Snowden Says No One Listened To 10 Attempts To Raise Concerns At NSA 273
As reported by the Washington Post, Edward Snowden denies in no uncertain terms the idea that he failed to go through proper channels to expose what he thought were troubling privacy violations being committed by the NSA, and that he observed as a contractor employed by the agency. The article begins: "[Snowden] said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about government snooping programs but that his warnings fell on the deaf ears. In testimony to the European Parliament released Friday morning, Snowden wrote that he reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing." Further, "Elsewhere in his testimony, Snowden described the reaction he received when relating his concerns to co-workers and superiors. The responses, he said, fell into two camps. 'The first were well-meaning but hushed warnings not to "rock the boat," for fear of the sort of retaliation that befell former NSA whistleblowers like Wiebe, Binney, and Drake.' All three of those men, he notes, were subject to intense scrutiny and the threat of criminal prosecution."
The NSA could not admit wrongdoing. *CAN not. (Score:5, Interesting)
He exposed a situation that HAD TO BE ignored "for the good of the surveillance effort and thus, the country" - had they admitted it, it would have to be shut down.
Instead they've managed to kind of slide on the issue of legality, nobody is taking it up with the SCOTUS successfully because "nobody has grounds" to sue without being able to prove damages (due to the secrecy, catch 22 et al) so basically, the NSA strategy of "ignore it until the next war or administration" seems to be successful at least in keeping the sword of judicial damocles off their heads.
What use is whistleblowing if they're able to ignore the law and the 9 robed wizards don't wish to enforce the law? None. "Checks and balances" is now "blank checks"
Re:why wait? (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, he only claims to have talked to some coworkers/supervisors. What he didn't do was go where a whistleblower is supposed to go; for example he could have gone to Senator Wyden who is on the Intelligence Committee and had publicly raised concerns about these programs. If you're part of a secret program and need to "blow the whistle," you're not blowing it from the inside. You have to go to the people doing the oversight, which here in the US are elected members of Congress.
Cost effectiveness (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the criticsm of the NSA should focus on the very poor use of resources. Billions of dollars are used to spy on US citizens with no benefits, while the administration appears to have been caught completely unprepared for the events in Crimea.
Perhaps a re-allocation of those resources would be beneficial to US interests.
Unless, of course, the real reason for the spying on US citizens has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with suppressing free speech and legal dissent.
Re:The root of the problem lies with ... the peopl (Score:5, Interesting)
>After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
Only if there's a viable alternative. At present we have two parties that are both owned, for the most part, by the same people, and kept in power by gerrymandering and the systemic weakness of first-past-the-post elections. Given the realities on the ground it's no wonder that the third party candidates tend to be extremists and nutters that don't actually expect to get elected - no responsible individual would choose "third-party politician" as a career path unless they had a size large ace up their sleeve.
Re:The tighter you clench your fist, Lord Vader... (Score:0, Interesting)
I agree, and even if he did. His revelation of the surveillance of US citizens here within the country did need to be revealed. I don't think he did it the right way but it did need to be done.
BUT!!!
Everything he has revealed since then is not covered under the blanket of protecting the Constitution. The fact that we monitor or attempt to monitor foreign heads of state. Not a constitutional issue. Fully within the scope and mission of the intel community. That the Aussies or Brits have similar programs for their citizens, again not his place to reveal as a whistle-blower, again fully within the scope of the intel community mission.
I defended him after the first revelations, I felt he was a whistle blower and while I disagreed with how and where he revealed his information I considered such actions and location acceptable precautions for what he was doing. But as always with these traitors, he wasn't satisfied with the 15 min of fame being a whistle-blower gained for him, he wanted more, so he stole over 1.7 million documents to ensure he had plenty to keep his name in the press as he sold our intelligence collection efforts to the highest bidders.
The man is a traitor. If he were truly doing it just out of concern for protecting our rights as citizens, he would have stopped at the surveillance inside the US.
Not to mention that the parties themselves cheat. (Score:5, Interesting)
At present we have two parties that are both owned, for the most part, by the same people, and kept in power by gerrymandering and the systemic weakness of first-past-the-post elections.
Further, the people in control of the major parties themselves cheat when someone not of their faction tries to go the primary/caucus root. They change rules in midstream, miscount, break meeting rules, physically attack supporters of opponents, pass out bogus delegate slates, and a host of other dirty tricks.
For a list of the things the Republican have done to just one challenger in the last two cycles, check out the archives of any of the several sites where Ron Paul supporters congregate. (For example, The Daily Paul.) [slashdot.org]
The Democrats do this as well. (The riots in Chicago in 1968 were largely a public reaction to the party machine repelling a primary effort by Gene McCarthy, popular with the antiwar movement, in favor of Hubert Humphrey. The Paul/Romney nomination battle was eeriely similar.)
Astroturf? (Score:5, Interesting)
What is it with the constant disbelieving of Snowden?
One of the things Snowden exposed was systematic disinformation campaigns by the spooks to achieve various political goals, including the discrediting of their own critics.
Perhaps these comments are examples of such a program in action?
Re:The root of the problem lies with ... the peopl (Score:5, Interesting)
Not entirely - a great deal of the problem is our parents, and their parents (,and ..., but you get the idea). Once duopoly seizes control of a first past the post system it becomes increasingly difficult to oust them. Especially when the lizards are busy demonizing each other as hard as they can and adopting positions so extreme that their "opponent" need not worry about losing votes to a non-lizard.
The one ray of hope I see is that over half the population doesn't vote at all in any given election, properly leveraged even half of them could throw an election to a dark horse, the question is how to do so. I have a couple ideas -
- Organize festivals near polling places to encourage non-voters to come out for the food/music/etc, then encourage them to "Vote out the Sock Puppets" as long as they're in the right place anyway.
- Start a truly new party, something different enough to actually catch people's imagination. Perhaps a direct-democracy party with serious penalties for candidates that don't do as their constituency tells them. After all we've got plenty of different "proof of concept" direct democracies in the world - there's no reason we have to overthrow the government to institute them for real, we could instead implement it as a new faction within the existing system.
Blaming the victims ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Quit blaming the victim and look in to that problem.
Dear Sir,
If those asshole has fooled us, the People, once , yes, I agree with you, that We the People are the victims.
But how many times the assholes have fooled us, and how many times We, the People keep on electing them back into Washington, D.C. ?
Already how many times, Sir ? And how many ***MORE*** times are We, the People, willingly to be fooled ?
Does this come to mind, Sir?
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me
Re:Broken link: Here ya go (Score:2, Interesting)
If he never tried to go through Congress he didn't try to go through channels. Their major job is to be a Check on the executive preventing overreach, whereas anyone he could actually talk to in the office's major job is to further Executive branch overreach. That is the entire point of having an elaborate system of checks and balances. Everybody (in both the Executive and the Legislative) is always supposed to be trying to oppress us, but they are supposed to be failing miserably because the other policy-making branch thwarts them.
I don't necessarily blame Snowden for not knowing this. Americans tend to know what checks and balances are in theory, and have a decent ability to explain why the theory works, but if you try to get them to think of any of the implications of the theory (ie: if I'm in the Executive, and I think the boss is breaking the Constitution, I get Congress to check that shit) they have absolutely no clue. OTOH, the fact that he didn;t know this means his Crusade is doomed and everything will be swept under the rug.