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How was fame necessary for his self-preservation? If nobody knew who leaked how is revealing himself useful? Deep Throat never needed to reveal himself to the

by dkuntz2 13y ago

How was fame necessary for his self-preservation? If nobody knew who leaked how is revealing himself useful? Deep Throat never needed to reveal himself to the world. Things seemed to go fairly well for him. There are better ways to make sure people don't do bad things to you than tell the whole world that you were the leak. A simple program that requires daily interaction that sends an email to one of the people he leaked to if he doesn't interact with it, revealing himself at that point. It was not his "greatest and only weapon". He was someone who wanted his name to be remembered. Tangentially, the reveal made the conversation about him, and not the information.

jrochkind1 13y ago
Because even if "nobody" knew who leaked, the US government would probably find out. And if "nobody" else knew, he'd be disappeared by now. Things have changed a lot since deep throat. As Daniel Ellsberg (from around the same era) wrote, they let him _out on bail_ while waiting for a trial. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-leaker-snowden-made-the-right-call/2013/07/07/0b46d96c-e5b7-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_print.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-l... Back when the US government assassinating people without trial might actually outrage the public enough to cost politicians their jobs. Times have changed. The "he did it to be famous" thing is exactly the story the government is trying to tell about Manning too, and it's entirely incredible in both cases, just doens't make any sense. Who puts themselves at risk of life imprisonment or death (judicial or extrajudicial) just cause they want to be famous? It doesn't even make any sense.
lelandbatey 13y ago
There are basically two ways that this information leaking game goes down: The first is to play it sneaky, being covert in your dealings and hoping against all Odds that you don't screw up and get silently caught. The second is to do everything in the extreme public eye, so that the accumulated eyes of the world are watching you, but also watching out for you. Both are totally legitimate paths, but the public one has a higher survival rate. It's what I would've done.
chrischen 13y ago
Given the fact that Snowden knew the pervasiveness of the NSA spying programs, I'm guessing he knew that it wouldn't have been hard for the government to deduce that he was the leaker eventually. Plus, it was pretty likely the government kept track of its workers in a way that would have made it even easier to identify the leaker eventually. So he probably decided to just cut to the publicity part to protect himself. In either case, you don't really know he was in it for fame.

by dkuntz2 13y ago

jrochkind1 13y ago

Because even if "nobody" knew who leaked, the US government would probably find out. And if "nobody" else knew, he'd be disappeared by now. Things have changed a lot since deep throat. As Daniel Ellsberg (from around the same era) wrote, they let him _out on bail_ while waiting for a trial. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-leaker-snowden-made-the-right-call/2013/07/07/0b46d96c-e5b7-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_print.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-l... Back when the US government assassinating people without trial might actually outrage the public enough to cost politicians their jobs. Times have changed. The "he did it to be famous" thing is exactly the story the government is trying to tell about Manning too, and it's entirely incredible in both cases, just doens't make any sense. Who puts themselves at risk of life imprisonment or death (judicial or extrajudicial) just cause they want to be famous? It doesn't even make any sense.

lelandbatey 13y ago

There are basically two ways that this information leaking game goes down: The first is to play it sneaky, being covert in your dealings and hoping against all Odds that you don't screw up and get silently caught. The second is to do everything in the extreme public eye, so that the accumulated eyes of the world are watching you, but also watching out for you. Both are totally legitimate paths, but the public one has a higher survival rate. It's what I would've done.

chrischen 13y ago

Given the fact that Snowden knew the pervasiveness of the NSA spying programs, I'm guessing he knew that it wouldn't have been hard for the government to deduce that he was the leaker eventually. Plus, it was pretty likely the government kept track of its workers in a way that would have made it even easier to identify the leaker eventually. So he probably decided to just cut to the publicity part to protect himself. In either case, you don't really know he was in it for fame.