6 ms·

> More importantly though.. what purpose does leaking this serve? It shows nothing illegal, or even questionable. It has nothing to do with the documents leaked

> More importantly though.. what purpose does leaking this serve? It shows nothing illegal, or even questionable. It has nothing to do with the documents leaked previously. I just don't understand why he thought this needed to be leaked. Maybe it's about taxpayers knowing where their dollars are going? First you show that your government is spying on you, and then you show how much of your own money that costs..?

rgbrenner 13y ago
If it were $100b+ or some other outrageous number, then perhaps... but the CIA is $14.7b.. It's a drop in the bucket in the budget. It's even less than NASA, and you can see how much the general public cares about that.
- jrs235 13y ago
  "No single raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood". Similarly what singled out line item in the budget isn't just a "drop in the bucket" when compared to the entirety of the government budget? Just because some program or item doesn't "cost" much compared to everything combined doesn't mean we shouldn't scrutinize spending money on it.
  - eru 13y ago
    The armed forces, or interest payments would be pretty substantial all by themselves. (And so would social security, probably, but I don't know enough about the USA to make that comment.)
    - jrs235 13y ago
      The armed services as a whole is large... continue breaking it down into finer line items and soon... it's just a bunch of "drops in the bucket". ADD: interest payments is probably large too and more difficult to break into smaller lines... so let's quickly scrutinize that item... "Yeah, we probably should continue to make those payments unless we want everyone to lose trust in the U.S. backed dollar."
      - eru 13y ago
        Yes. So if you want to scrutinize the budget, you should prioritize by cost / value instead of by cost alone.
- MikeCapone 13y ago
  Well, it is less expensive to build data-centers and tap fiber-optic lines than to send rockets to orbit and probes to Mars... (especially the way NASA does it compared to, say, SpaceX.. but that's another discussion) But in any case, I think it's fine to get these numbers public because it's still taxpayer money. I think it would've been worse of Snowden NOT to release numbers just because they aren't as shocking as they could've been. Transparency should be about showing you what's there, not about cherry-picking things to form a narrative that distorts what is there.
  - rgbrenner 13y ago
    "A whistleblower is a person who exposes misconduct, alleged dishonest or illegal activity occurring in an organization." [0] I support Snowden, but this document is none of those things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower
    - socillion 13y ago
      None of what he has released qualifies him as a whistleblower, because it is classified information (which has strictly regulated ways to handle impropriety) and the activities are not illegal (ignoring tenuous Constitution arguments).
      - ajays 13y ago
        I am sorry, but even if you absolutely ignore everything else, Clapper's lying to Congress was illegal. He has also exposed the fact that NSA has violated the constitution many times. What is "classified" anyways? Some guy sitting somewhere decides that it is "classified". So why can't some other guy decide that it is in the public interest to not classify it?
      - speeder 13y ago
        So, a court already declared it illegal, and one of the things he leaked was information about illegal things NSA admitted it has done... How it is not illegal?
- cdash 13y ago
  Well who uses all the spy satellites because its the air force that pays for them.
- abecedarius 13y ago
  The ~$50B black budget is well over 1% of federal spending ($3.8T says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg... ). Considerably more than a drop.
deleted 13y ago
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kaonashi 13y ago
Taxpayer dollars get returned to the issuer. It's like asking where all your movie tickets are going.

rgbrenner 13y ago

If it were $100b+ or some other outrageous number, then perhaps... but the CIA is $14.7b.. It's a drop in the bucket in the budget. It's even less than NASA, and you can see how much the general public cares about that.

jrs235 13y ago
"No single raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood". Similarly what singled out line item in the budget isn't just a "drop in the bucket" when compared to the entirety of the government budget? Just because some program or item doesn't "cost" much compared to everything combined doesn't mean we shouldn't scrutinize spending money on it.
- eru 13y ago
  The armed forces, or interest payments would be pretty substantial all by themselves. (And so would social security, probably, but I don't know enough about the USA to make that comment.)
  - jrs235 13y ago
    The armed services as a whole is large... continue breaking it down into finer line items and soon... it's just a bunch of "drops in the bucket". ADD: interest payments is probably large too and more difficult to break into smaller lines... so let's quickly scrutinize that item... "Yeah, we probably should continue to make those payments unless we want everyone to lose trust in the U.S. backed dollar."
    - eru 13y ago
      Yes. So if you want to scrutinize the budget, you should prioritize by cost / value instead of by cost alone.
MikeCapone 13y ago
Well, it is less expensive to build data-centers and tap fiber-optic lines than to send rockets to orbit and probes to Mars... (especially the way NASA does it compared to, say, SpaceX.. but that's another discussion) But in any case, I think it's fine to get these numbers public because it's still taxpayer money. I think it would've been worse of Snowden NOT to release numbers just because they aren't as shocking as they could've been. Transparency should be about showing you what's there, not about cherry-picking things to form a narrative that distorts what is there.
- rgbrenner 13y ago
  "A whistleblower is a person who exposes misconduct, alleged dishonest or illegal activity occurring in an organization." [0] I support Snowden, but this document is none of those things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower
  - socillion 13y ago
    None of what he has released qualifies him as a whistleblower, because it is classified information (which has strictly regulated ways to handle impropriety) and the activities are not illegal (ignoring tenuous Constitution arguments).
    - ajays 13y ago
      I am sorry, but even if you absolutely ignore everything else, Clapper's lying to Congress was illegal. He has also exposed the fact that NSA has violated the constitution many times. What is "classified" anyways? Some guy sitting somewhere decides that it is "classified". So why can't some other guy decide that it is in the public interest to not classify it?
    - speeder 13y ago
      So, a court already declared it illegal, and one of the things he leaked was information about illegal things NSA admitted it has done... How it is not illegal?
cdash 13y ago
Well who uses all the spy satellites because its the air force that pays for them.
abecedarius 13y ago
The ~$50B black budget is well over 1% of federal spending ($3.8T says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg... ). Considerably more than a drop.

deleted 13y ago

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kaonashi 13y ago

Taxpayer dollars get returned to the issuer. It's like asking where all your movie tickets are going.