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Comment by karmacondon | Hacker News Reader

The US government isn't going to kidnap Edward Snowden at any point. He's too high profile and the press would eventually find out. And I don't think Putin will let him leave Russia unless it would hurt the US in some way. If Snowden really wants to leave, he can probably leave. But the Russian government won't make it easy for him.

Snowden should just come home and face the music. He'll probably get a pro bono all-star legal team and have 50/50 odds with a jury of his peers. With sufficient lawyering he could probably get away with five years at worst, and then go back to life in America as even more of a hero.

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> ...face the music.

I've never heard that phrase used but to describe the consequences of a malevolent action. I'm interested to hear a rational explanation for why anyone would think that Snowden's whistleblowing was anything but altruistic. Some may say that the good intentions were misguided, but again - I've never heard the phrase used that way. The man wearing full plate armor, while trying to save a horse caught in a flash flood, ended up facing the music and drowning... doesn't sound right does it?

> ...50/50 odds...

You must have very little regard for your own freedom if you don't see that as being super bad advice to give.

Facing the music.

I think the expression has something to do with "Paying the piper" who of course plays music.

I like it.

But I don't think that Snowden should indeed face it.

Well that answers my question about rationale, proponents for the music option are immediately distracted with the thought of a man in green tights dancing around with a pan flute. Oh and if I remember the story correctly, the piper was unpaid for ridding the city of rats - so he drowned all the children. So who are the rats, children and murderous flautist in the current context?

>I've never heard that phrase used but to describe the consequences of a malevolent action.

It also applies to the consequences of reckless or negligent behavior.

Of course, "facing the music" would pretty much guarantee a life sentenced served at ADX Florence, so he'd be insane to even try it.

>I'm interested to hear a rational explanation for why anyone would think that Snowden's whistleblowing was anything but altruistic.

It could very well be narcissism masquerading as altruism. There's a small chance he's even been been working for a foreign intelligence agency the entire time.

Regardless of his intentions or motivations, the end result was massive damage to U.S. foreign policy.

Snowden facilitated the release of classified methods, capabilities and operations that fell squarely under the NSA's charter of gathering foreign intelligence. A significant portion of the operational details released didn't even relate to operations within other western democracies, but to nations or groups with questionable human rights records.

While Snowden's actions did spark a large media frenzy and subsequent debate—if only because of the dramatic circumstances surrounding the leaks, and the fact he had document proof—the revelations themselves were largely nothing new.

Numerous highly credible whistleblowers (e.g. Binney, Tice) had been advancing far more shocking revelations related to domestic wiretapping for approximately a decade prior. Despite having their careers ruined and weathering some even nastier retaliation attempts, they're still free today.

First: thanks for answering the actual question.

> It also applies to the consequences of reckless or negligent behavior.

It does, but is rarely used that way. The man wearing a sausage link necklace went on a nature walk and faced the music when bears showed up. I'm just pointing out that the phrase is heavily biased to the point of being a dog whistle.

> It could very well be narcissism masquerading as altruism.

While possible, it is very unlikely that such a trait would manifest at this point in his life. I see no evidence of it in what little I know about his history, and a narcissist would be busy filling that gap. Also, and I recognize the value of a stranger's personal experience, but in my experience: the background checks conducted for security clearance above secret (for military personnel) will filter a lot of narcissists out - as their story fails to match up when you go a hop beyond their provided references.

> There's a small chance he's even been been working for...

So small that it is as equally likely that he is a quadruple agent still acting under the orders of the USG.

> ...the end result was massive damage to U.S. foreign policy.

Eh, I'm not a fan of the original sin concept - but the USG might share some of the responsibility. As far as the classified methods - you are spot on with the observation of the fact that there was nothing new. There were two classes of people before the leak: those who knew that USG had the technical ability and the disposition for a global dragnet, and those who didn't. Aside from posturing (commercial and political) there has been no change, which means the leak of operational details has had no operational impact (likely because it was already well known). So the leak did no harm to the security apparatus, but served to inform those who did not understand the USG's disposition on the matter of domestic and foreign surveillance.

>It does, but is rarely used that way. The man wearing a sausage link necklace went on a nature walk and faced the music when bears showed up.

That assumes the man did not first violate the sausage factory's trust by breaking numerous agreements pertaining to sausage use.

>I'm just pointing out that the phrase is heavily biased to the point of being a dog whistle.

Agreed; I dislike the phrase as well. It however doesn't absolve Snowden of responsibility.

>I see no evidence of it in what little I know about his history, and a narcissist would be busy filling that gap.

My read is he's a bit self-aggrandizing and narcissistic at times. I'm not a professional, so that's only as good as any other lay person's assessment.

>So small that it is as equally likely that he is a quadruple agent still acting under the orders of the USG.

Or worse, the sausage factory.

In all seriousness though, I'd classify the chances of him being a foreign intelligence asset as low—but not low enough so as to be non-trivial.

>... which means the leak of operational details has had no operational impact (likely because it was already well known).

I wouldn't be so sure:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9508191

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M#t=20m39s (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver)

> That assumes the man did not first violate...

My point exactly - your brain skips right over reckless or accidental and goes straight to malice.

> ...doesn't absolve Snowden of responsibility.

Not my intent, just pointing out the use of the phrase betrayed a thinly veiled hope for some federal pound me in the ass prison time.

> ...foreign high-level leadership targets...

