6 ms·

What Snowden really revealed

239 points by kostyk 13y ago

daphneokeefe 13y ago
This is one of the clearest explanations of the situation that I have read.
boldklubben 13y ago
> We have sacrificed our freedoms and morals in order to make war on those abroad There are unperceivable powers that be. Possibly and even likely without what we consider morals. Bear with me. When you had enough wealth and can own or have anything, what's next? It's human nature.
- Derbasti 13y ago
  The thing is, I don't think we have sacrificed anything. No one ever gave the NSA explicit authority to do the things it does. It's just that they did do them snyway.
  - cims 13y ago
    "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
    - shalalala 13y ago
      Seems to me this problem can be solved by turning to our founding fathers advice as well. For starters, abolish the production of porn and the other filth that Muslims hate us for. Then, if that doesn't work. Drop a few nuclear bombs on the Middle East. Turn the whole area into a parking lot. This could be accomplished in two months.
Ygg2 13y ago
I wonder, at what point would NSA start manufacturing threats. It seems like clear progression of their behavior. Because you can't constantly cry wolf, you have to fight a straw-wolf from time to time.
- smtddr 13y ago
  >>I wonder, at what point would NSA start manufacturing threats. I have no reason to believe this hasn't happened already.
- bostik 13y ago
  > I wonder, at what point would NSA start manufacturing threats. The FBI have been doing that for years.[1,2] Sadly enough, to expect other agencies to refrain from similar activities would be a fallacy. 1: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/terror-factory-fbi-trevor-aaronson-book http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/terror-factory-f... 2: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-informants http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-in... (also linked from the heading of first article)
- salient 13y ago
  They have FBI doing that for them, and ATF [1], and who knows who else. I think many of these agencies are starting to ask for funding specifically for these sort of "operations", where they not only try and convince people to commit crimes, but give them all the funding and resources they need to commit them, too. We've gotten to the point where the government has to manufacture or invent crimes in order to arrest people. Even the War on Drugs isn't enough for them anymore. They need more. I'm actually really curious what will happen when the War on Drugs will end. Because that would leave a huge hole in their plan to criminalize just about everyone. Will they start sending SWAT teams to people's homes for pirating movies? Will they start arrest people on the street for pissing them off somehow? I don't know, but I'm really curious what would happen. I certainly don't expect them to just lay back and ease up on the arrests, if the War on Drug is over. [1] http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/atf-uses-rogue-tactics-in-storefront-stings-across-the-nation-b99146765z1-234916641.html http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/atf-uses-ro...
  - aric 13y ago
    > Will they start sending SWAT teams to people's homes for pirating movies... This happens already. When government institutions aren't victimizing everyday people for engaging in nonviolent behavior, such as duplicating ones and zeroes, they're not growing. Paychecks aren't increasing. Power isn't consolidating. Terrorizing modern humans is often par for the course to any indoctrinated group/cult. It's easy to be trained and then divided against an enemy. Breaking down Grandma's door over a Britney Spears album, threats and extortion of exorbitant fees over crap people wouldn't otherwise purchase, at 250000x per unit, locking people into cages for consenting behavior like the trade and intake of chemicals, and on: power a mafia and warlords can only dream about. Corporate law won thanks to an oligarchical system of government. The only temporary hope for pawns being victimized is when SWAT/militia shoot only the family dog but not other members of the family.
canadev 13y ago
I think this was well written and I enjoyed reading it. It brought some interesting information to my attention that I was not aware of (e.g. the porn habit blackmail scheme) - there have been so many articles about the leaks that despite them being important to me, I've made a conscious decision not to read them all. I really like the quote (that I can't find a source on) that he "defected from the American government to the American people." Edward Snowden is one of my heroes. This is something I find that I don't say very lightly or very often about anybody.
- Sharlin 13y ago
  Using your powers to acquire sensitive information in order to blackmail political opponents is certainly nothing new - just ask J. Edgar Hoover.
  - erichocean 13y ago
    Is there something special about "newness" when determining what our response should be to a particular "bad thing" (generically: evil)? It almost seems like posts like yours–something tptacek is perhaps the master of–are saying, perhaps subtly or even inadvertently, "this evil is not new, and therefore you should not oppose it". My take is this: just because some humans who were born before me were unable to recognize, or if they were, oppose, a particular bad thing makes no difference whatsoever. There is no statute of limitations on opposing evil and doing good. Wrongs can—and should—be corrected no matter how much time has passed since the discovery and the subsequent correction.
    - aristus 13y ago
      It might also be a subtle hint to read up on history. In the specific case of Hoover, the public did react. When Hoover died, ending decades of quiet terror, his 3rd in command was passed over for promotion to the top job. In retaliation he started leaking a lot of dirty laundry to the press, which caused a huge reaction that ultimately ended with the resignation of the president, huge shakeups of all spy agencies, and a giant crack in faith from which we've yet to recover. One disgruntled spook with a fistful of secrets paralyzed all "four" branches of the government of the most powerful country in the world for over a year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
Derbasti 13y ago
