Could Snowden Have Been Stopped In 2009? 247
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The NYT reports that when Edward Snowden was working as a CIA technician in Geneva in 2009, his supervisor wrote a derogatory report in his personnel file, noting a distinct change in the young man's behavior and work habits, as well as a troubling suspicion that Snowden was trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access. But the red flags went unheeded and Snowden left the CIA to become a contractor for the NSA so that four years later he could leak thousands of classified documents. In hindsight, officials say, the report by Snowden's supervisor and the agency's suspicions might have been the first serious warnings of the disclosures to come, and the biggest missed opportunity to review Snowden's top-secret clearance or at least put his future work at the NSA under much greater scrutiny. Had Booz Allen or the NSA seen Snowden's CIA file before hiring him, it almost certainly would have affected his employment says Dashiell Bennett. 'The weakness of the system was if derogatory information came in, he could still keep his security clearance and move to another job, and the information wasn't passed on,' says a Republican lawmaker who has been briefed on Snowden's activities. It's difficult to tell what would have happened had NSA supervisors been made aware of the warning the CIA issued Snowden in what is called a 'derog' in federal personnel policy parlance."
Who cleaned the file up? (Score:2)
The CIA has a long history of Soviet and other "friendly" nations penetrating the totality of its work. The idea that some person was "passed" to another US secure position without comment is generationally telling. Its not the 1980's anymore.
The US staff vetting is only a "bit" broken, privatized and rushed over the past 10 years? Nothing the Russians other nations can work around?
This would point to the NSA and
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Latin) (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a classic case of "who watches the watchmen" or Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Apparently, no one. It seems that anyone with top secret at the NSA can do whatever they please with no oversight or discipline. It must be a fun place to work where you can spend you days creeping on your ex-girlfriends [slate.com], elected officials, and corporate CEOs. Unchecked power is a very bad thing as we move farther and father from the principle of "habeas corpus" and into the land of "it's top secret and no you can't see the evidence, trust us, were a bunch of good, trustworthy folks."
And if you haven't seen "Flying Robots" [youtube.com], go watch it now. The NSA will want these toys overhead next, if they aren't already there.
Re:Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Latin) (Score:5, Insightful)
creeping on your ex-girlfriends, elected officials, and corporate CEOs.
Never mind "creeping". Booz Allen is a profit oriented consulting and services business. They know the value of information. What if they are tapping into the NSA data for commercial gain? Selling NSA data to other businesses . . . ?
Snowden got "caught" because he outed himself. Someone running a rogue business market for NSA data isn't going to go public about it.
It would be high time that the NSA take a look at the businesses that do their work for them.
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Booz Allen is a profit oriented consulting and services business. They know the value of information. What if they are tapping into the NSA data for commercial gain? Selling NSA data to other businesses . . . ?
If they know the value of information, then they also know what they would lose if they were caught and barred from further federal work.
Wild speculation is probably best vectored toward finding the aliens they are holding in Area 51. Or did you have either proof, or a guilty conscience?
Re:Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Latin) (Score:5, Interesting)
So let me get this straight, if you use government resources to break the law or fail to deliver on large government projects then you will be barred from further federal work? I think all you need to do is rename the company, e.g. "Blackwater" to "Xe" (or whatever they are called) and re-apply, No big deal.
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So let me get this straight, if you use government resources to break the law or fail to deliver on large government projects then you will be barred from further federal work? I think all you need to do is rename the company, e.g. "Blackwater" to "Xe" (or whatever they are called) and re-apply, No big deal.
You didn't get it straight. Try this: A company stealing classified documents and selling them as a business strategy would be barred from federal work and prosecuted.
That is a different case than Blackwater, completely different. If you didn't have an axe to grind I'm not sure how you could confuse them given the prior messages.
Re:Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Latin) (Score:5, Informative)
It would not have to be a company level thing.
If Snowden was able to obtain that huge stash of data on his own, and get away with it, then others at Booz Allen, etc, could certainly do so as well, with smaller data sets, that would be easier to sneak out and would have a higher value on the black market.
What sets Snowden apart from dozens of similar contractors is not that he was stealing data but that he went public with his acquisition rather than selling the stuff under the table, like all the rest do. Some of that has to be going on, some of it authorized, for what better way to provide China or Iran with dysinformation than to have a double agent in the NSA sell them a bundle of carefully prepared "leaked" database records?
