8 ms·

Intel Committee Releases Declassified Snowden Report

144 points by kafkaesq 10y ago

kafkaesq 10y ago
There's no bombshell here. The section on "foreign influence" is still heavily redacted -- leaving literally just one and half sentences to read, in a sea of black. And both of the assertions it makes in those 1.5 sentences are quite vague: "Snowden has had, and continues to have, contact with Russian intelligence services" (with no specifics). Yes, there are probably plants among the various Russian nationals he deals with. So what? (They make it sound like he's holding regular briefings with these people in a mahogany-paneled room somewhere). "And in June 2016, [a Russian PM] asserted that 'Snowden did share intelligence' with his government." (That's not what the Russian PM, Frantz Klintsevich said -- and it's dishonest of the IC to assert otherwise). Also, this non-revelation was already made when the initial version of this problematic report was first published over the summer. The overall weakness of these statements suggest that even now -- 3+ years after being stranded in Moscow, as a more or less direct result of the Obama administration's yanking his passport -- they still don't have anything to nail the guy with.
- 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
  > Yes, there are probably plants among the various Russian nationals he deals with. That's not even claiming that the contact in question was initiated or is sustained by Snowden, rather than being a result of Russian intelligence investigating him.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  There is no chance that the Russians let him in without debriefing him. If and what information was handed over to them is another thing. Likely that they got the same package that the reporters got plus maybe some documents related specifically to Russia that weren't released.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    You can speculate about what went on after his arrival in Moscow, all you want. The point is that the Committee's report (in its current version) provides precisely zero information about what happened.
    - _audakel 10y ago
      exactly. if something had actually happend, as in they had hard evidence of a specific incident, they would broadcast that all over to prove that he is a criminal. as far as i know, this has not happend yet.
      - Proof 10y ago
        Nor it will ever happen because he arrived in Russia without possession of any documents. They had had already been taken by Laura Poitres and Glenn Greenwald. As many of the commentators have already stated, they should either exonerate him(not likely) or figure out a way to brand him a peadofile. My guess is; if they were to label him outright then everybody would call the government out and they maybe put in a awkward position of vindicating him. Will be interesting to see what 2017 brings.
        mSparks 10y ago
        Not sure where you're getting that from. certainly not an official source. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1568673.ece http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/ar... ->RUSSIA and China have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services.
        mSparks 10y ago
        and for those to young to remember. Rewson, SAFE, Waihopai, INFOSEC, ASPIC, MI6, Information Security, SAI, Information Warfare, IW, IS, Privacy, Information Terrorism, Terrorism Defensive Information, Defense Information Warfare, Offensive Information, Offensive Information Warfare, The Artful Dodger, NAIA, SAPM, ASU, ASTS, National Information Infrastructure, InfoSec, SAO, Reno, Compsec, JICS, Computer Terrorism, Firewalls, Secure Internet Connections, RSP, ISS, JDF, Ermes, Passwords, NAAP, DefCon V, RSO, Hackers, Encryption, ASWS, CUN, CISU, CUSI, M.A.R.E., MARE, UFO, IFO, Pacini, Angela, Espionage, USDOJ, NSA, CIA, S/Key, SSL, FBI, Secert Service, USSS, Defcon, Military, White House, Undercover, NCCS, Mayfly, PGP, SALDV, PEM, resta, RSA, Perl-RSA, MSNBC, bet, AOL, AOL TOS, CIS, CBOT, AIMSX, STARLAN, 3B2, BITNET, SAMU, COSMOS, DATTA, Furbys, E911, FCIC, HTCIA, IACIS, UT/RUS, JANET, ram, JICC, ReMOB, LEETAC, etc etc.
- wheelerwj 10y ago
  > they still don't have anything to nail the guy with. And they have now resorted to an attempt at slander with a familiar story-line. "He was a disgruntled employee... He was a loner who didn't get along with his supervisors..." Blah, blah, blah. Just go for the hat trick, call him a pedophile, and let's all go home.
  - kbart 10y ago
    "call him a pedophile, and let's all go home." You made my day sir. Back on serious side, I find it surprising, that so few (i.e. compared to Assange) shit is being poured over Snowden. It makes me wonder if he still has something hidden in a pocket that somebody back home afraids is going to be made public.
    - toyg 10y ago
      > so few (i.e. compared to Assange) Assange, for all his merits, is fundamentally a narcissist who loved the spotlight - he travelled a lot, attended conferences, socialized and so on. Nothing against that, I'm as guilty of self-centering as the next man, but inevitably that sort of behaviour will produce bad interactions with this or that person, which can then be used in personal attacks. Snowden is more level-headed. He was a regular joe who took his job more seriously than anyone else around him. I know a few guys like him, they are the sort of people you can't "nail" because they just don't do anything that is not well-thought-over in advance, so they have nothing to be ashamed of, ever.
      - Waterluvian 10y ago
        Snowden has always come off to me as a very what you see is what you get kind of person. Largely because he seems so dull (because he's not out drumming up attention, I suppose).
