That was a very long read, and the journalist did very little work on behalf of the reader when it comes to summarizing. On the other hand, some in-depth contex

That was a very long read, and the journalist did very little work on behalf of the reader when it comes to summarizing. On the other hand, some in-depth context is good at times. One thing that jumps out at me as a new understanding of the situation is a kind of mutually-sympathetic view as to how both parties got to where they were. If you take all the direct statements from both sides as true, then one question is: do we have a plausible story that could have occurred? I'd say so based solely on this article. To me, I am imagining Mr. Snowden who has significant ethical concerns. Or as is suggested in kind of a classic 'newspeak' bit of advice by the NSA 'process' concerns. And, as he digs in a little, he learns: * He has no real protection for whistleblowing, or at least he has even less protection than some other whistleblowers, whose lives are essentially shit. * The training materials are at best outdated, and if you're inclined to be untrusting, teach people they have legal rights which have expired. Presumably he had become well educated on these laws, and so felt upset when he answered the training test per actual active law, and then failed. * There is no real culture of concern for uncovering and fixing these gaps. In addition, the NSA docs say he hadn't been briefed on any methods he could engage with whistleblowing-type concerns. It's also pretty obvious that those concerns would have been quashed. There has never been, to my knowledge, a public NSA statement that his ethics ("process") complaints had merit. So, in that world, he made his choices, and he and we live in the world shaped by the consequences of those choices. On the other side, you have a group of people who felt they were doing the right thing -- good people trying hard in the cause of nationalism and safety -- and just have typical organizational slippage. Nothing nefarious. And they feel targeted by a very junior contractor with a chip on his shoulder. The e-mails are like "Wait, we train them who to call with concerns. .. Um, well we're supposed to, but schedules are tight lately. So he didn't get that training. ... Yeah, so is there a problem with that 702 test? No, that's just someone junior complaining. People who work here know the drill. That's totally immaterial bitching from someone who's salty about failing. Did he actually raise a big stink about these process concerns? Well, I found this one clarification e-mail. Nothing like what he claims. Are there more? I dunno." So, maybe there's some whole internal investigation and response that was triggered that's not being released under this FOIA. But it seems to me like both parties could be telling the truth as they see it, at least up to the point that the PR folks get involved and add spin, there's plenty of spin. But, the fundamentals seem to me to be comprehensible from either side.