About the Reuters article
guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
Greenwald also mentioned that the totality of what Snowden controls is "enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States." Let's assume that's not an entirely hyperbolic statement.
From the point of view of the Obama Administration, the real threat is not Snowden's/Greenwald's principled (even patriotic) drip of information, but that an enemy of the US might kill Snowden, and stage it to look like a US op, thus tripping the dead man's switch. Snowden has, on his own, made himself a prime target for any sufficiently ambitious US antagonist.
And so the US wants Snowden back not only to prosecute him, but also to "protect" him. (Nothing like four years of solitary to keep you safe, comrade.)
Until and unless he is granted a pardon or some other form of immunity from prosecution, it seems that Snowden's best interest is to stay in the strongest and most secure country he can find. A country with a highly developed security apparatus (to protect him from hostile agents), one that is adversarial to America (to disallow his rendition or extradition), but not openly antagonistic (to want to kill him to harm the US).
And that is exactly the country where he finds himself right now.
Obama and Putin have quite the chess match coming up. God bless the man whose life is in their hands.
[Edited for clarity]
Of course then there is the trust issue, many world leaders will be pissed to learn that their "friend" has been reading their emails and monitoring their phone calls, even private ones.
Obama should have handled this in a totally different way, he should have treated him as a partner for having shed light upon a corrupted practice of the NSA, and should have asked the people heading the NSA to resign.
This would have been a checkmate against any other US antagonist in my opinion, but I admit that is definitely too easy to judge things you don't know in every aspect from the comfort of your own home.
this would also encourage more whistleblower activity that may get out of hand.
Should that person "blow that whistle", as it were, suddenly turning almost all relationships "honest"? Or would it cause widespread havoc and upheaval?
Ask the people who are being cheated on. Or spied on.
My answer is probably odd- I'd want to know if I was the possible jiltee, but I don't know if I'd say that it should be revealed for ALL people.
However, I agree that is what he should do anyway. Clapper and Alexander should get fired immediately, and so should Holder - but he's been bailing out Holder so many times, I'm starting to think it's a lost cause that he'd ever stop protecting him. If there was a video of Holder shooting a man in head, he'd probably still pardon him.
I disagree with your last part, though, that it would prevent other whistleblowers from coming out. Why would it? It would prove Snowden did a good thing, and more would come out later to fix the system (which is exactly what should happen).
The buck has to stop with the president. How depressing for our civilization that people get worked up blaming a lower level appointee whose job it was to be operationally in charge of dirty work that was fully supported by the president.
In Rumsfeld's case, he was tasked with creating a shitstorm by acting crass and making controversial remarks. It worked flawlessly and diverted tremendous criticism and attention from Bush and the larger policy direction. Eventually when he'd done that effectively for years, his resignation was engineered to help Bush turn over a new leaf.
Without hindsight bias, and considering that selling a cheap war was critical to getting buy-in from congress, Rumsfeld architected a great plan.
I'd argue that Rumsfeld is an incredible intellect and expert tactician who made zero mistakes.
I don't see how this is not analogous to a longstanding marriage with a hidden affair. Would you reveal the affair thereby destroying the marriage (but gaining a greater measure of truth)? Or would you leave it in secret?
I don't believe that a thing based partly on secrets the revelation of which might bring about the end of that thing, is a sustainable thing, nor a healthy thing, nor a long-term-good thing.
In the marriage analogy, by revealing the affair you may get one partner to be honest going forward but the other partner may not forgive the first, leading to a divorce or a permanently strained relationship. The children may suffer as a result as well.
Imagine what might happen if damaging information were to get out- information more damaging than the NSA information itself. A healthy and informed debate and, if we're lucky, changes to the US security apparatus may take place but at the cost of putting the US in a weakened position influentially and economically. If you're not a US citizen this may seem like no big deal or a good lesson but for me, living in the US, I don't want to see that.
Isn't that the rub? The rational action on Obama's part would be to pardon him, just to get him back. Instead, he is vindictively pursuing him across the globe and devoting resources that seem absolutely disproportionate to what was revealed.
Despite the public interest in what Snowden revealed is, the position of the administration can only practically be that whatever you think about it, if it's classified, it's not up to you to decide that it should be public.
It could potentially change how government currently works.
So far the actions of the Obama administration are quite consistent with walking a line between maximum deterrent and just not too much public uproar.
[1] The WP's "Top Secret America" series quotes 850K+ with Top-Secret clearance: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articl...
http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/nsa-revelations-ov...
Three possibilities I can see:
(1) Greenwald really can't think even one move ahead and see that he's just published a reason for any number of US adversaries to kill his source.
(2) Greenwald understands the implications of what he's published but is, owing to his own incentives, fine with the idea of his source being killed
(3) Greenwald doesn't believe what he's saying and isn't meant to be taken seriously.
Cards on the table: that guy could be reporting that water is wet and I'd still have him in bucket (3). Although now you kind of hope the freakshow government in North Korea is smart enough to bucket him the same way.
(4) Snowden has verified knowledge of an imminent death threat from the USG and is using Greenwald to convey awareness of his "dead man's switch" for his own protection. Employing Greenwald as a channel for this message, as opposed to himself, gives him some cover legally and won't further alienate Snowden from the public who might see him as blackmailing the United States if he were to outright state this in say, a new video interview.