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      There is a big difference which is Assange is still dangerous in the future while Snowden is history. Snowden is revenge while Assange is damage control.
- pulse7 10y ago
  Not only did Showden "share intelligence with Russian government", he shared it with everyone on the planet... And this is a big difference!
  - mSparks 10y ago
    In the good old days they just called them defectors. Rather than whistleblowers that didn't blow any whistles. Political Correctness gone mad i tell ya. As for "shared it with everyone on the planet." - really, where exactly can i download the 1.5 million highly classified US documents he has shared with the FSB?
deleted 10y ago
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ihaveahadron 10y ago
Fuck that guy We should sent marines or something to get him.
tupshin 10y ago
Edward Snowden responds to the HPSCI report on his disclosures https://twitter.com/i/moments/812014048866877440 https://twitter.com/i/moments/812014048866877440
- pstuart 10y ago
  But who will people listen to, Tupshin?
  - CodeWriter23 10y ago
    They'll listen to the "real" news, of course.
dom0 10y ago
Read the headline and thought "What the hell does Intel have to do with declassifying some reports!?"
grandalf 10y ago
If America's adversaries benefit from Snowden's leaks that would be unfortunate, but far less of a problem than the existence of the excesses Snowden revealed. Until the government starts to take seriously the idea that it has seriously broken trust with the American people, it's hard to take seriously any talk of the damage alleged to have happened due to Snowden's leaks.
- deleted 10y ago
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- mindcrime 10y ago
  Until the government starts to take seriously the idea that it has seriously broken trust with the American people, it's hard to take seriously any talk of the damage alleged to have happened due to Snowden's leaks. Exactly this. Our government has to own up to the wrongs it has committed and take responsibility for fixing the problems that allowed those things to happen, and quit looking to make Snowden a scapegoat. Trying to handwave around the real issue and make this about Snowden is just doubling down on the same mindset that caused this trouble in the first place.
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    Unfortunately that's not how the state thinks. Washington knows that it has a lot of levers that it can pull to influence public opinion and narrative (just look at the poor quality and compromised character of international reporting in the US). Snowden as a concept is a threat to Washington's legitimacy. Not only because he exposed massive illegality and wrongdoing on their part, but because if he's considered a hero then: 1. they are the villian. That's bad for state power. 2. it could inspire more leaks of more illegal and ethically questionable behavior. Which could start a spiral. From a purely game theoretical point of view, Wasthington has to insist that it's the good guy in this situation and it was Snowden who was behaving irresponsibly. Given the collective approach that the US government is known to take (e.g. it gets to write the history books that children are educated with) and the opposition to this narrative track among informed and disillusioned Americans are not collectively organized over the long arc of history probably Washington can have its way.
dmoy 10y ago
Title may be more readable with the word "Intelligence" first, not Intel, just to avoid confusion with the company (Intel), not e.g. The Company (CIA)
- FlorianRappl 10y ago
  Thought exactly the same!
oneplane 10y ago
The report seems to be a PDF.. that was then printed, badly scanned, and saved as a PDF again. Didn't know it was still 1995!
- dragonbonheur 10y ago
  The US government is now permanently stuck in 1984. /s !/s
- yuhong 10y ago
  This reminds me of redaction.
- mjevans 10y ago
  It's understandable as a reasonable process for redaction. If you flatten it to a pure black and white image you get something you can print (the government loves that), but not something you can easily search (good for whoever's doing the publishing), and the security step is the flattening of the mask over the data with complete overlap and uniformity. Edit: Of course actually printing it at any point in that process IS insane/beyond paranoid.
  - dest 10y ago
    Printing, despite being old-fashioned, is friendly with air-gapped networks. It is also very low cost compared with the cost of those investigations. So, not so insane in my opinion.
- kinofcain 10y ago
  Back in the '90s some government agency released a redacted report where someone had gone in and drawn black boxes in the PDF file, but the full text was of course still in the underlying data and people were able to get at it relatively easily. EDIT: apparently this has happened repeatedly, according to a quick google search. No doubt some sort of knee jerk process was put in place to ensure that any digital release of redacted documents must be scans of a physically redacted source. Sort of like an analog memory hole.
readams 10y ago
These claims are extremely weak. Even taking them all at face value you get a straightforward account of a whistleblower. The only statement of harm speculates that documents that were not released got into the hands of Chinese or Russian intelligence.
_audakel 10y ago
