Booz Allen fires leaker Snowden
money.cnn.com
money.cnn.com
It feels like some kind of desperate attempt to disparage him. As if someone hopes it will sound like he's a disgruntled former employee that was fired. Or that he was some low level hack of an employee.
And yet no one is disputing that he worked for our spy agencies for the better part of a decade, or that he had a job that would tend to give him significant access. No one is disputing anything he's said at all, as far as I can tell. This shit is irrelevant.
Maybe it'll show up in the next "Who's Hiring" thread here on HN. :-)
"Bill, have you seen the game last night? What, why is everyone looking at me? Do I have something stuck in my teeth again?"
A little known fact is that thousands of companies participate in this (including Booz Allen): http://www.theworknumber.com/Employees/index.asp
This is an Equifax-owned entity that may resell salary information and dates worked at a company.
It is possible that a reporter just bought the salary info, but in this case it does seem that Booz Allen plainly released it.
More info: http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16762661-exclusi...
Booz Allen can confirm that Edward Snowden, 29, was an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii. Snowden, who had a salary at the rate of $122,000, was terminated June 10, 2013 for violations of the firm’s code of ethics and firm policy. News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.
http://www.boozallen.com/media-center/press-releases/4839932...
Here is an earlier (original?) version of the same press release dated 6/9:
Booz Allen can confirm that Edward Snowden, 29, has been an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii. News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-09/booz-allen-promptly...
Edit: add press release text
Edit2: add original press release text
Does the FCRA allow an employee's data to be released (to non-FBI/NSA clients, natch) without the employee's consent?
Not desperate at all; the tactic is wildly successful. Just look at what happened with Wikileak's work with its editor Assange and source Manning. The same tactics will come up against the Guardian with journalist Greenwald and source Snowden. The situations are similar in enough ways.
I wish companies like Google and Microsoft asked for his amnesty. Would that even help?
The article that's linked half way through paints Booz Allen as a wonderful, benevolent employer that was gracious enough to hire someone without formal credentials (in this job climate, no less!). It's most certainly to bolster its reputation on Wall Street and also to make people think Snowden was an ungrateful chump for giving up such a cushy position.
I've seen it reported in other articles, but I didn't see mention in this article about him not finishing HS. Was this original article edited?
The risk that was taken was giving him a TS clearance at all. I don't agree with or like it, but the clearance process is supposed to eliminate people who don't like authority or the socially approved path. Somebody who drops out of high school despite being intelligent is clearly not someone who fits these criteria.
If so, I'd disagree with you, as many people use comedy as a means to make a point, political and otherwise. I think the success of Jon Stewart and Colbert point to the fact that valid points can be made with comedy.
While I don't think "comedic organizations" are (or should be) held to the same standard as journalistic ones, GP has a valid point about bias, even in comedic reporting.
Yes. Jon Stewart has scoffed, in more than one interview, at the notion that he be held to any standards whatsoever, other than the standard of being funny.
"a valid point about bias"
I respectfully disagree. I see nothing wrong with any sort or degree of bias from the Onion, Daily Show, or any other "comedic organization".
i've noticed a few outlets that are usually progressive have been leaning anti-Snowden, and I can't help but feel that it is because of a professional jealousy.
The fact that he donated money to Rand Paul was ignored, naturally.
Oddly enough, MSNBC was actually criticizing Obama, and running a story comparing him to George W. Bush.
Calling CNN partisan is absurd. They're not. They are biased, of course, but to their corporate sponsors.
Just thought I'd pop your factless bubble with an anecdote that completely destroys it. The "liberal media" bullshit is just that: bullshit. Journalists who are classically trained tend to be liberal because of their college background, but are tempered by both age and the "journalistic ethic" drilled in to them. "Conservative" media isn't really ideologically conservative. They instead play to an elderly reader/viewer base that hates change and resents a country that isn't as white, Christian or rural as it used to be. Hence the fact that John Boehner is on TV calling Snowden a traitor, while the ACTUAL Conservatives who have a true ideology call him a hero.
"So, they hire people that haven't even finished High School to take care of top secret information""
But since this is CNN and is not the official spin it's ignored
They are just further ruining any remaining reputation they have for being able to keep privileged data secret.
the lack of a degree makes his star shine even brighter for me.
It's called "character attack" to discredit the source. Same happened to Assange.