The US has let Snowden linger in the Moscow airport, likely hoping that he'll do something stupid due to the stress.
By reminding everyone of the dead man switch, Snowden (via Greenwald) reminds the US that both have a shared interest in Snowden's asylum bid moving along smoothly.
Your conjecture above depends entirely on the idea that Snowden is unsafe at the Moscow airport.
2) wildly speculative and wildly inconsistent with all of Greenwald's other behavior.
3) I imagine you have some kind of conspiracy theory to justify this one?
In this case, the simplest answer is that a dead man's switch gives Snowden a bit of additional leverage, and that Greenwald mentioned it to help the reporter interviewing him understand the dynamics of the situation.
Greenwald and co. have been consistent since the beginning that precautions had been taken with the trove of documents to ensure the reporting would not be suppressed were something to happen to Snowden. It's recently been sensationalized as a "dead man's switch", but it's not new info.
So I think you're right.
Look at how reflexive the US has been with all the diplomatic threats and goofups compared to Snowden's team's patient and careful tactics. The US hasn't been on the receiving end of effective hardball tactics in a long long time. It's taking a while to sink in that they need a better strategy than the standard prosecutorial bullying.
There are plenty of people outraged by the substance of what has been leaked who also don't like the idea of a) great harm coming to the country or government or legit intelligence operations, or b) a 30 year old person stuck in a Russian airport who has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of what is leakworthy and what is not, what programs are legal and good and which are illegal and evil.
On another note, the idea of a dead mans switch that harms the government of Country A is probably an attractive target for other governments that want to harm Country A.
Of course such determinations should be left to the professionals, our Supreme Leader, the oh-so-popular Congress and the stalwart defenders of liberty and justice: the Courts -- which are all so trustworthy, moral, and competent.. and who would never hide anything under the pretense of "national security" to cover their own asses, to grab more wealth and power, or keep the public from knowing of atrocities and crimes they, their buddies or their lackeys have commited.
In a system where elections are so influenced by money that billions are spent on advertising candidates. Where virtually all the discussion of the candidates is about their personalities and presentation (such as whether a candidate wore a flag lapel, or how he golfed) rather than about their policies and stances on concrete, important issues.
In a system where the majority of those who do vote are embarrasingly ignorant of politics, history, and the candidates and parties for whom they're voting (largely thanks to the horrendous media coverage mentioned above, and the atrocious education system in the United States).
In a system where the elected candidates can do the opposite of what he campaigned on virtually without consequence or most of their constituents noticing (thanks to the media, yet again).
In a system where gerrymandering has effectively guaranteed the seats of most members of Congress, no matter how poorly they perform. (Given the record low approval ratings of Congress, virtually all of them should been thrown out ages ago, but that's not going to happen any time soon.)
In a system where there are only two parties who agree on most issues, and collude to keep third parties and serious alternative from ever being viable.
In a system where the people appointed by the elected/selected politicians get to make decisions outside the (incredibly flawed) legal process, in secret, and with virtually no oversight or accountability to the public.
In a system that tortures prisoners, violates human rights, starts unprovoked wars that kill millions of people.
I'm sorry, but I just don't place much trust in such a system. And I applaud whistleblowers who risk their lives to expose wrongdoings.
Which leaves the president. You can't believe that providing 1 bit of information every four years is sufficient to maintain a democracy, can you?
While there are allowed exceptions, a Republic operates on a default assumption of public access and transparency in government, and the liberty and privacy of the individual. The converse system, where there is a presumption of secrecy in government, and transparency of the individual, is a tyranny, as government, the people's servant, has become their master.
You can't believe that providing 1 bit of information
every four years is sufficient to maintain a democracy,
can you?
Oh please, there's enough outrage to go around for a whistleblower publishing stuff that most foreign intelligence services already knew and suspected, and even if it weren't that way still accted accordingly as though was real, but God let the public know, lest they know how tight the chain is.
It is extremely unlikely those documents have anything of strategic value for other nations; it is almost absolutely certain they are important for the public.
No, he's not the ultimate arbiter, that's what the US government tried to be, in secret, until Snowden stepped up. And others with access are free to step up as well.
Snowden didn't do that, the USG appointed him to that role by not doing an adequate job of it themselves. Snowden is merely a symptom, not a cause.
looking back at all the articles recently published on HN about it, this has undoubtedly happened here as well in a sense.
My feeling is that people are already starting to somehow forget about the revelations by replacing them in their mind with the engaging story of a whistleblower on the run.
"Free speech" exists only when there is no license to get and no armed SWAT team that will come if you don't have one.
The major newspapers play silly access games, but just throwing out speculation that they are getting pressured is pointless.
then by bullying small countries out of letting him land
for re-fueling.
I have read about pressure on Ecuador, but not Cuba. Does that sentence mean that Greenwald (and probably Snowden and Wikileaks) have information that a stop in Cuba is not save?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/06/25...
In order to get a better idea, do read the whole article, here I just give one small sample: "Cuba agreed in 2006 to stop its practice of harboring American fugitives."