Seems like it would chip away at Snowden's "whistleblower" claim if he was actively trying to subvert the NSA's compartmentation scheme to access documents he wasn't cleared for.
Like I've said in other comments on Snowden: he had an agenda.
This wasn't just simply a case of a guy who was involved in something he couldn't stomach any longer; he went in with the intention of gaining access to materials he didn't have a right to see. He took on the persona of a mole and use the access he did have to gain the trust of people via subterfuge. THAT is how he got these documents.
If Snowden had a foreign handler, then he would be called a "spy." The jury is still out on whether or not that was the case.
I'm not taking anything away from the disclosures that were made about NSA overreach, but seriously, do we hate our government so much that we are willing to cheer when another government subverts it?
Edward Snowden, July 2013
That is an awfully nice thing to say about the Russian establishment. It's also nice that Snowden, a guy who seems to be pretty forthcoming with his opinions, has not made a single comment about any of the well documented cases of civil rights abuses in Russia.
That's hardly evidence those governments are running him as an intelligence asset.
> It's also nice that Snowden, a guy who seems to be pretty forthcoming with his opinions, has not made a single comment about any of the well documented cases of civil rights abuses in Russia.
There's something to be said for not wanting to get kicked out of the one country to grant asylum. Again, hardly makes him a spy for them.
What you said is that if you think Snowden is a foreign agent, then "you've fallen victim to baseless whisper campaigns." What I'm saying is that there is a very suspicious (though not conclusive) pattern in his behavior. You don't need any "whisper campaigns" to see it. There is plenty of room to doubt his motivations.
It actually makes far less sense that Snowden would publicly praise the countries for which he is secretly spying. It makes more sense that he was making those comments as a matter of expediency (he was seeking asylum, after all).
And, say what you will, but the man is not without intelligence. The irony and impact of making those statements about Russia as a U.S. citizen in that situation was not lost on him.
But all of this a sideshow and a red herring. So, let's just say Snowden was a spy. Let's also say he was a member of al Qaeda.
Now, about those revelations regarding our government's activities...
The same is true for any embassy courier. If he's not providing the decryption passphrases, who cares?
> His disclosures also frequently seem to cause strife among NATO allies.
That's only because "US spying on Russia/China/etc." was a given and hardly a surprise.
What I find so hilarious about all of this is that China and Russia have been SO AGGRESSIVE in their use of technological capability to effect a spying apparatus in the USA and on our assets abroad.
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-07/news/mn-175_1_new-emb...
I think people often think that regular laws and customs are at play in the world of state vs. state. The truth is FAR more complicated.
Statecraft is big boy rules.
I'm sure he would have preferred to run and hide in Switzerland or Canada, or Japan, or any one of a hundred other countries, except that they would have hauled him in and stuck him on a plane/boat/truck back to the US as soon as he was identified.
This is a perfectly reasonable 'not a spy' reason to run to those countries, in case you lacked the imagination to go any further than 'he only went there because he was a spy.'
I've got some pretty well-known friends who have written volumes about the NSA. They are happy to see these disclosures. I'm happy to see our discussion finally informed with some actual examples of over-reach.
That said, I'm not going to crown Snowden a hero. I don't believe he's innocent by a mile. His intentions were far from honorable and more akin to self-aggrandizement than honest debate about the role of government in our communications privacy.
Probably not, but your government hates YOU so much that they are willing to spy on you on every occasion.
To borrow your logic, show me a solid example of the USG using this vast surveillance network to oppress civil rights en masse.
The USG has been able to suppress individual civil rights without any of this stuff. All of the evidence thus far has indicated that they have only ever used this capability to target foreign bad actors.
Make it about snowmen. Forget that the program has stopped ZERO attacks. Forget that the opportunity for abuse is off the charts. Forget that our government is completely off the rails on this issue.
At what point did he morph from whistleblower to investigative journalist? Even an investigative journalist isn't allowed to do what he did to gather information. Can you imagine a world where we allowed the Geraldos of the world to use subterfuge and moles to go out and SEEK classified information using the same methods that the Soviets or Chinese would?
Media moles are called leakers, and they're all over the place. Many are highly placed officials purposefully leaking to control the narrative. Interestingly, leaks that benefit the government's positions seem to receive less investigatory attention from the FBI et al.
The first will get you fired.
The second will get you prison and/or death.
As someone who has friends who are currently in harm's way, anything that hurts their chances of coming back in one piece is worthy of my scorn.
Oh, bullshit.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/05/22/11816421-obama-ai...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/all-leak...
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39693850/ns/us_news-security/t/dou...
I feel like impeachment would have been a fine option.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward...
"By last December, Snowden was contacting reporters, although he had not yet passed along any classified information. He continued to give his colleagues the “front-page test,” he said, until April."
"Asked about those conversations, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines sent a prepared statement to The Post: “After extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention."
I will always contend what he did was reckless and subverted the job the intelligence community was doing at the time. Unless you were living under a rock, you already knew the NSA was getting out of control. Wired's article in Feb of 2013 highlighted the new NSA facility and its growing capabilities:
Yes, definitely. If your threat model hasn't included global passive adversaries, at least since Mark Klein, then you're woefully naive and out of touch.
But what Snowden did is get people to care by revealing tangible details in a way that simply saying "everything is tapped" does not. Things certainly won't change overnight, and it may even take a few more like him to keep us on track to a secure Internet. But the fact that he got all of us talking, and we're still talking, is pretty remarkable.
And as long as he didn't physically hurt anyone, I can't see how anything could possibly be wrong with his methods. Remember, we're talking about unauthorized computer access versus institutionalized programs that are illegal under USG's charter, and of a type that would at least be publicly approved and transparent in any free society.