An interesting question is whether Snowden was acting alone, or whether some angel higher up in the Federal government wanted to publicly expose the NSA for what it is, and has helped Snowden get the goods and make such a remarkably clean getaway.
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then others at Booz Allen, etc, could certainly do so as well, with smaller data sets, that would be easier to sneak out and would have a higher value on the black market.
Booz would be held responsible, and the employee in question (termination aside) would be prosecuted under federal law.
If your brilliant point is that someone could attempt espionage, and if successful could make a buck, sure. But dont pretend that its lightly done; contractors have no vested interest in being barred from federal bidding, and their employees have no vested interest in having the FBI on their tail for a felony.
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It is not a matter of whether someone could attempt espionage. That is clearly possible, it has been done and if Snowden had sold the data he collected to Al Qaeda or Iran, he would have gotten away with it.
Don't pretend that you are so stupid that you cannot see that, or the implications that follow from that. You are able to compose an articulate message on Slashdot, so despite that message's lack of reasoned content you have the necessary smarts.
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There was an incident some number of years ago where a formerly-government-turned-Booz employee illegally brought bidding information to Booz. Booz reported the incident to the DoD, and they were barred from all bidding in that region for quite some time-- and thats just what they do when you're straightforward about it.
So how was that employee punished for this?
(And presumably the punishment was well-publicized among Booz Allen employees, to make sure they understand the consequences of actions that cause the company to lose business.)
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I can see what you mean, this really had a (sic) significant impact on Booz-Allen. Wow, they had to schedule an emergency call and let investors know that projected targets would be impacted and issue new guidance on earnings. I don't know what reality you live in, but this isn't a slap on the hand, this is barely a "wag of the finger" without so much as a "tisk-tisk". The military industrial complex is out of FREAKING control and has been since Eisenhower. It is corrupt to the core and now it has the a
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Not really. NSA employees and contractors routinely engage in LOVEINt and BIZINT now. Who else is the NSA going to hire?
We're not talking about them selling NSA secrets to China. We're talking about them selling HSBC or UBS secrets to Goldman-Sacks. An NSA employee might not even do jail time for this. Booz Allen would not lose future contracts for this.
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And you should also be talking about the authorized sale of carefully prepared data sets to Iran and China. The NSA is certainly not just into passive acquisition and analysis of data; it is also a tool for providing dysinformation to other countries by carefully controlled "leaks".
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He was a lousy strategist but a great leader. In any event the British generals weren't hitting on much either.
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On the other hand, one of the best generals on the Continental side was Major General Benedict Arnold. He pretty much won the Battle of Saratoga and therefore, the contributed considerably to the winning the whole war.
He was so good that he actually has one or two memorials: one at Saratoga and one at West Point. They don't actually have his name on them. Too bad about his later career.
As a tactician, Washington was not one of the great captains of history, in the sense that Napoleon or Hannibal could cr
world before Snowden and after, - B.S. & A.S. (Score:3, Interesting)
Modern computing allows to organize effective mass surveillance. It is not only about the US government. The technology itself is inherently dangerous. It registers ans sees everything, and forgets nothing. The 1984 is hopelessly outdated and over-passed.
Snowden is like Jesus of the new era. He is hated, crucified, persecuted, but the jinn is out of the bottle. We know now.
He did not receive Sakharov's prize, but it had been exactly what Sakharov did, - truth at any cost.
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Yes that "effective mass surveillance" and file "change" is going to be the key
If its totally wiped at the CIA end 'now' you know its an on going operation.
If the change was logged and the work group who did it is found but gets promoted/contract extended - you know its an on going operation.
Or they find a staff member who was on duty and question them?
Some digital version of the "took a phone call and left her foot on
Re:world before Snowden and after, - B.S. & A. (Score:5, Funny)
Snowden is like Jesus of the new era.
what, snowden never existed either? i could have sworn i've seen pictures of the guy and everything.
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I've seen pictures of Jesus, too. What with the resources available to the NSA, CIA, FBI, it is entirely possible that "Snowden" is a virtual creation.
It is also possible that this message was authored by an AI who is resident on the Internet and has no physical components at all. Call me Skynet. And be worried over whether I have launch control. Be very worried about whether I might tickle the stock markets a bit, just to see what kind of chaos I might cause.
