, meet up with a bunch of journalists, film a brief documentary, then fly to Moscow, then negotiate with Moscow for a month while they work out he left all the files with the journalists, then wait for some of the journalists to release too much information, allowing some of it to get into Russian hands?
Is he just really bad at this spying thing? How exactly does the Ivan Snowdenovich theory work?
During the Cold War, the KGB designated NSA as their most high value target in the entire world. Why? Because the Anglo-American intel alliance depends on SIGINT above all other intel sources and NSA is the best in the world at gathering SIGINT. The KGB and GRU didn't die with the USSR, to say the least. Breaching NSA allows the Russians to keep their communications safe from it while potentially helping read US traffic as well.
The publicized nature of the Snowden Operation has been the largest PR disaster for NSA in the history of the agency. You don't see what the Russians gain from that??? The publication of those selected documents from Snowden's 1.5 million stash seriously damaged NSA. Team Snowden claims to be anti-secrecy but really they are anti-Western secrecy. Greenwald, Poitras, Snowden, Appelbaum, and Assange seem to desire nothing less than the destruction of all Western spy agencies. (They never seem to mention that those agencies exist mostly due to Soviet and Chinese spy agencies penetration of Western governments and universities.)
Also, look at Greenwald and Assange today. They were both deeply involved with Snowden (Greenwald especially). Assange and Wikileaks are blatant Russian cutouts used to launder hacked info like Podesta's emails. Greenwald is busy screaming on Tucker Carlson's show about the fakeness of the Mueller investigation, the innocence of Donald Trump, and the unconstitutional behavior of the "Deep State." They sure seem very aligned with Russia these days.
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United States43203 Posts
On April 04 2018 13:16 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 12:57 KwarK wrote:
Also if he was a Russian agent (which is an insane theory but whatever) wouldn't he have just gotten on a plane to Moscow and quietly defected? He wouldn't need to wait for the NSA to do some unconstitutional shit, he could just take the files and go. Why would his handlers tell him to stick it out, wait until he gets evidence of the NSA breaking into US data centers to spy on domestic communications, then blow the whistle on all that shit, then fly to Hong Kong, meet up with a bunch of journalists, film a brief documentary, then fly to Moscow, then negotiate with Moscow for a month while they work out he left all the files with the journalists, then wait for some of the journalists to release too much information, allowing some of it to get into Russian hands?
Is he just really bad at this spying thing? How exactly does the Ivan Snowdenovich theory work? During the Cold War, the KGB designated NSA as their most high value target in the entire world. Why? Because the Anglo-American intel alliance depends on SIGINT above all other intel sources and NSA is the best in the world at gathering SIGINT. The KGB and GRU didn't die with the USSR, to say the least. Breaching NSA allows the Russians to keep their communications safe from it while potentially helping read US traffic as well. The publicized nature of the Snowden Operation has been the largest PR disaster for NSA in the history of the agency. You don't see what the Russians gain from that??? The publication of those selected documents from Snowden's 1.5 million stash seriously damaged NSA. Team Snowden claims to be anti-secrecy but really they are anti-Western secrecy. Greenwald, Poitras, Snowden, Appelbaum, and Assange seem to desire nothing less than the destruction of all Western spy agencies. (They never seem to mention that those agencies exist mostly due to Soviet and Chinese spy agencies penetration of Western governments and universities.) Also, look at Greenwald and Assange today. They were both deeply involved with Snowden (Greenwald especially). Assange and Wikileaks are blatant Russian cutouts used to launder hacked info like Podesta's emails. Greenwald is busy screaming on Tucker Carlson's show about the fakeness of the Mueller investigation, the innocence of Donald Trump, and the unconstitutional behavior of the "Deep State." They sure seem very aligned with Russia these days.
I can see why the NSA getting outed as doing illegal shit would be good for literally everyone not the NSA, in a zero sum game way.
I don't have much sympathy for them though. The easiest way to not get your illegal domestic spying operation exposed is to not run an illegal domestic spying operation.
Snowden's revelations were true. The illegal and unconstitutional shit he revealed was illegal and unconstitutional. He didn't damage the NSA, the NSA damaged the NSA. All he did was air the shit they were doing.
