How come none in the government is charged for the multitude of illegal things that has been revealed? But there is still the insistency of labeling these people as 'leakers' instead of something more appropriate like 'hero' or 'whistleblower'.
"Hero" is incredibly biased language. No journalist should use that term for Snowden outside of the opinion page. (For what it's worth, I personally view Snowden a hero.)
"Leaker" is a factual statement that is focused on a person's activities, not his or her motivations. And it doesn't pass judgement.
'hero' also panders to the black-and-white worldview that's popular in US politics. You're either a hero or a villain; for us or against us; if you're not one of us, you're one of them. It doesn't leave space for complex personalities or events.
At Ruxcon last year, the panelists were asked "Is Snowden a hero or a villain?". One panelist quite rightly responded "Who cares?" - that the story shouldn't be about Snowden, but about what was revealed. The more focus put on Snowden, the less mindspace there is for the revelations.
"Whistle blower" also fairly strongly implies that what the government was doing is negative and should be called out, which the media tends to be hesitant to cal out.
I don't think leaker has mild negative connotations, and if it once did, it doesn't anymore because of the popularity of organizations like WikiLeaks. Leaking is in the name, after all.
You really don't think WikiLeaks has a negative connotation in the media and the public in and of itself? The media spent a very long time running WikiLeaks through the mud.
And yet WikiLeaks remains a fairly well-funded organization with a huge following that continues to get leaks - and a major source of stories for that very same news media you say dragged it through the mud.
"If you blow the whistle on an unethical practice or bring a problem to the attention of higher-ups, you should be thanked. You should be protected for doing the right thing"
Obama is a stasist. You have to be to be President. He believes in central authority and respect for the chain of command. What he is saying is you should blow the whistle inside the designated structure. When the structure says everything is fine then everything is fine. If the structure says you're right good job, only then do you get a pat on the back.
You don't get to be POTUS by being an anarchist or thinking everyone has equally valid opinions as you. Anyone can be President, but only a few people actually think they should be President.
In case you didn't notice, Manning was acquitted for revealing documents that proved government wrongdoing. She was also acquitted of the ridiculous charge of aiding the enemy. She was, however, convicted of leaking 700000 unrelated documents without a reason. Had she not been tortured, I'd say the sentence was fair (so long as she actually gets paroled in 8 years). However, her torture was substantiated by a judge and so she should have walked a long time ago as a result.
If Snowden had only ended up engaging in whistleblowing it that pardon might even be pre-signed and sitting in a folder somewhere so Obama can wow his base.
As it stands Snowden did so much more than whistleblowing that I figure Obama will be content to let him stay in his padded gulag with Snowden's FSB friends for years to come.
Interception of phone calls in Afghanistan is a very easy example. It practically by definition fails to implicate any domestic liberties concern for American citizens, and has completely defensible purposes to include counter-terrorism and military intelligence (it may surprise people to hear this, but the U.S. military is still fighting and dying in Afghanistan).
Likewise with intercepting the communications of foreign leaders (even allied ones): It's literally what the NSA is paid to do, it doesn't implicate domestic liberties concerns, it's not mass surveillance, and the U.S. government (and the American people they're to serve) has very real reasons to know what the leadership of the rest of the world is thinking behind their public statements. It's the same reason the rest of the world spies on the communications of American politicians and diplomats (e.g. the leaked conversation between U.S. and E.U. diplomats regarding Ukraine during the Automaidan revolution).
The only outcome that possibly could have come from Snowden leaking that information is the outcome that actually happened: Justified outrage by the German population which significantly strained relations between Germany and the USA, and at almost the worst possible time for that to happen.
Even PRISM I would argue went beyond the pale. It didn't help that initial reporting about PRISM was simply inaccurate, but PRISM, if you look at it objectively, actually represents nothing more than a Web-based automation of a legitimate and legal government function. The only thing PRISM is, is computer-automated warrant/subpoena compliance.
Again, PRISM isn't mass surveillance (as it needs specific selectors), it's not even warrantless (even when only an NSL is used, an NSL is still more than is Constitutionally required for foreign citizens), and it's not unilateral on NSA's part (companies receiving NSLs or warrants via PRISM still have to have their own legal teams review them and sign off, and if they don't agree can have the orders reviewed by FISCR).
What's more, it's an incredibly useful tool for one of the few functions of NSA that most people agree is legitimate... or it was, until Snowden told the jihadist world that Skype and Facebook were unexpectedly unsafe. It's not Snowden's fault that jihadists were under that mistaken assumption, but it is his fault for splashing awareness in their face in such a manner, and for not ensuring that Greenwald and WaPo's coverage of the technical aspects of PRISM were correct in the initial stories.
Finally (perhaps most ironically) Snowden leaked private information about many targets of NSA surveillance to a group of people ranging between journalists and activists. Hopefully all such recipients were as careful with that cache as the Washington Post was, but to quote The Week:
> Is it chilling that The Washington Post now has these [160,000] intercepts? Yes. Does it represent a huge failure by the NSA? Debatable. The person who obtained them originally, Edward Snowden, spent more than a year, with very high clearances, trying to figure out how to steal them without triggering alarms. To say that they weren't protected by the NSA is to blame your grandmother for keeping her purse in a simple combination lock safe the kitchen, and not the thief who broke into the house to steal it. (In this case, the thief cased the house for a long time and had to figure out the combo to the lock.)