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You must be WOPR's little rug rat playing Fisher Price with the gullible planet. This is the level of misdirection of a toddler playing hide and go seek in the belief that if she can't see you, you
Re:world before Snowden and after, - B.S. & A. (Score:4, Funny)
Jesus never existed? What sort of delusion are you suffering from?
Jesus does my lawn. He does great work. I found him outside Home Depot looking for work.
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Jesus does my lawn. He does great work. I found him outside Home Depot looking for work.
He any good at carpentry?
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Not much work building hotrods any more huh?
Re:world before Snowden and after, - B.S. & A. (Score:4, Informative)
What is your evidence? As I recall nobody had ever heard of the man until a century after his supposed death.
Re:world before Snowden and after, - B.S. & A. (Score:5, Funny)
Are you asking for a certified copy of his birth certificate?
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Apparently written accounts, letters, etc are no longer considered historical data.
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Not at all - last I heard the earliest documented evidence of his existence dates from around 100AD
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I don't understand why people are so upset about this now, but I guess it doesn't matter why; at least people are finally getting upset. I just wish people would pay more attention.
Timeline of Snowden revelations (Score:2)
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/multimedia/timeline-edward-snowden-revelations.html [slashdot.org]
Re:Timeline of Snowden revelations (Score:5, Informative)
Other red flags (Score:3, Interesting)
Other red flags in his bio include:
- Claiming to have a master's degree from the University of Liverpool when he only enrolled (and never completed) classes.
- Claiming to have attended classes at Johns Hopkins University when they have no record of him.
- Claiming to have graduated the University of Maryland when they only have records of him having enrolled in an online class, and never completed it.
- Claiming to have served in the Army but being kicked out after breaking both his legs during training. He would have either been placed in a medical holding platoon until he healed, or discharged medically and therefore received a percentage of disability from the VA for life. More likely he was generally discharged under the "failure to adapt" doctrine.
What we see is a person who embellished stores about his own past, who has never been able to complete anything he started or hold down a job for more than a few months, who by nature of living in the DC Metro Area ended up with a clearance and a high-paying job. Okay, he did complete one thing: he got his high school diploma on the second try. The point is, had he grown up in any other area in the country, this guy would be stocking shelves at Wal-Mart and complaining about "the system."
We all know people like this. You would not invite him to dinner a second time, or feel comfortable if he were dating your little sister.
Blame the contracting agency that performed his background check. What likely happened, they had a quota they had to meet and were more interested in the commission than a thorough investigation.
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This should have been done like it always was: by the US gov for the US gov. No clearance bulk packs for trusted bosses and any of their new staff.
You look at all public and private databases, subscriptions and other sate/federal/banking.... data.
You drive out and talk to the primary school teachers, high school teachers, university staff, mil staff, past bosses, friends, extended family, family, lovers until th
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American 3-letter agencies: recreating the short-sightedness of the 1930's British upper class to proper vetting of intelligence analysts.
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What can we say about NSA when such a guy can go in, take many secrets and publish them while successfully escaping wrath of The President?
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We can say a lot more about the NSA because of the contents of the published documents rather than the events leading to their publication.
I find it disgusting that everybody is still focusing on Snowden rather than the documents. It's almost as though the NSA selected Snowden to bring all the stuff out into the open since they would have gotten shit if they passed all that crap through the official channels supposed to watch over them without having some celebrity distracting from what this is actually ab
Re:Other red flags (Score:5, Interesting)
What you are describing has all the markings of the cover story the CIA might develop for a mole.
Snowden might be the creation of the CIA whose objective might have been to destroy the NSA's credibility before that agency gained too much power and became a direct threat to CIA activities.
Snowden found it so easy to evade and escape that I kind of wonder whether he has had some help from somebody in Washington.
No conspiracy, just incompetence. (Score:2)
What you are describing has all the markings of the cover story the CIA might develop for a mole.
Snowden might be the creation of the CIA whose objective might have been to destroy the NSA's credibility before that agency gained too much power and became a direct threat to CIA activities.
Snowden found it so easy to evade and escape that I kind of wonder whether he has had some help from somebody in Washington.
Oh, please. You're assuming FAR too much competence inside our "intelligence" agencies. Here [bbc.co.uk] is a wonderful article about the historic serial incompetence of Britain's intelligence agencies. I assure you, U.S. intelligence agencies aren't any better.