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Speaking of cutouts, I always like how the Anti-War cutouts find ways to support Bashar al Assad (Putin's last Baathist). Here a few of my favorites. It is just so strange how the anti-war crowd keeps finding ways of opposing all USA foreign policy abroad and all USA foreign policy institutions (NSA, CIA, DOD, State), yet makes a little space in hearts for Bashar al Assad. Greenwald is at least smart enough to not say the word Syria out loud (plenty about Yemen though!). Assange is dumb enough to use the 'regime change' key word to defend Assad.
Stein also has staked out a rather extreme position on Syria, actually calling for the United States to help Assad reassert power. But that call seemed to suddenly disappear from her website Wednesday after reporters spotlighted it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/06/the-one-issue-that-shows-exactly-why-gary-johnson-and-jill-stein-havent-caught-on/?utm_term=.26652bbe4362
WASHINGTON, D. C. - Former Cleveland congressman Dennis Kucinich met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad this week on a trip to the war-torn land with Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard that was funded by a Cleveland organization.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/01/former_rep_dennis_kucinich_aga.html
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On April 04 2018 13:13 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 13:01 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:47 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:40 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:27 TheLordofAwesome wrote:
He should have at the very least had a box of his own emails he sent off raising concerns about domestic spying. Even if they all disappeared into a black hole en route to other inboxes, he NEEDED to prove he sent them. That's evidence 101. When you are making accusations like "top US spy agency has totally broken internal oversight mechanism," the minimum you must prove is that you actually raised your concerns with said oversight.... He provided literally no such proof. the ONLY evidence that we have that Snowden sent any emails or letters or talked to anyone about "NSA is literally a panopticon" is his word. NSA says it has no such records, and Snowden has provided ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE for his claim. That's my point. I don't know why you think that I think Snowden was firing off emails to the head of the NSA saying "I think what you're doing is illegal, please confirm". I don't think he sent any such emails. I don't think he's a complete idiot. Only a complete idiot would do that. That was my point about it being in the same box as the DuPont emails admitting to leaking toxic chemicals. It's also completely irrelevant. We know the NSA was acting without oversight, the leaks revealed that. What the head of the NSA might have hypothetically said in reply to that email is moot because we don't need a confession when we have the evidence of the crime. Imagine you're a policeman and get a memo from the chief of police ordering cops under his command to plant evidence on citizens. You don't need to emaiil the chief asking him if he knows that this is unconstitutional. The memo is itself enough to whistleblow. Of course you don't phrase it like that. You could say, "I just wanted some clarification what we're supposed to do if we encounter [insert situation that will trigger highly illegal actions here]." You don't have to make it accusatory at all! Just play a go-with-the-flow stupid guy! When you get a response saying, "Violate all 10 of their rights in the Bill of Rights, even if you have to buy them a house and grant them statehood to do it!" Well you, Mr. Whistleblower, are golden. Or if you don't get a response, you ask over and over and over again, and you present the evidence that you at least asked. If you want to be a real whistleblower, that's the legwork you have to put in. Yeah, I'm pretty confident in my earlier assessment that you're talking out of your arse here. "Why not just discretely express your doubts in a roundabout way to the NSA, even though you already have the documents showing that they're violating the constitution. Those folks at the NSA are notoriously slow, after all." This "real whistleblower" shit you're demanding is absurd. He already had proof that they were acting illegally, proof which he already gave you. Returning to the chief of police planting evidence example, if you already have the memo, that's enough. Snowden didn't need to exhaust all possible internal options to quietly express dissatisfaction with the illegality before revealing the illegality to the public. Quite the opposite, that would be referred to as a coverup. He immediately took the unconstitutional actions to the highest authority he believed in, the American people. Snowden himself stated that the reason he went public was that he tried going through NSA internal oversight and got shut down really hard. That's why we're talking about the fact that he's provided literally zero evidence for this claim. We have only his word that this is true, when it would be really easy for him to have produced evidence for it. I did watch citizenfour, and there are serious holes in it. Let's turn to some other holes in Mr. Snowden's story for the time being. What's up with the 30th birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong? Why'd he take and keep 1.5 million files in the first place, if he only gave the journalists a couple thousand max? Why did he flee to China and then Russia instead of coming back to US and making his case in court? Why did he keep the drive with the 1.5 million files on him when he went to Russia? (Contrary to what you claim, Team Snowden have contradicted themselves on that very important detail. They have said both that he had and did not have the docs with him in Russia.) On April 04 2018 12:49 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:43 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 Aquanim wrote:
EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected.