>It will take a long time to mitigate the damage he caused I am assuming he means a long time to fix the trust btwn the US govt and people? Because I am not aware of any concrete evidence that shows damages specifically caused by the disclousres. Pretty sure most terrosits already knew that they had to be careful with their comm. as it was most likley monitored. And the bombings in europe where not coordinated by advanced encryption, but normal social media accounts as i understand.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  There's a serious misunderstanding by the American people that the NSA concerns itself with terrorism/counterterrorism. It does not. It's a technical agency who attempts to collect as much information as possible. It provides some information to some other agencies some of the time. Other agencies are in charge of counter terrorism intelligence such as the FBI, DHS and NCTC. Disclosures about their global surveillance program had much more to do with human intelligence (mass propaganda), industrial espionage, and diplomatic intelligence than terrorism. The media seriously misinformed the American people about the duties and prerogatives on the NSA, mostly to link the NSA and its excesses to something equally controversial, however, untrue. Anyway walking back from that line of reasoning: yes. Insurgencies around the world have had their operational security studied for decades and they are very sanitary wrt carrying around cellphones that have their batteries in, etc.
- BoringCode 10y ago
  Due to the nature of this type of damage you likely won't hear any evidence for many years.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    If they can't produce proof of damage I'm going to go ahead and assume it doesn't exist.
    - BoringCode 10y ago
      That's fine, you should be skeptical. But do you really expect a nation state to say "hey, this is exactly how were are damaged. Please exploit us." That's just the nature of the intelligence business, it's hard to provide proof of damage without causing further harm.
givinguflac 10y ago
If there was any reasonable evidence proving the position of the USG it would be front and center in size 50 font, underlined and bolded. This only further proves that Mr. Snowden is truly one of the great selfless heroes of the modern era. Not that they'll be reasonable and let him come home, but at least those who care enough to pay attention and think critically will know a little more of the truth. Snowden links to this well done takedown of some of the many blatant lies in this report: https://tcf.org/content/commentary/house-intelligence-committees-terrible-horrible-bad-snowden-report/ https://tcf.org/content/commentary/house-intelligence-commit...
besselheim 10y ago
Interesting read, and sheds some more light on Snowden's motivations and attitude. I thought it quite ironic that while he complains about supposed privacy violations of Americans, he was doing the exact same thing - on a smaller scale - to his co-workers. Of most concern is the huge excess of documents exfiltrated that had nothing to do with mass surveillance. Also interesting is how well the accounts of his work behaviour match up with these posts from an HN user earlier this year, who claimed insider knowledge: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=buttcoin https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=buttcoin
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  His actions were perfectly consistent with his attitude toward global mass surveillance. In particular since there wasn't an individual document that stated "we are surveilling the American homeland in addition to the remainder of the innocent world", Snowden choose - I think history vindicated him in this regard - to grab many documents and let journalists choose what to publish. I think the journalists who disclosed the documents did a wonderful job selecting what to publish directly, what to report on, and what to black hole. They chose to report on what was in the public interest. The public interest included revelations about mass surveillance of allied nations, espionage to help American business prospects, memoranda for allies to spy on one another's citizens, backdooring and infiltrating American products and standards so that they could be military weapons overseas and a great many other things. Another wonderful outcome of Snowden having provided a large collection of documents to journalists is that in reading them as a wholistic collection gave journalists the context to understand the motivations and methods of mass global surveillance - indeed it allowed journalists to effectively question American official denials about its behavior. America had been guessing what was taken and so it wasn't sure about what it could get away with lying about. Journalists were able to publish documents that contradicted the official narrative coming out of the White House when it tried to downplay the massive illegal and unethical apparatus. In any case, it's wrong to abuse Snowden in this case. Journalists made the decision about what to publish. I don't remember anyone's privacy inside the agency getting ruined, but if that did happen the blame rests with the media.
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gurneyHaleck 10y ago
I can't help but stand this next to the Challenger Space Shuttle O-ring thread, without feeling a profound sense of resonance between these 2 scenarios. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13238346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13238346 Compare this passage: (U) Third, two weeks before Snowden began mass downloads of classified documents, he was reprimanded after engaging in a workplace spat with NSA managers. Snowden was repeatedly counseled by his managers regarding his behavior at work. For example, in June 2012, Snowden became involved in a fiery email argument with a supervisor about how computer updates should be managed. Snowden added an NSA senior executive several levels above the supervisor to the email thread, an action that earned him a swift reprimand from his contracting officer for failing to follow the proper protocol for raising grievances through the chain of command. Two weeks later, Snowden began his mass downloads of classified information from NSA networks. Compare to: 2) The engineers actually knew the risk (~1% chance of loss per launch, not specific to the o-rings, compared with two actual losses of the shuttle over ~130 missions). Management used entirely invented numbers for the risk which were not justified. It's like, hey, Snowden tried to tell them to apply their updates. He tried to tell them the o-rings might blow. He warned them that there was a one-in-one-hundred probability of failure. If he didn't blow the gasket on the launchpad himself, before launch, how disasterously awful might this have really been, if he had behaved like a good little cubicle drone, followed protocol, drank the Kool-Ade, and permitted this so-called "counseling" to brainwash him?