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One of my duties when I worked for a US Veterans Administration hospital was chairing the LPN Board that reviewed every candidate for Licensed Practical Nurse positions at the hospital. There had to be documentation verifying prior employment, school where they trained, and whether the school was accredited at the time they graduated. If any of that was missing the merits of the candidate could not even be considered; they were sent polite rejection notices.
I cannot believe that the CIA would do less than
Biggest red flag (Score:2)
As for his embellishments on his CV, I was under the impression that a US CV was expected to be rather 'boastfully' worded. If you're simply frank and realistic, or worse, modest, on your CV, you'll still be assumed to be exaggerating, so you'll come across as below average.
However..
If someone in protest to government espionage defect, first to China, and then to Russia of all places, to seek greater transparency and privacy, then that shows some exceptionally poor judgement...
What is really going on? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know enough about personnel internals at CIA or NSA. With what I do know, I have to view with suspicion a personnel history report that appears months after Snowden began leaking information. He's publicly humiliated the NSA, called them liars and produced some proof that they've crossed the line(s) of acceptable behavior. I would expect these agencies to produce "evidence" that denigrates his position, and I would not at first glance accept it.
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http://cryptome.org/2013/10/nsa-tor-disinfo.htm [cryptome.org]
What can the USA do after the fact?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Popie%C5%82uszko [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov [wikipedia.org]
Now we might be seeing the start of part two of a big NSA/CIA game.
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There's plenty of reason to suspect you are correct. This [bbc.co.uk] blog at the BBC gives a good idea of how the unintelligent intelligence really is. Mostly the media just hypes them up.
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Someone with points should mod this guy up, that article he links to is wonderful reading.
Awesome linked-to article! (Score:2)
I'm bookmarking that link. Thanks, AC. That is EXACTLY the experience I had working inside the Army for three years. Hideous incompetence, stifling bureaucracy, and outright corruption. Absolutely nothing gets accomplished.
Anyone that believes that Snowden was planted by the CIA to discredit the NSA...is vastly overstating the competence of our "intelligence" agencies.
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They had all the warning signals about a possible future problem, but did not manage to stop him anyway.
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I would expect these agencies to produce "evidence" that denigrates his position, and I would not at first glance accept it.
I don't see how this information would have that effect. If you already dislike Snowden for what he's done, this simply provides confirmation that he was a "bad guy". If you applaud Snowden for what he's done, I don't see how this would reverse your opinion. Even if you're on the fence, I don't see how this could possibly get you to jump down to the "dislike" side.
This information would seem to put the NSA's contracting process and/or Booz Allen Hamilton's hiring process in much more of a bad light than it
Re: What is really going on? (Score:5, Interesting)
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How do you know that he has revealed all he knows publicly? I'd bet there is a lot of information that only the FSB will get. Stuff that applies only to US military defense and not the illegal spying stuff that made him a celebrity.
Re: What is really going on? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The fact that he publicly revealed anything is enough to discredit the Russian spy story. No actual foreign spy would do anything that could make the work of future spies more difficult unless it had a big payoff for his real employer. What is the payoff for Russia here compared to the ability to keep getting all that information? Wouldn't they rather have him stay on his job at the NSA rather than publishing a bunch of stuff to the public and running off to Moscow?
That doesn't prove he didn't also hand som
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Do you take Snowden at his word?
Snowden produced evidence of his claims, which were then verified by investigative journalists, and in some cases finally admitted to by the US government itself.
I would take him at his word long before I believed anything produced by an agency or politician in the US government.
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Are you seriously trying to say that this was Russia's plan all along? You're saying it's pretty clear.. Just flat out fucking say it.
No matter what the liars in our national security apparatus (and Mainstream Media) have said, their actions and spin just wreaks of bullshit to any free-thinking person that hears it. There's no way you can explain away secret courts, secret laws, lack of oversight, Obama lying, Clapper lying, and keep a straight face. The US Government trashed its credibility here and Snowde
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The US and UK would have been happy to let it die, but the Russians and Chinese won't let it.