Even though the WaPo piece in question is intended to be damning of the NSA, even they noted many things that the NSA had been claiming all along: "fresh revelations about a secret overseas nuclear project, double-dealing by an ostensible ally, a military calamity that befell an unfriendly power, and the identities of aggressive intruders into U.S. computer networks". The double-dealing one is especially intriguing, as it explains why the USA might be spying on German leaders in the first place, due to long experience with double-dealing by allies.
Likewise, the WaPo reported "Months of tracking communications across more than 50 alias accounts, the files show, led directly to the 2011 capture in Abbottabad of Muhammad Tahir Shahzad, a Pakistan-based bomb builder, and Umar Patek, a suspect in a 2002 terrorist bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali." The inescapable conclusion is that Snowden leaked operational details of successful operations to apprehend no-shit actual terrorists who no-shit actually killed people (and presumably were working to kill more). This intelligence didn't implicate crimes by the U.S. government so it can't be called whistleblowing with a straight face. How would that news article read on its own: "NSA whistleblower accuses NSA of tracking down Bali bombers"?
All of this is the more damning IMHO given that Snowden made sure to distinguish his behavior from Pfc. Manning's, with Snowden saying he made sure to be selective about what he took and passed into the hands of others. But his actions prove his words a lie; 160,000 intercepts taken for no better reason than they were intercepted is no more selective than Manning taking a database of years worth of Army operational logs just because they were there, not to mention the 1.5 million other documents scraped laboriously from NSA servers.
Far from being "more selective than Manning", Snowden used even more breadth than Manning (who after all, really "only" took the helicopter video, Army theater daily operational logs and diplomatic cables).
I hope you take this in the spirit it's intended. Whistleblowing is vitally important to the health of our nation, but disagreeing with legitimate (and legal) government policy because it's not libertarian enough is not the same as whistleblowing, and that gets conflated in the Snowden discussion all the time, usually to whitewash the excesses of Snowden's actions.
> Again, PRISM isn't mass surveillance (as it needs specific selectors)
I don't agree with this assertion.
If recording as much as possible that everyone does via a computer is not mass surveillance, then what would be? That is what is happening, and it is mass surveillance.
Why is mass surveillance bad? Because of the chilling effect it has on freedom of speech and freedom of association. These things still apply even when the government promises not to read the data until you come to their attention. So even if you deny the term "mass surveillance", then this conditional surveillance is bad for all the same reasons.
Quite frankly, this is karma. When you are treating your own civilians and allies as criminals and storing that information in a database for your own perusal and you employ thousands of direct and indirect (contractors) staff, you're bound to end up with leaks.
I think the whole PRISM thing Snowden exposed is only one thing, I don't doubt there are other programs just as secretive shocking and sickening lurking around at the NSA waiting to be leaked. Time for some more leakers to step up and raise the curtain hiding the machine.
Yeah, ironically, the US's approach to state secrets (as in fucking everything is a state secret) makes it harder for them to keep things under control.
But in that case, a leak only has a 5% chance of being something that anyone actually cares about. ("Anyone" here does not mean the overly paranoid bureaucrat that classified it, it means pretty much anyone else.)
Not necessarily. The other 95% (as evidenced by Manning's leaks) often contain information of importance to commercial enterprise -- information that should likely be of public record anyway if it's being communicated through publicly funded channels.
This happens daily, it is what the NYT calls a "government official speaking on the condition of anonymity". Try Google, you get multiple matching articles every single day.
It is gotten so ridiculous that the "public editor" of the NYT felt the need to whitewash the practice in one of her columns:
Of course, it highlights the virtues of the "investigative journalist", having to disguise the identity of his vital sources.
That, by and large, remains a fantasy. The most important tool for a journalist is his phone, and he uses it daily to call all the same "sources". These sources then relay some juicy factoids (fully adherent to the party line), which is repeated without being questioned and with anonymity granted, to a government official speaking on a government telephone line. The whole setup is so bizarre; of course no one gives out actual leaks on a freaking telephone line. It is no longer 1950.
Hopefully more will be inspired by Daniel Ellsberg recent talk at HOPE X and and his call for action for more "real patriots" to do their duty and blow the whistle on abuses and law breaking.
If the government were to figure out who this is, perhaps through the process of elimination and internal spying, my bet is that we would never hear about it and that the person would disappear silently to a CIA operated Polish prison.
Good. Step up number 4. You number has been called.
I realise this is flippant, but in all honesty I believe we are at an impasse, something between 1000 times worse than George Orwell ever imagined and a balance between security and the freedom to think without prejudice.
Our problem is that there comes a point where so much resources have been committed to invading the privacy of the public that there is no turning back.
So, number 4. Step forward and take your place in history.
Actually no. The US and most of Europe is NOT in a situation 1000 times worse than George Orwell ever imagined. Freedom of speech is at an unprecedented high. The government still doesn't care what you think or say individually, with very minor exceptions.