- 234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
  Except he didn't blow the gasket on the launchpad. He just dumped fuel everywhere and threw a match as maintenance crews and innocent civilians were standing around. He didn't have to release all the documents in the manner he did. He could have leaked them to Krebs on Security or something else. Krebs is very trustworthy at protecting sources and data itself. Instead he just dumped it all to the world with disregard for the damage it would cause and the innocent lives it would impact. There's a difference between drinking coolaid and realizing there's drugs in the coolaid so you blow up the entire party coolaid is served at damn the consequences to the innocent waiters and waitresses tending the party.
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Sanddancer 10y ago
One of the things I'm seeing there that strikes me is the lack of criticism of using contractors in this kind of work. I'm curious as to how many off the cuff conversations about the programs weren't brought up in hearings because he was a contractor, and thus not afforded as many of the rights under whistleblower statutes that employees are afforded. His chain of command is so meandering and circuitous that it would discourage damn near anyone from reporting if the toilet was backed up, let alone real problems.
immortalmathgod 10y ago
The tone and ambiguous thought process of the press release is alarming. He was justified and has allowed for us to have a clearer conversation in regards to security. The consequence is sifting though the noise for credentials and concreteness. Glad to see that many, but not the majority, have the ability to look at all of this critically and logically.
throw2016 10y ago
Snowden has done important work, but only by making an example of him will the state ensure anyone who entertains similar thoughts knows the cost of exposing wrong doing. You essentially have to give up your life like Snowden has and for those with kids and family this might be a price too high. The media, commentators and assorted vested interests are old hands at dismissing concerns that do not fit an agenda as 'conspiracy theories' so the importance and rarity of 'the smoking gun' that Snowden produced cannot be underestimated. And as a side effect he exposed the galling hypocrisy and pretension of Europe as the enlightened refuge for dissentors and the 'orchestration' of the global media with it. The only way to address the fallout is 'normalization'. And it seems the narrative is the world is such a dangerous place that total surveillance is essential, never mind our security forces and foreign policy is directly involved in propping up terorrist funders and groups. And this narrative is being expaned daily. We should realise the state is supposed to represent our interests and the only endame for such unaccountable and powerful security services is eventually our supression.
msimpson 10y ago
The problem I have with this entire situation rests in the following timeline of events. June 2012 at NSA Hawaii: Snowden receives a quick rebuke for roping in a deputy head of NSA's technical services directorate on an email conversation regarding a workplace spat over issues updating a few servers. Snowden does not deny that this incident occurred, and the NSA has quoted directly from the resulting reprimand showing Snowden's apologetic attitude in regard to his actions after the fact. June or July 2012 (a few weeks later) at NSA Hawaii: "Snowden began the unauthorized, mass downloading of information from NSA networks." December 2012 at NSA Hawaii: "Snowden attempted to contact journalist Glenn Greenwald." January 2013 at NSA Hawaii: "[Snowden] contacted filmmaker Laura Poitras." March 2013, James Clapper's Congressional Testimony: Snowden deems this his "breaking point" in regard to the question as to "Why he did it?" Although, as the report states, he began his mass download nearly a year prior to this event, as well as contacting both a journalist and filmmaker before even taking another NSA position as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton. Nowhere has Snowden particularly refuted this timeline. He, and those journalists who support him, have only cherry picked falsehoods from the overall report alluding to the rest as merely fruit of the poisonous tree. Yet, this timeline seem quite factual and troubling.
r34yll2k 10y ago
"Yes, there are probably plants among the various Russian nationals he deals with. So what?" People who say things like this need to stick to Javascript and photoshop. Leave the seriousness of national intelligence to the pros.
coldcode 10y ago
Given that we are now "friends" with Russia and Putin (according to some) I wonder what will happen to Snowden.
wdr1 10y ago
"“Snowden infringed the privacy of at least [redacted] NSA personnel by searching their network drives without their permission" Wait... the NSA is complaining their privacy was infringed upon because documents were searched without proper approval? Wat?
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Right! He was an NSA employee as well, so authorized to violate basic privacy. It came with the job.