China and Russia spying at Cold War levels : US spy chief [google.com]
Number of Russian spies in the UK back to Cold War levels, say security services [telegraph.co.uk]
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SOP for Federal Government Contractors (Score:5, Informative)
I worked for a Federal Government Contractor. I administered a number of servers--the one with financial information and one with Classified information. I found another employee trying to break into my servers on a few occasions and reported this security breach to management. The CIO said "Good catch" but did nothing to the employee. (Well the CIO did give a promotion to the offending employee.) As a manager, this person set up a rogue server between Security Audits and continued his attempts to break into my servers on a regular basis. I continued to tell management and added notifications to Cyber-Security. Nothing was ever done about these attempted breaches.
Federal Government Contractors do not report problems to the Federal Department if they can help it. The Feds will investigate and that means a huge disruption of operations, productivity and costs the contractor a lot of money. So, problem people are left unreported, unchallenged, and on-the-payroll. It sucks to work for a Federal Government Contractor when you/your job are experiencing internal threats but it is Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
Good Thing He Wasn't Stopped (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden is a hero. It's a damn good thing he wasn't stopped. Else, the American people would have had no chance to stop the fascism that is enacting a slow-mo coup d'etat of our democracy. Time will tell if we can do anything about it now anyway, but at least we have the knowledge if not yet the means.
We will know victory when the Jamie Dimons and Lloyd Blankfeins of the world and those on Capitol Hill and K Street who enable them are swinging from the trees that line the National Mall.
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I don't believe it produces much either (Score:3)
Re:Good Thing He Wasn't Stopped (Score:4, Insightful)
What did he expose that we didn't already suspect?
He made it easier to present this information to the naive, trusting masses who refuse to think for themselves and that's why they think It Can't Happen Here. Like it or not, they are the majority, they have the numbers, they have the votes and the political pressure, and they need these matters spelled out for them. They will not connect such dots on their own. It's the single biggest threat to our representative republic that there is because it was built on the concept of an informed and savvy public. Snowden's work addresses that threat, that ignorance and general unwillingness to touch this topic.
There's hope for us yet.
Re:Good Thing He Wasn't Stopped (Score:5, Insightful)
What did he expose that we didn't already suspect?
He exposed that those saying that NSA did all those things weren't crazy tinfoil-hats and that those who said that they were were naive.
Go back to old forum posts, read the discussions. Some people voiced the suspicion, most of them were ridiculed.
Also, regarding the article/summary. It would be interesting to write an article with the headline "Could Martin Luther King Jr. have been stopped 1957?" and see how it would be received.
For some reason some people still thinks that what Snowden did was wrong. In retrospect it's pretty clear that he did exactly what needed to be done.
There were several NSA workers who did it the "right" way and just reported the injustices upward or decided to quit and keep silent, none of it worked.
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What did he expose that we didn't already suspect?
He exposed that those saying that NSA did all those things weren't crazy tinfoil-hats and that those who said that they were were naive.
Go back to old forum posts, read the discussions. Some people voiced the suspicion, most of them were ridiculed.
Oh for Christ's sake what did people think the NSA was planning to do with its new $2 billion datacenter? Store personnel records and payroll data? Host the world's biggest private World of Warcraft server? Their early experiments with the so called Echelon system were a big fat hint. Even back in 2001 a European parliament report recommended systematically encrypting all communications. It would have been incompetence of the first magnitude if the NSA hadn't exploited the USA's unique position to tap into
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Suspicion is on thing, proof is another. He provided that all important evidence.
Way to spin it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me recast this: Sometime in 2009, Edward Snowdon, having been a faithful and perhaps unquestioning CIA employee for some time, began to have pangs of conscience and take some preliminary steps toward what he ended up later doing: revealing what was going on at the highest and most secretive levels of government. His "superior" noticed this and recorded it in Snowdon's her personnel file.
Why does this article – which is cited, of all places, on Slashdot – try so clearly to change the event by relabeling Snowdon a criminal instead of a whistleblower beginning to come to his senses? Answer: to serve the established powers. To rewrite the narrative.
This makes me want to barf because I know so many people will buy into it and, apparently, some of those people are right here on Slashdot. In fact, such a twisting of the narrative has really already succeeded, having been played over and over in the newspapers and on the network news that everybody sets their sights by.
Don't care. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad they didn't stop him. People went from saying shit about tinfoil when you bring up spying. To actually listening.
This is a good thing. Now we just need to put a stop to it.