Imagine that you're an employee for the company with a degree and a decade of experience or even a shareholder. Now you read that your employer was paying some low-level contractor 200k/yr in Hawaii. As an exec at Booz Allen, why wouldn't you try to minimize your damage?
I'd like to see your source that states that a 30% annual bonus is typical.
Keep in mind that Booz Allen and the NSA are different entities. Booz Allen is (rationally) defending its own assets.
He claimed to be earning $200,000 in his statements to The Guardian — his intention, presumably, to emphasise the extent of the sacrifice he has made in releasing these documents.
A side-effect of that revelation is that Booz Allen Hamilton have been reported on in a decidedly unfavourable light, as the greedy contractors in cahoots with the US government to bleed the taxpayer dry.
Booz Allen Hamilton obviously want to counter that notion, so have produced a much lower, slightly more reasonable, figure for his salary.
As always, the truth probably lies somewhere in between. The figure Snowden gave is probably rounded up for simplicity, and the figure BAH provided is probably excluding parts of his compensation package.
This was probably true when you wrote it eight hours ago, but in the past hour someone who should know[0] was interviewed on NPR, and said that there is no way that Snowden had the abilities and access that he claimed in an interview. She strongly disputed his claim that he had been able to "wiretap" anyone at will, sitting at his desk.
[0] A professor of something like national security studies, who worked for intelligence agencies for years before academia.
"Mr Snowden's employer, defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said on Tuesday it had fired the 29-year-old infrastructure analyst for violating its ethics code."
… They found out that he had some.
At any rate, I really hope the ad hominen attacks don't sway public opinion about the gravity of the overall message: even though the messenger may be disingenuous, the government has already admitted to mass spying. 4th amendment rights are being disregarded.
edit:
Ok, I'm seeing all kinds of conjecturing. I know a lot of people who work as civilian IT contractors in Hawaii. I grew up there; I used to work there at Square USA; my uncle is a retired military officer who is now working for Northrop Grumman as a civilian IT contractor in Hawaii. There is NO way any civilian IT contractor is making that kind of dough in Hawaii even working tons of overtime. When my uncle was working as a civilian IT contractor in Korea back during the dot com boom, he was telling me that most of his employees were making $125k. However, most of that was tax free. So, they were making money hand over fist. Since then, he's said that salaries have stagnated and even gone down. He's a programmer and an Oracle DBA; and nowadays, he's not making more than 100k. I personally don't know anyone who is making $200k in IT. Even my friend at Goldman Sachs who has a masters degree in comp sci from Cornell is only making $125k without bonuses. And he said the bonuses are only 10%. So, really guys, the $200k is most likely baloney. I'm not buying that. But, regardless, it's a moot point. The government is screwing us over; they've already admitted to it in so much words.
Government contracts, especially defense contracts which require clearance, tend to result in inflated salaries.
Bonuses for special projects. Stock options. Relocation reimbursements.
Also given that BAH is also the bad guy they will try to discredit him as much as possible (he lied is a first strike) to divert the attention from their own incompetence.
That's not a stretch in my experience.
Unless there's something particular about a Hawaii assignment that depresses rates, I'd say your circle of friends and associates just isn't a very representative of Government IT contracting as a whole.
> I personally don't know anyone who is making $200k in IT.
I personally know many people that make 200k in IT. Your friend at Goldman Sachs is getting fucked. He should apply somewhere else and see what they offer him and how Goldman counters.
Let's hope this is the start of a trend, and that more are encouraged to come forth and help us figure out what our governments are doing to us.
Freaking war profiteers.
This seems like it would be obvious. Did we really need an article for this? After the gov yanks your network access and security clearance, you aren't much help. Bigger news would be that Booz Allen gets fired.
ETA: Though I doubt the gov would fire Booz Allen. That's probably too much expertise to replace and leaks can happen anywhere. I assume they would work together to find ways to tighten up.
> He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves.
The $200k part isn't in quotes, so it is possible that the writer mixed up a statement on what he previously earned, what he earned in total in the last year, or something else.
The point of that part of the story was to set out just how much he was leaving behind, no doubt he had a comfortable life.
I wouldn't read too much in the discrepancy between what Booz say his salary was and what it was states as in The Guardian - except that it is a bit weird for a former employer to include in a statement about a person being fired what their salary was.
They likely only mentioned it because $200k was mentioned in the original article, a further attempt to discredit although a soft one.