144 points by kafkaesq 10y ago

There's no bombshell here. The section on "foreign influence" is still heavily redacted -- leaving literally just one and half sentences to read, in a sea of black. And both of the assertions it makes in those 1.5 sentences are quite vague: "Snowden has had, and continues to have, contact with Russian intelligence services" (with no specifics). Yes, there are probably plants among the various Russian nationals he deals with. So what? (They make it sound like he's holding regular briefings with these people in a mahogany-paneled room somewhere). "And in June 2016, [a Russian PM] asserted that 'Snowden did share intelligence' with his government." (That's not what the Russian PM, Frantz Klintsevich said -- and it's dishonest of the IC to assert otherwise). Also, this non-revelation was already made when the initial version of this problematic report was first published over the summer. The overall weakness of these statements suggest that even now -- 3+ years after being stranded in Moscow, as a more or less direct result of the Obama administration's yanking his passport -- they still don't have anything to nail the guy with.

0xcde4c3db 10y ago
> Yes, there are probably plants among the various Russian nationals he deals with. That's not even claiming that the contact in question was initiated or is sustained by Snowden, rather than being a result of Russian intelligence investigating him.
dogma1138 10y ago
There is no chance that the Russians let him in without debriefing him. If and what information was handed over to them is another thing. Likely that they got the same package that the reporters got plus maybe some documents related specifically to Russia that weren't released.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  You can speculate about what went on after his arrival in Moscow, all you want. The point is that the Committee's report (in its current version) provides precisely zero information about what happened.
  - _audakel 10y ago
    exactly. if something had actually happend, as in they had hard evidence of a specific incident, they would broadcast that all over to prove that he is a criminal. as far as i know, this has not happend yet.
    - Proof 10y ago
      Nor it will ever happen because he arrived in Russia without possession of any documents. They had had already been taken by Laura Poitres and Glenn Greenwald. As many of the commentators have already stated, they should either exonerate him(not likely) or figure out a way to brand him a peadofile. My guess is; if they were to label him outright then everybody would call the government out and they maybe put in a awkward position of vindicating him. Will be interesting to see what 2017 brings.
      - mSparks 10y ago
        Not sure where you're getting that from. certainly not an official source. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1568673.ece http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/ar... ->RUSSIA and China have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services.
        mSparks 10y ago
        and for those to young to remember. Rewson, SAFE, Waihopai, INFOSEC, ASPIC, MI6, Information Security, SAI, Information Warfare, IW, IS, Privacy, Information Terrorism, Terrorism Defensive Information, Defense Information Warfare, Offensive Information, Offensive Information Warfare, The Artful Dodger, NAIA, SAPM, ASU, ASTS, National Information Infrastructure, InfoSec, SAO, Reno, Compsec, JICS, Computer Terrorism, Firewalls, Secure Internet Connections, RSP, ISS, JDF, Ermes, Passwords, NAAP, DefCon V, RSO, Hackers, Encryption, ASWS, CUN, CISU, CUSI, M.A.R.E., MARE, UFO, IFO, Pacini, Angela, Espionage, USDOJ, NSA, CIA, S/Key, SSL, FBI, Secert Service, USSS, Defcon, Military, White House, Undercover, NCCS, Mayfly, PGP, SALDV, PEM, resta, RSA, Perl-RSA, MSNBC, bet, AOL, AOL TOS, CIS, CBOT, AIMSX, STARLAN, 3B2, BITNET, SAMU, COSMOS, DATTA, Furbys, E911, FCIC, HTCIA, IACIS, UT/RUS, JANET, ram, JICC, ReMOB, LEETAC, etc etc.
wheelerwj 10y ago
> they still don't have anything to nail the guy with. And they have now resorted to an attempt at slander with a familiar story-line. "He was a disgruntled employee... He was a loner who didn't get along with his supervisors..." Blah, blah, blah. Just go for the hat trick, call him a pedophile, and let's all go home.
- kbart 10y ago
  "call him a pedophile, and let's all go home." You made my day sir. Back on serious side, I find it surprising, that so few (i.e. compared to Assange) shit is being poured over Snowden. It makes me wonder if he still has something hidden in a pocket that somebody back home afraids is going to be made public.
  - toyg 10y ago
    > so few (i.e. compared to Assange) Assange, for all his merits, is fundamentally a narcissist who loved the spotlight - he travelled a lot, attended conferences, socialized and so on. Nothing against that, I'm as guilty of self-centering as the next man, but inevitably that sort of behaviour will produce bad interactions with this or that person, which can then be used in personal attacks. Snowden is more level-headed. He was a regular joe who took his job more seriously than anyone else around him. I know a few guys like him, they are the sort of people you can't "nail" because they just don't do anything that is not well-thought-over in advance, so they have nothing to be ashamed of, ever.
    - Waterluvian 10y ago
      Snowden has always come off to me as a very what you see is what you get kind of person. Largely because he seems so dull (because he's not out drumming up attention, I suppose).
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    There is a big difference which is Assange is still dangerous in the future while Snowden is history. Snowden is revenge while Assange is damage control.
pulse7 10y ago
Not only did Showden "share intelligence with Russian government", he shared it with everyone on the planet... And this is a big difference!
- mSparks 10y ago
  In the good old days they just called them defectors. Rather than whistleblowers that didn't blow any whistles. Political Correctness gone mad i tell ya. As for "shared it with everyone on the planet." - really, where exactly can i download the 1.5 million highly classified US documents he has shared with the FSB?