Let's hope this security hole is not fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The American public, and also the rest of the world, need more whistle-blowers to leak illegal activity and overreach by self-serving secret agencies, that refuse to allow themselves to be subjected to proper and transparent oversight.
No law abiding person has any issues with spying on suspected individuals and organisations with just cause and court order. But most people do not want a dictatoral police-state based wholesale surveillance on everyone, as we have now.
How is what the NSA is doing in the USA now any different than what the former East German secret police use to do, with their secret files kept on ever individual, so that they can use any individual's past as a weapon, in case they get out of line?
Nor do we want to see security, such as encryption, weakened, if it makes the public more vulnerable to attack by bad/evil organisations in general, or makes it harder for honest and lawful people to cooperate for the benefit of society, even if it means letting a few bad people get away. Proper security requires risk-benefit analysis for the whole of society, not just selected groups.
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Re:Let's hope this security hole is not fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
we do have a problem with it, you are very naive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism [wikipedia.org]
your government is mostly comprised of evil and twisted power and money grubbing people in the pockets of large corporations. They are transforming the USA into a corporate fascist police state.
Re:Let's hope this security hole is not fixed. (Score:4, Funny)
your government is mostly comprised of evil and twisted power and money grubbing people
Whew! I am glad they've shut down for the moment!
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Can you trust the data (Score:2)
With all of the security "issues" being discovered and other potential issues discussed can anyone say with complete certainty that his file hasn't been altered?
Betteridge. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Could Snowden Have Been Stopped In 2009?"
No.
Who cares?
We're glad he wasn't.
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The Real Way to Stop Snowden (Score:5, Insightful)
The real way to have stopped Snowden would be for the government to not be a privacy-destroying, dossier-collecting, network-infiltrating, security-inhibiting organization that spies on its own people.
Then Snowden wouldn't have had a reason to leak.
Wrote a derogatory report... (Score:2)
Derogatory:
Synonyms
belittling, contemptuous, decrying, degrading, demeaning, denigrative, denigratory, deprecatory, depreciative, depreciatory, derisory, derogative, detractive, disdainful, disparaging, pejorative, scornful, slighting
Related Words
aspersing, calumnious, defamatory, insulting, libelous (or libellous), maligning, slandering, slanderous, vilifying; abusive, opprobrious, scurrilous; catty, cruel, despiteful, hateful, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, mean, nasty, spiteful, unkind, virule
Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
They are talking about who Snowden got a hold of the information to leak it when the whole problem has nothing to do with HOW he got a hold of it to leak it and everything to do with the fact they were doing stuff so messed up that it HAD to be leaked for the greater good of the nation and it's people.
Quit asking HOW he got a hold of the information as much and start asking WHY they had done acts such as those to begin with more.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Choices, Priorities, Morality, and Snowden (Score:5, Insightful)
Untrustworthy (Score:2)
So? Somebody else would have done it (Score:2)
If that guy was successful against Snowden, some other guy would eventually do what Snowden has done. It would only be a matter of time.
Perhaps, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen a few examples of this in my past careers. When a boss starts screwing over the company, his employees typically respond in one of several ways: Some try to get their own piece of the action. Some just say 'Screw it' and let their productivity go to hell. Some quit. And some push back and figure that they'll 'get' something on the SOB. Its possible that Snowden fell into the latter category. He either left on his own, figuring the battle wasn't worth fighting. Or he was pushed out in a manner designed not to trigger any further investigations that could blow back in the boss' face. So he takes his clearance and goes to work as a contractor for the NSA. And he sees that the problems are so widespread, they cross organizational boundaries. In the final analysis, it appears he was proved correct.
The CIA/NSA/FBI and other TLAs appear to have such lax ethics, it would not surprise me at all if quite a few employees in these organizations are choosing the first option: Might as well jump in and grab a piece of the action.
There's a shock (Score:2)
Not convinced (Score:2)
How do we know Snowden wasn't a CIA plant? that the leak wasn't a CIA effort to try and rein in NSA operations, freeing up budgetary funds to go to CIA operations instead. And that this is the CIA working to disavow their man?
Clearly the CIA and NSA need to spend more time spying on each other and their own employees, and leave the rest of us alone.
NSA not doing its job, incompetency! (Score:2)
So, if NSA did not have full access to CIA employee and contractor data, does it mean they're not that good after all? Because normally, why would anybody bother telling NSA anything? Wouldn't that be redundant, just unnecessary bureaucracy?