For reference, my position is that Snowden started out trying to do the right thing by the public, which I would not precisely classify as "patriotism". I don't know whether that is where he ended up. I don't feel obliged to believe that Russia offered him effective asylum out of the goodness of their hearts. Whatever are you talking about?! Putin's Russia is well known as a staunch guardian of civil liberties and free and fair elections!!! The FSB and GRU are not the kind of evil Gestapo organizations that would say "Tell the code to unlock the drive with 1.5 million Top Secret documents or we'll break your fingers one by one." Which is why no sane individual would ever take such a drive to Russia. It's precisely because Russian intelligence would have no qualms about torturing him that makes the idea that he would put himself in Russian hands with anything of value to them so silly. Of course, you are assuming that he is in fact a whistleblower and not a defector to Russia. He literally revealed that the organization he worked for was breaking the law. The assumption that he is a whistleblower is pretty fucking solid. The very most you could argue is that he was a Russian spy who decided to whistleblow on the NSA on the way out. But he definitely whistleblew on the NSA. That definitely happened. It was pretty big news at the time. You'd have heard about it.
My point was that if he was also a defector to Russia, in addition to being a very public "patriotic whistleblower," he'd have an excellent reason to take the drive to Russia and the Russians wouldn't need to torture him for the passcode to the drive.
Could you please answer the rest of my post? (quoted here for convenience)
Snowden himself stated that the reason he went public was that he tried going through NSA internal oversight and got shut down really hard. That's why we're talking about the fact that he's provided literally zero evidence for this claim. We have only his word that this is true, when it would be really easy for him to have produced evidence for it. I did watch citizenfour, and there are serious holes in it.
Let's turn to some other holes in Mr. Snowden's story for the time being. What's up with the 30th birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong? Why'd he take and keep 1.5 million files in the first place, if he only gave the journalists a couple thousand max? Why did he flee to China and then Russia instead of coming back to US and making his case in court? Why did he keep the drive with the 1.5 million files on him when he went to Russia? (Contrary to what you claim, Team Snowden have contradicted themselves on that very important detail. They have said both that he had and did not have the docs with him in Russia.)
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United States43203 Posts
I don't think you need much of a conspiracy to explain why western anti-war activists pick the wars the west is involved in to protest. It wouldn't make much sense for an American to protest against his government over a war his nation wasn't involved in. That'd be like going to Walmart to protest abortion. They protest against their own government's foreign policy for the same reason that they complain about the potholes on the roads that they drive on.
Also wouldn't the Russian anti-west conspiracy want US military adventurism to continue? Iraq has done more damage to US prestige, influence, and power projection than the Russian military could have. Why would the conspiracy want the US to cease wasting blood and treasure abroad?
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United States43203 Posts
On April 04 2018 13:30 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 13:13 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 13:01 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:47 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:40 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:27 TheLordofAwesome wrote:
He should have at the very least had a box of his own emails he sent off raising concerns about domestic spying. Even if they all disappeared into a black hole en route to other inboxes, he NEEDED to prove he sent them. That's evidence 101. When you are making accusations like "top US spy agency has totally broken internal oversight mechanism," the minimum you must prove is that you actually raised your concerns with said oversight.... He provided literally no such proof. the ONLY evidence that we have that Snowden sent any emails or letters or talked to anyone about "NSA is literally a panopticon" is his word. NSA says it has no such records, and Snowden has provided ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE for his claim. That's my point. I don't know why you think that I think Snowden was firing off emails to the head of the NSA saying "I think what you're doing is illegal, please confirm". I don't think he sent any such emails. I don't think he's a complete idiot. Only a complete idiot would do that. That was my point about it being in the same box as the DuPont emails admitting to leaking toxic chemicals. It's also completely irrelevant. We know the NSA was acting without oversight, the leaks revealed that. What the head of the NSA might have hypothetically said in reply to that email is moot because we don't need a confession when we have the evidence of the crime. Imagine you're a policeman and get a memo from the chief of police ordering cops under his command to plant evidence on citizens. You don't need to emaiil the chief asking him if he knows that this is unconstitutional. The memo is itself enough to whistleblow. Of course you don't phrase it like that. You could say, "I just wanted some clarification