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Comment by BoringCode | Hacker News Reader

It's also entirely possible that unicorns are real.

I really don't think it's an unreasonable possibility. It's a known fact Snowden worked for CIA and even received deep cover training while working in Geneva. Much of his behavior is not that of a hapless IT admin, but someone well trained in HUMINT operations.

He comes from a multigenerational military family. That's the kind of background that breeds strong loyalty to the state, and the exact kind of background from which the CIA recruits its top spies.

I find it almost implausible that someone with that kind of loyalty would suddenly resign from the CIA after they invested so much in him, only to jump ship to a private contractor. If his reasons for leaving the CIA were purely moral, why would a private contractor ameliorate any of those concerns? It seems more likely the CIA sent him to Booz Allen.

But hey, it's all a big conspiracy right? Don't believe anything you read on the Internet, except what Ed Snowden tells you.

The kind of person with a deep loyalty to the S̶t̶a̶t̶e̶ constitution actually sounds like the kind of person who may try and sunlight what they perceive as an unconstitutional system. Especially if they feel they will be remembered as a patriot for it.

Besides, the private sector pays a lot better than the CIA, and nobody is free from the gravitas of wealth.

It's just as likely he was operating on direct orders from the president himself because he feared the power of the NSA and needed the public against it!

That's the thing about conspiracies, when there is no proof or reasonable cause you're free to just make up whatever you want.

Remember when it was a conspiracy theory that the NSA was reading all your emails?

People in the IC often "jump ship" to private contractors. Be it for better pay, hours, or whatever. I don't find it hard to believe that Snowden would go to a private contractor. No conspiracy there.

Would the CIA willingly do so much damage to the US? Surely there are other ways to sabotage the NSA instead of doing something as high profile as leaking NSA documents to the public. Besides, I think leaking classified documents of other intelligence agencies is something no agency does, because an escalation of this sort would be disastrous for both agencies involved.

Has he really done that much damage? People are more afraid of the NSA than ever. One could argue that's exactly what they wanted.

I don't think the majority of people in the US are afraid, but aware.

Last thing CIA would do is reveal them. All leverage is lost. They would instead hold them hostage.

Who knows, in today's political climates, anything and everything will be done

But while the above possibility is merely unlikely, this possibility is logically impossible (using the definition of unicorn from philosophy). Quite a difference.

Both are absurd points to make. Just because something is theoretically possible in some version of the universe doesn't mean it's worth discussing without any real evidence. Tinfoil hat or not.

Don't get our hopes up.

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