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ihaveahadron 10y ago

Fuck that guy We should sent marines or something to get him.

tupshin 10y ago

Edward Snowden responds to the HPSCI report on his disclosures https://twitter.com/i/moments/812014048866877440 https://twitter.com/i/moments/812014048866877440

pstuart 10y ago
But who will people listen to, Tupshin?
- CodeWriter23 10y ago
  They'll listen to the "real" news, of course.

dom0 10y ago

Read the headline and thought "What the hell does Intel have to do with declassifying some reports!?"

grandalf 10y ago

If America's adversaries benefit from Snowden's leaks that would be unfortunate, but far less of a problem than the existence of the excesses Snowden revealed. Until the government starts to take seriously the idea that it has seriously broken trust with the American people, it's hard to take seriously any talk of the damage alleged to have happened due to Snowden's leaks.

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mindcrime 10y ago
Until the government starts to take seriously the idea that it has seriously broken trust with the American people, it's hard to take seriously any talk of the damage alleged to have happened due to Snowden's leaks. Exactly this. Our government has to own up to the wrongs it has committed and take responsibility for fixing the problems that allowed those things to happen, and quit looking to make Snowden a scapegoat. Trying to handwave around the real issue and make this about Snowden is just doubling down on the same mindset that caused this trouble in the first place.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  Unfortunately that's not how the state thinks. Washington knows that it has a lot of levers that it can pull to influence public opinion and narrative (just look at the poor quality and compromised character of international reporting in the US). Snowden as a concept is a threat to Washington's legitimacy. Not only because he exposed massive illegality and wrongdoing on their part, but because if he's considered a hero then: 1. they are the villian. That's bad for state power. 2. it could inspire more leaks of more illegal and ethically questionable behavior. Which could start a spiral. From a purely game theoretical point of view, Wasthington has to insist that it's the good guy in this situation and it was Snowden who was behaving irresponsibly. Given the collective approach that the US government is known to take (e.g. it gets to write the history books that children are educated with) and the opposition to this narrative track among informed and disillusioned Americans are not collectively organized over the long arc of history probably Washington can have its way.

dmoy 10y ago

Title may be more readable with the word "Intelligence" first, not Intel, just to avoid confusion with the company (Intel), not e.g. The Company (CIA)

FlorianRappl 10y ago
Thought exactly the same!

oneplane 10y ago

The report seems to be a PDF.. that was then printed, badly scanned, and saved as a PDF again. Didn't know it was still 1995!

dragonbonheur 10y ago
The US government is now permanently stuck in 1984. /s !/s
yuhong 10y ago
This reminds me of redaction.
mjevans 10y ago
It's understandable as a reasonable process for redaction. If you flatten it to a pure black and white image you get something you can print (the government loves that), but not something you can easily search (good for whoever's doing the publishing), and the security step is the flattening of the mask over the data with complete overlap and uniformity. Edit: Of course actually printing it at any point in that process IS insane/beyond paranoid.
- dest 10y ago
  Printing, despite being old-fashioned, is friendly with air-gapped networks. It is also very low cost compared with the cost of those investigations. So, not so insane in my opinion.
kinofcain 10y ago
Back in the '90s some government agency released a redacted report where someone had gone in and drawn black boxes in the PDF file, but the full text was of course still in the underlying data and people were able to get at it relatively easily. EDIT: apparently this has happened repeatedly, according to a quick google search. No doubt some sort of knee jerk process was put in place to ensure that any digital release of redacted documents must be scans of a physically redacted source. Sort of like an analog memory hole.

readams 10y ago

These claims are extremely weak. Even taking them all at face value you get a straightforward account of a whistleblower. The only statement of harm speculates that documents that were not released got into the hands of Chinese or Russian intelligence.