At this point, it may well be impossible to shut down the NSA. I imagine every opposing politician gets visited by some agent at some point, showing him records of his own wrongdoings. Imagine every politician ever be forced to choose between the end of his career and opposing the NSA. How can we get out of this mess?
- pgeorgi 13y ago
  Order some armed body to take over all NSA sites and burn things to the ground. Reason being in the set of (libel|slander|extortion|treason).
  - gaius 13y ago
    That is precisely what the Founding Fathers intended to happen in this situation. Calling the militia!
    - horseapples 13y ago
      This is exactly why that amendment exists. Instead, the vast majority of the individuals with the guns are far more upset that about protecting bigotry than protecting their rights. And the liberals on the side of rights, are generally less inclined to actually use guns.
      - DennisP 13y ago
        I know a lot of those individuals with guns, and would say that's more a media caricature than reality.
      - InclinedPlane 13y ago
        It boggles my mind how quickly people who know absolutely nothing about guns and have almost no knowledge of the lives of gun owners are nevertheless so extremely willing to put forward ideas about such based on nothing but prejudice and ignorance.
      - iterationx 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Create 13y ago
We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world. This should not actually be a complicated inquiry. http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html http://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-thought-requires-free-media http://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-t...
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
Hey I'm as big of a hair-on-fire guy as the next guy, but this is getting too much. A bit of context. Please. The U.S. has always overreacted to existential threats. In fact, that's the way the system is designed. If it has to fail, it fails towards a dictatorial president and overbearing laws -- which are removed by a frequently-elected and truly representative Congress as soon as the threat is gone. We've been going along like this for 240 years or so. There is nothing new about the abuse of power or removal of freedoms (unfortunately). So what's changed? First, internet companies are tracking every freaking thing you do online. They figured out that the average Joe will give up his privacy for free email, and they're having a field day with it. Governments trump companies, and since the data is already collected, every government on the planet is wanting a piece of that action. Second, there is no ever-changing Congress looking to score points with the folks back home. Instead, there's a static political system that fears looking bad -- and it's grown a perpetual fear machine built up around terror that can make it look really bad. Folks do this issue a great disservice when they focus only on the U.S., or only on the NSA. Look guys, if the U.S. and the NSA disappeared tomorrow, you'd have the same problems you have now -- you just wouldn't know so much about them. This has nothing specifically to do with them. (I'm not making excuses, only pleading for context). The tech community brought this on themselves. We are the people to blame. The trade-off of tracking data for free stuff was too good to be true. In fact, instead of the tracking data being almost worthless to the average citizen, as it turns out this data is much too valuable to give up under any circumstances, at least in the aggregate. Until that leaky bucket is fixed somehow, nothing changes.
- deelowe 13y ago
  There's a big difference between my agreement with a private company which allows me to use their webmail service in exchange for scraping my data for ad use and agents of the state watching everything I do with the expectation that this data will be used to harass, fine, detain, prosecute, or execute me or my family. The distinction here is that state entities are granted authority to do things no corporation can. TL;DR - Google doesn't use this data to kill people or rig elections.
  - DanielBMarkham 13y ago
joseflavio 13y ago
"all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed" -- Preamble of the declaration of independence It is going to be very difficult to motivate people to change something... until a big part of population is starving I believe...
radiorental 13y ago
What Snowden _really_ revealed is that the goal of the terrorists has been achieved. The 2996 souls who lost the lives on 9/11 were unfortunate collateral damage. The hysteria since and "hollowing out of our democracy" is the goal of a terrorist. This is not to say things weren't peachy before the attack, but the US has lost so much moral standing, respect & power since due to our government's actions. We should have kept calm and carried on, we did the complete opposite.
- frostmatthew 13y ago
  > The hysteria since and "hollowing out of our democracy" is the goal of a terrorist. Exactly! "we will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms" - George W. Bush (9/12/01) It's a pity he (and/or Obama) didn't actually follow through with that promise.
jebblue 13y ago
The article is hosted on the same site that cooperates with terrorists, regardless how you feel about Snowden, pro or con: http://www.aim.org/aim-column/al-jazeera-still-promoting-gun-violence-and-terrorism/ http://www.aim.org/aim-column/al-jazeera-still-promoting-gun...
- samstave 13y ago
  If you are concerned with that then you should be just as concerned that the USG was providing arms to Syrian "rebels" and weapons to Mexican drug cartels in only the most recent examples of supportin terrorism. The USG is basically a terrorist incubation machine.
DonGateley 13y ago
What's wrong with this logic is the presumption that the intelligence community would share any effective results of their work with the public. That would be just plain stupid. Rather than an endless argument over disclosing and justifying results, it is far simpler to simply say there aren't any. Yeah, image takes a hit but those people are much less concerned with image than with doing what they have been chartered to do. Anyone to whom any of this (other than the capabilities) comes as any surprise at all is naive indeed and probably has no memory of the hostile spy era that spawned and justified it.