Invasion of privacy has to be fought. But let's not kid ourselves into believing we're not incredibly privileged with the free society we live in.
The problem is that when you log everyone's darkest secrets the potential for abuse is infinite. It may not happen today, or next week, but if you think today's politicians are bad then wait till you see what is coming round the corner.
FYI you don't know who or what is coming next. That's why I can say 1000 times worse. It could also be a million times worse.
The data is sitting there, waiting for the biggest bunch of assholes to cone along and abuse it.
P.s. I can't reply to rev_bird below, but Amen to that. Spot on analysis.
You can both be right. It is true that this apparatus presents an unparalleled opportunity for the suppression of free speech. It is also true that, compared to Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, Crusades-era Europe, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, etc. we are nowhere near the historical maximum of such suppression...
...which makes it all the more important that we quash said opportunity now.
It's also worth noting, though, that the current situation has the potential to be more global and pervasive than all of those more localized historical examples.
I seem to recall an intelligence agency official or general saying something to the effect of "America will be remembered for it's networks the way that Rome is remembered for its roads." I can't seem to find the quote right now, but I think it's illustrative of the bounds and limits of our present apparatus.
I agree. What they're currently doing with the data doesn't even approach the totalitarian system from 1984, but the amount of data they are collecting on us (and the amount of data there is to collect) is magnitudes greater than Orwell could have predicted.
Basically, the framework is there. All it will take is one overzealous nationalist, one religious extremist, or one extremely greedy, immoral, charismatic corporate puppet and their resources for evil are bigger than at any other time in history. Look at how well Hitler tracked Jews with basic 1940's punch card technology. Imagine if he had had access to the NSA databases of today. I apologize for going all Godwin's Law here, but it seems relevant.
What truly amazes me is how complacent we are about it as a society. 1984 was obviously popular for a reason, but when the set up for that book is staring us in the face, we don't even seem to blink. Maybe we'll be different when (not if) the abuses of this kind of power start happening...
It doesn't even take those examples. Several more Obama type presidents, with a willing Congress, a few more security events / tragedies, an ever more invasive homeland security and police system - would do the trick. We'd be deep into a real police state.
> The problem is that when you log everyone's darkest secrets the potential for abuse is infinite.
The pervasive surveillance state presents a monstrous potential for the suppression of people who aim to challenge the status quo, which seems like as fundamental a threat to free speech as there can be. I love that we have so many First Amendment protections today, but if there are billions of dollars going to programs that continuously flout the Fourth Amendment, it's not a huge stretch to say the other ones aren't up for grabs.
Exactly right, it's the potential abuse in the future that's scary. In 30 years time I see it playing out something like this:
Potential Politician: "I want to run on a platform of reform, government transparency and freedom of speech"
NSA: "We have these emails you sent to a friend in London when you were a student 20 years ago, where you intimated how you slept with another woman than your girlfriend, now your wife..."
PP: "I resign to spend more time with my family"
All it takes is for one bad apple to come along and really screw things over for everyone. Almost everyone has something that could be used against them in the court of public opinion. Mass surveillance just primes the pump for abusive individuals to blackmail the world.
Do you want your government run by elected individuals or the unelected intelligence agents who are blackmailing them?
PS: Pre-snowden, I'd have said this is crazy conspiracy theory talk. Nowadays, I dunno...
The very essence of free speech is that somebody will hear it. Otherwise you'd call it free monologue.
To my knowledge there is not single shred of evidence that the NSA used their surveillance to suppress free speech...
I would go one step further and proclaim that modern information technology has not only magnified our ability to speak freely, it has also enabled us to have a better picture of local, national and international politics than ever before.
This means that freedom, even and especially in the democratic western countries, is actually climbing. The NSA surveillance, even with substantial "there's got to be more" factor, does not even begin to threaten that freedom.
Free speech is at an all-time high in the sense that you can call the president an a-hole and not worry about going to jail. It's not the curb on this kind of speech that will make it 1000x worse than Orwell. Technology allows surreptitious monitoring and undetectable influence on your actions.
Imagine if you had secret and unfettered access to your friends' email, texts, and phone calls. Further imagine that you can spoof sending emails and texts. You see that Alice is interested in Joe and you don't want them to get together. Don't you think you could sabotage this from ever happening without either of them knowing? I do.
The government (or corporation) could effectively hellban you. They could drive you around by remote control and you wouldn't even know it. Surveillance is Orwellian. Secret surveillance is 10x Orwellian. Stealth surveillance plus subtle control is game over.
Yes, 1984 was much worse. I can only think of one thought crime in the US. No one is being imprisoned for keeping a diary.
Still, ubiquitous surveillance may afford far more concentration of power than Orwell imagined. You couldn't get anywhere in DC without J. Edgar Hoover's blessing, and his surveillance capabilities were orders of magnitude weaker than what the NSA has today.
How come none in the government is charged for the multitude of illegal things that has been revealed? But there is still the insistency of labeling these people as 'leakers' instead of something more appropriate like 'hero' or 'whistleblower'.