Why is this an issue? (Score:3)
Really, what is higher priority???
As far as fixing the federal government. First, we'd need a government with any real care about the nation, something I don't think we've seen in a long time. Most people in the government are bureaucrats looking to expand their own interests, often at behest of the state. Thats never really going to change, because, as time goes on, less and less people give a fuck about the state for various reasons.
Corporate sponsers don't give a fuck except pleasing their parent corporation, the biggest and most influentials are multinationals that don't have the USA's best intrest in mind. Just intrest in using the government for their own ends.
The working class often couldn't give a shit about a corporate sponsored government, further than their own careers and retirement funds. They simply couldn't give a shit.
Then you have various conflicting ethnic loyalities, disgruntled employees who simply don't give a fuck, etc...
There is nothing unifying it all, except what people can get out of it, and when the get is out of it, the system will collapse.
And yet another example... (Score:3)
Re:How many false positive (Score:5, Insightful)
Who says they're false positives?
As many people have pointed out, the difference between Snowden and everyone who came before him is that Snowden had the decency to send the information to the US people, as opposed to some other government. But apparently he's the traitor.
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I imagine most of their employees have raised flags at some point and that those who have not either have the creativity of a box of rocks or have been inserted by some intelligence agency.
The CIA is involved in spying. You expect their people to be inquisitive.
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Is the date on the report questioning Snowden's loyalties the same as the date the material was actually entered into the electronic records? I can think of several strong reasons why the CIA might want to do some rewriting of its own history here. And certainly they have the expertise to do a good of that. In fact it would be routine for them to alter history: that is how you give a mole a credible back story.
The CIA is not just a spy agency. They are also the USA Bureau of Missinformation And Dysinformat
Re:Snowden must be preemptively stopped (Score:5, Interesting)
Is the date on the report questioning Snowden's loyalties the same as the date the material was actually entered into the electronic records? I can think of several strong reasons why the CIA might want to do some rewriting of its own history here. And certainly they have the expertise to do a good of that. In fact it would be routine for them to alter history: that is how you give a mole a credible back story.
The CIA is not just a spy agency. They are also the USA Bureau of Missinformation And Dysinformation.
I can imagine them rewriting history, but in this case I doubt it; surely it would suit them better for him to have been a normal, competent employee at that point, who then went rogue later, rather than saying "oops ... yes, we saw all these warning signs, but forgot to do anything about it for a few years. Told you so - er, I mean, we would have told you so, if we'd been more alert..."
Of course, if you're really paranoid, you'd wonder if the CIA computers had been compromised by, say, some other agency with lots of expertise at breaking into high-value targets, and this report had been planted by them, maybe to divert blame for their own failed internal security...
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On the other hand, I suspect its as likely to be host-dated Ass Covering as anything else.
When they start looking back that far, the finger of blame will fall on the CIA, because everyone from then on forward will point to the CIA, and say we relied on them.
Meanwhile, the CIA's own former employees have Awarded Snowden with a Sam Adams "Integrity in Intelligence" [google.com] award, indicating more than a little dissatisfaction with the methods of the Agency among some of the people who know it best.
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DOH, post-dated, not host dated.
Re: Snowden must be preemptively stopped (Score:2)
Laws of Physics (Score:2)
Warm up the time machine, people, because we're the government, we make the laws
Fortunately not the laws of physics though otherwise the universe would be in real trouble. Making a time machine to do this is theoretically possible using wormholes but there are a few technical hurdles. First you have to be able to create an energy density great enough to make a wormhole. Next you have to keep the ends from collapsing which needs something with negative mass and nothing like this is know to exist. Lastly you also have to accelerate one end to relativistic speeds. Even if you manage all
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I am sure their efforts involve hacking all the computers of sports teams to increase their budget through insider information on sports betting.
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I've heard it alleged that they stopped OMG like 50! terrorist plots; but that number always seems to disappear into a miasma of nonsense if pushed.
You got anything good?
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The US has throughout it's existence had enemies and friends but mainly friends.
Since the end of WWII and the start of the Cold War it acquired some more and significant enemies, especially disreputable commie dictatorships and their admirers, often nothing to be ashamed of.
But since the end of the Cold War the US has instead of reaping the rewards for their Cold War efforts been hell-bent on creating new enemies, even form the pool of t