_audakel 10y ago

>It will take a long time to mitigate the damage he caused I am assuming he means a long time to fix the trust btwn the US govt and people? Because I am not aware of any concrete evidence that shows damages specifically caused by the disclousres. Pretty sure most terrosits already knew that they had to be careful with their comm. as it was most likley monitored. And the bombings in europe where not coordinated by advanced encryption, but normal social media accounts as i understand.

jwtadvice 10y ago
There's a serious misunderstanding by the American people that the NSA concerns itself with terrorism/counterterrorism. It does not. It's a technical agency who attempts to collect as much information as possible. It provides some information to some other agencies some of the time. Other agencies are in charge of counter terrorism intelligence such as the FBI, DHS and NCTC. Disclosures about their global surveillance program had much more to do with human intelligence (mass propaganda), industrial espionage, and diplomatic intelligence than terrorism. The media seriously misinformed the American people about the duties and prerogatives on the NSA, mostly to link the NSA and its excesses to something equally controversial, however, untrue. Anyway walking back from that line of reasoning: yes. Insurgencies around the world have had their operational security studied for decades and they are very sanitary wrt carrying around cellphones that have their batteries in, etc.
BoringCode 10y ago
Due to the nature of this type of damage you likely won't hear any evidence for many years.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  If they can't produce proof of damage I'm going to go ahead and assume it doesn't exist.
  - BoringCode 10y ago
    That's fine, you should be skeptical. But do you really expect a nation state to say "hey, this is exactly how were are damaged. Please exploit us." That's just the nature of the intelligence business, it's hard to provide proof of damage without causing further harm.

givinguflac 10y ago

If there was any reasonable evidence proving the position of the USG it would be front and center in size 50 font, underlined and bolded. This only further proves that Mr. Snowden is truly one of the great selfless heroes of the modern era. Not that they'll be reasonable and let him come home, but at least those who care enough to pay attention and think critically will know a little more of the truth. Snowden links to this well done takedown of some of the many blatant lies in this report: https://tcf.org/content/commentary/house-intelligence-committees-terrible-horrible-bad-snowden-report/ https://tcf.org/content/commentary/house-intelligence-commit...

besselheim 10y ago

Interesting read, and sheds some more light on Snowden's motivations and attitude. I thought it quite ironic that while he complains about supposed privacy violations of Americans, he was doing the exact same thing - on a smaller scale - to his co-workers. Of most concern is the huge excess of documents exfiltrated that had nothing to do with mass surveillance. Also interesting is how well the accounts of his work behaviour match up with these posts from an HN user earlier this year, who claimed insider knowledge: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=buttcoin https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=buttcoin

jwtadvice 10y ago
His actions were perfectly consistent with his attitude toward global mass surveillance. In particular since there wasn't an individual document that stated "we are surveilling the American homeland in addition to the remainder of the innocent world", Snowden choose - I think history vindicated him in this regard - to grab many documents and let journalists choose what to publish. I think the journalists who disclosed the documents did a wonderful job selecting what to publish directly, what to report on, and what to black hole. They chose to report on what was in the public interest. The public interest included revelations about mass surveillance of allied nations, espionage to help American business prospects, memoranda for allies to spy on one another's citizens, backdooring and infiltrating American products and standards so that they could be military weapons overseas and a great many other things. Another wonderful outcome of Snowden having provided a large collection of documents to journalists is that in reading them as a wholistic collection gave journalists the context to understand the motivations and methods of mass global surveillance - indeed it allowed journalists to effectively question American official denials about its behavior. America had been guessing what was taken and so it wasn't sure about what it could get away with lying about. Journalists were able to publish documents that contradicted the official narrative coming out of the White House when it tried to downplay the massive illegal and unethical apparatus. In any case, it's wrong to abuse Snowden in this case. Journalists made the decision about what to publish. I don't remember anyone's privacy inside the agency getting ruined, but if that did happen the blame rests with the media.
- 10y ago

gurneyHaleck 10y ago

I can't help but stand this next to the Challenger Space Shuttle O-ring thread, without feeling a profound sense of resonance between these 2 scenarios. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13238346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13238346 Compare this passage: (U) Third, two weeks before Snowden began mass downloads of classified documents, he was reprimanded after engaging in a workplace spat with NSA managers. Snowden was repeatedly counseled by his managers regarding his behavior at work. For example, in June 2012, Snowden became involved in a fiery email argument with a supervisor about how computer updates should be managed. Snowden added an NSA senior executive several levels above the supervisor to the email thread, an action that earned him a swift reprimand from his contracting officer for failing to follow the proper protocol for raising grievances through the chain of command. Two weeks later, Snowden began his mass downloads of classified information from NSA networks. Compare to: 2) The engineers actually knew the risk (~1% chance of loss per launch, not specific to the o-rings, compared with two actual losses of the shuttle over ~130 missions). Management used entirely invented numbers for the risk which were not justified. It's like, hey, Snowden tried to tell them to apply their updates. He tried to tell them the o-rings might blow. He warned them that there was a one-in-one-hundred probability of failure. If he didn't blow the gasket on the launchpad himself, before launch, how disasterously awful might this have really been, if he had behaved like a good little cubicle drone, followed protocol, drank the Kool-Ade, and permitted this so-called "counseling" to brainwash him?