what we're supposed to do if we encounter [insert situation that will trigger highly illegal actions here]." You don't have to make it accusatory at all! Just play a go-with-the-flow stupid guy! When you get a response saying, "Violate all 10 of their rights in the Bill of Rights, even if you have to buy them a house and grant them statehood to do it!" Well you, Mr. Whistleblower, are golden. Or if you don't get a response, you ask over and over and over again, and you present the evidence that you at least asked. If you want to be a real whistleblower, that's the legwork you have to put in. Yeah, I'm pretty confident in my earlier assessment that you're talking out of your arse here. "Why not just discretely express your doubts in a roundabout way to the NSA, even though you already have the documents showing that they're violating the constitution. Those folks at the NSA are notoriously slow, after all." This "real whistleblower" shit you're demanding is absurd. He already had proof that they were acting illegally, proof which he already gave you. Returning to the chief of police planting evidence example, if you already have the memo, that's enough. Snowden didn't need to exhaust all possible internal options to quietly express dissatisfaction with the illegality before revealing the illegality to the public. Quite the opposite, that would be referred to as a coverup. He immediately took the unconstitutional actions to the highest authority he believed in, the American people. Snowden himself stated that the reason he went public was that he tried going through NSA internal oversight and got shut down really hard. That's why we're talking about the fact that he's provided literally zero evidence for this claim. We have only his word that this is true, when it would be really easy for him to have produced evidence for it. I did watch citizenfour, and there are serious holes in it. Let's turn to some other holes in Mr. Snowden's story for the time being. What's up with the 30th birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong? Why'd he take and keep 1.5 million files in the first place, if he only gave the journalists a couple thousand max? Why did he flee to China and then Russia instead of coming back to US and making his case in court? Why did he keep the drive with the 1.5 million files on him when he went to Russia? (Contrary to what you claim, Team Snowden have contradicted themselves on that very important detail. They have said both that he had and did not have the docs with him in Russia.) On April 04 2018 12:49 KwarK wrote:On April 04 2018 12:43 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On April 04 2018 12:34 Aquanim wrote:
EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected.
For reference, my position is that Snowden started out trying to do the right thing by the public, which I would not precisely classify as "patriotism". I don't know whether that is where he ended up. I don't feel obliged to believe that Russia offered him effective asylum out of the goodness of their hearts. Whatever are you talking about?! Putin's Russia is well known as a staunch guardian of civil liberties and free and fair elections!!! The FSB and GRU are not the kind of evil Gestapo organizations that would say "Tell the code to unlock the drive with 1.5 million Top Secret documents or we'll break your fingers one by one." Which is why no sane individual would ever take such a drive to Russia. It's precisely because Russian intelligence would have no qualms about torturing him that makes the idea that he would put himself in Russian hands with anything of value to them so silly. Of course, you are assuming that he is in fact a whistleblower and not a defector to Russia. He literally revealed that the organization he worked for was breaking the law. The assumption that he is a whistleblower is pretty fucking solid. The very most you could argue is that he was a Russian spy who decided to whistleblow on the NSA on the way out. But he definitely whistleblew on the NSA. That definitely happened. It was pretty big news at the time. You'd have heard about it. My point was that if he was also a defector to Russia, in addition to being a very public "patriotic whistleblower," he'd have an excellent reason to take the drive to Russia and the Russians wouldn't need to torture him for the passcode to the drive. Could you please answer the rest of my post? (quoted here for convenience) Show nested quote +Snowden himself stated that the reason he went public was that he tried going through NSA internal oversight and got shut down really hard. That's why we're talking about the fact that he's provided literally zero evidence for this claim. We have only his word that this is true, when it would be really easy for him to have produced evidence for it. I did watch citizenfour, and there are serious holes in it.
Let's turn to some other holes in Mr. Snowden's story for the time being. What's up with the 30th birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong? Why'd he take and keep 1.5 million files in the first place, if he only gave the journalists a couple thousand max? Why did he flee to China and then Russia instead of coming back to US and making his case in court? Why did he keep the drive with the 1.5 million files on him when he went to Russia? (Contrary to what you claim, Team Snowden have contradicted themselves on that very important detail. They have said both that he had and did not have the docs with him in Russia.)
I've addressed the making his case in court countless times. It's a fantasy. The claim that he took the drive to Russia is also disputed by him.
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EPT