If you are referring to NATO allies, then I think the lack of actual response beyond grandstanding indicates that they were aware already.

> ...clandestine hardware implantation in transit...

This was already well known, supply chain security isn't a new concept. The consumers were the only ones surprised by this revelation.

> ...co-traveler inference as a method...

Funny you should mention this. Check drudge, where you'll find "Ex-CIA officer faces 'unprecedented' extradition..." [0] The Italian police used this technique to identify 22 individuals alleged to be part of a CIA snatch team, in 2005. [1] So not a big hit to lose a secret surveillance method that had been widely used by foreign governments for at least a decade prior to the leak.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ex-cia-officer-faces-ex... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Omar_case

>My point exactly - your brain skips right over reckless or accidental and goes straight to malice.

No, I was just trying to illustrate that the analogy is absurd given the context. Snowden was not unwitting and made explicit choices that had consequences, regardless of underlying motivation.

>Not my intent, just pointing out the use of the phrase betrayed a thinly veiled hope for some federal pound me in the ass prison time.

Agreed. Though, on the bright side the incidence of rape is probably nonexistent in a place like ADX Florence. You unfortunately just go crazy from solitary instead.

>This was already well known, supply chain security isn't a new concept. The consumers were the only ones surprised by this revelation.

Yeah, but it's still solid confirmation that a specific actor is doing a very specific thing—one which involved extremely sneaky custom hardware modifications with very fast turnaround times.

>The Italian police used this technique to identify 22 individuals alleged to be part of a CIA snatch team, in 2005.

This is actually apples and oranges. Cell phone surveillance has been around forever, and the Italians were leveraging the cellular networks in their own country at that.

What I'm referring to is automated co-traveler inference in foreign countries to protect friendly personnel. In other words, analyzing massive amounts of data in real-time to detect previously unknown persons based on movement alone. A prerequisite for doing that is first compromising the entire telecommunications network of whatever country you're operating in.

> This is actually apples and oranges.

You are making a distinction without a difference here. The ss7 network has been known to be broken forever, and all the carriers sell their customer's historical data - so the Italians could have applied the same technique anywhere in the world.

> ...automated co-traveler inference...

That is exactly what they did, only instead of protecting in real time they ran models after the fact. Real time would actual be easier, because instead of dealing with the carrier - you just poll the ss7 network. There is nothing novel about the tracking methods, the inference, or the combination of the two.

NSA's setup isn't simply SS7 though, and it's probably entirely passive at that.[0] They operate on an industrial scale and have every facet down to a science.

Granted, field operatives who carry active cellphones with them while conducting a tail are probably bad at their job to begin with, so you're probably right in that the damage isn't much.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/10...

Well it can't be entirely passive for time-sensitive/comprehensive monitoring, because telemetric data won't cross one of their numerous tap points unless the target is roaming or the target's carrier is being queried by a roaming partner (or partner of a partner of a...). I'm sure they've got taps inside of major carriers, but I doubt they're inside every network. Considering how regularly ss7 is abused for criminal/commercial activity, they may not have to do much active probing for intra-network monitoring - but the barrier to entry is so low that it would be silly for them not to front a carrier with direct access. I can accept the excuse that ss7 was designed for a world with a few trusted carriers, but the latest stuff (that isn't even backwards compatible) has the exact same class of security flaws. The only rational explanation for the obviously insecure standard defining LTE RRC connection setup (base station control, no mutual auth, no crypto, identifying info in the clear - often with lat/lon) is intentional design. So the argument that the leak had any operational impact sounds pretty silly to me, but I won't deny that it caused serious embarrassment to people who really don't take criticism well.

>I'm interested to hear a rational explanation for why anyone would think that Snowden's whistleblowing was anything but altruistic.

He divulged a lot of information about America's foreign intelligence operations as well. Spying on other countries is the original and core mission of the intelligence services. There's no question as to its legal legitimacy and he directly undermined it by revealing the nature and extent of our capabilities. It also caused serious diplomatic and political problems, with Germany for example.

That has nothing to do with his intent though, altruistic vs malevolent.

> There's no question as to its legal legitimacy...

Well maybe if you ignore the whole domestic surveillance part. There is also the moral and practical issue of intentionally weakening security infrastructure and standards.

> It also caused serious diplomatic and political problems, with Germany for example.

It didn't really look like a serious problem from within Germany. Our administration is as pro-US as before. We've stopped sharing some information, but I doubt that has caused the NSA much trouble.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany–United_States_relation...

The only thing that changed is that there's the NSA Untersuchungsausschuss, which is "investigating" the NSA spying affair.

It's pretty clear that the investigations will not yield anything we don't already know and will have no consequences on US-German relations. Our NATO membership alone is enough to make us avoid upsetting the US at all costs (just as we've been turning a blind eye on Turkey all this time).

You can't present a real defense in espionage cases. It's a question of whether you performed actions that qualify as espionage or not in court, motivation is not allowed to enter the equation. It's very likely he'd spend decades in solitary, a la Manning.

"he could probably get away with five years at worst"

For better or for worse, federal prison sentences do not work this way. There are sentencing guidelines, for one thing.

Chelsea Manning is serving a 35-year prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth; prosecutors asked for 60 years. Manning is eligible for parole after serving one-third (I recall) of that sentence.

> Snowden should just come home and face the music.

You're calling for a man's certain torture and possible death. What the hell is wrong with you.

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