234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
Except he didn't blow the gasket on the launchpad. He just dumped fuel everywhere and threw a match as maintenance crews and innocent civilians were standing around. He didn't have to release all the documents in the manner he did. He could have leaked them to Krebs on Security or something else. Krebs is very trustworthy at protecting sources and data itself. Instead he just dumped it all to the world with disregard for the damage it would cause and the innocent lives it would impact. There's a difference between drinking coolaid and realizing there's drugs in the coolaid so you blow up the entire party coolaid is served at damn the consequences to the innocent waiters and waitresses tending the party.

deleted 10y ago

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Sanddancer 10y ago

One of the things I'm seeing there that strikes me is the lack of criticism of using contractors in this kind of work. I'm curious as to how many off the cuff conversations about the programs weren't brought up in hearings because he was a contractor, and thus not afforded as many of the rights under whistleblower statutes that employees are afforded. His chain of command is so meandering and circuitous that it would discourage damn near anyone from reporting if the toilet was backed up, let alone real problems.

immortalmathgod 10y ago

The tone and ambiguous thought process of the press release is alarming. He was justified and has allowed for us to have a clearer conversation in regards to security. The consequence is sifting though the noise for credentials and concreteness. Glad to see that many, but not the majority, have the ability to look at all of this critically and logically.

throw2016 10y ago

Snowden has done important work, but only by making an example of him will the state ensure anyone who entertains similar thoughts knows the cost of exposing wrong doing. You essentially have to give up your life like Snowden has and for those with kids and family this might be a price too high. The media, commentators and assorted vested interests are old hands at dismissing concerns that do not fit an agenda as 'conspiracy theories' so the importance and rarity of 'the smoking gun' that Snowden produced cannot be underestimated. And as a side effect he exposed the galling hypocrisy and pretension of Europe as the enlightened refuge for dissentors and the 'orchestration' of the global media with it. The only way to address the fallout is 'normalization'. And it seems the narrative is the world is such a dangerous place that total surveillance is essential, never mind our security forces and foreign policy is directly involved in propping up terorrist funders and groups. And this narrative is being expaned daily. We should realise the state is supposed to represent our interests and the only endame for such unaccountable and powerful security services is eventually our supression.

msimpson 10y ago

The problem I have with this entire situation rests in the following timeline of events. June 2012 at NSA Hawaii: Snowden receives a quick rebuke for roping in a deputy head of NSA's technical services directorate on an email conversation regarding a workplace spat over issues updating a few servers. Snowden does not deny that this incident occurred, and the NSA has quoted directly from the resulting reprimand showing Snowden's apologetic attitude in regard to his actions after the fact. June or July 2012 (a few weeks later) at NSA Hawaii: "Snowden began the unauthorized, mass downloading of information from NSA networks." December 2012 at NSA Hawaii: "Snowden attempted to contact journalist Glenn Greenwald." January 2013 at NSA Hawaii: "[Snowden] contacted filmmaker Laura Poitras." March 2013, James Clapper's Congressional Testimony: Snowden deems this his "breaking point" in regard to the question as to "Why he did it?" Although, as the report states, he began his mass download nearly a year prior to this event, as well as contacting both a journalist and filmmaker before even taking another NSA position as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton. Nowhere has Snowden particularly refuted this timeline. He, and those journalists who support him, have only cherry picked falsehoods from the overall report alluding to the rest as merely fruit of the poisonous tree. Yet, this timeline seem quite factual and troubling.

r34yll2k 10y ago

"Yes, there are probably plants among the various Russian nationals he deals with. So what?" People who say things like this need to stick to Javascript and photoshop. Leave the seriousness of national intelligence to the pros.

coldcode 10y ago

Given that we are now "friends" with Russia and Putin (according to some) I wonder what will happen to Snowden.

wdr1 10y ago

"“Snowden infringed the privacy of at least [redacted] NSA personnel by searching their network drives without their permission" Wait... the NSA is complaining their privacy was infringed upon because documents were searched without proper approval? Wat?

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Right! He was an NSA employee as well, so authorized to violate basic privacy. It came with the job.