239 points by kostyk 13y ago

This is one of the clearest explanations of the situation that I have read.

> We have sacrificed our freedoms and morals in order to make war on those abroad There are unperceivable powers that be. Possibly and even likely without what we consider morals. Bear with me. When you had enough wealth and can own or have anything, what's next? It's human nature.

Derbasti 13y ago
The thing is, I don't think we have sacrificed anything. No one ever gave the NSA explicit authority to do the things it does. It's just that they did do them snyway.
- cims 13y ago
  "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
  - shalalala 13y ago
    Seems to me this problem can be solved by turning to our founding fathers advice as well. For starters, abolish the production of porn and the other filth that Muslims hate us for. Then, if that doesn't work. Drop a few nuclear bombs on the Middle East. Turn the whole area into a parking lot. This could be accomplished in two months.

Ygg2 13y ago

I wonder, at what point would NSA start manufacturing threats. It seems like clear progression of their behavior. Because you can't constantly cry wolf, you have to fight a straw-wolf from time to time.

smtddr 13y ago
>>I wonder, at what point would NSA start manufacturing threats. I have no reason to believe this hasn't happened already.
bostik 13y ago
> I wonder, at what point would NSA start manufacturing threats. The FBI have been doing that for years.[1,2] Sadly enough, to expect other agencies to refrain from similar activities would be a fallacy. 1: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/terror-factory-fbi-trevor-aaronson-book http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/terror-factory-f... 2: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-informants http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-in... (also linked from the heading of first article)
salient 13y ago
They have FBI doing that for them, and ATF [1], and who knows who else. I think many of these agencies are starting to ask for funding specifically for these sort of "operations", where they not only try and convince people to commit crimes, but give them all the funding and resources they need to commit them, too. We've gotten to the point where the government has to manufacture or invent crimes in order to arrest people. Even the War on Drugs isn't enough for them anymore. They need more. I'm actually really curious what will happen when the War on Drugs will end. Because that would leave a huge hole in their plan to criminalize just about everyone. Will they start sending SWAT teams to people's homes for pirating movies? Will they start arrest people on the street for pissing them off somehow? I don't know, but I'm really curious what would happen. I certainly don't expect them to just lay back and ease up on the arrests, if the War on Drug is over. [1] http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/atf-uses-rogue-tactics-in-storefront-stings-across-the-nation-b99146765z1-234916641.html http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/atf-uses-ro...
- aric 13y ago
  > Will they start sending SWAT teams to people's homes for pirating movies... This happens already. When government institutions aren't victimizing everyday people for engaging in nonviolent behavior, such as duplicating ones and zeroes, they're not growing. Paychecks aren't increasing. Power isn't consolidating. Terrorizing modern humans is often par for the course to any indoctrinated group/cult. It's easy to be trained and then divided against an enemy. Breaking down Grandma's door over a Britney Spears album, threats and extortion of exorbitant fees over crap people wouldn't otherwise purchase, at 250000x per unit, locking people into cages for consenting behavior like the trade and intake of chemicals, and on: power a mafia and warlords can only dream about. Corporate law won thanks to an oligarchical system of government. The only temporary hope for pawns being victimized is when SWAT/militia shoot only the family dog but not other members of the family.

canadev 13y ago

I think this was well written and I enjoyed reading it. It brought some interesting information to my attention that I was not aware of (e.g. the porn habit blackmail scheme) - there have been so many articles about the leaks that despite them being important to me, I've made a conscious decision not to read them all. I really like the quote (that I can't find a source on) that he "defected from the American government to the American people." Edward Snowden is one of my heroes. This is something I find that I don't say very lightly or very often about anybody.

Sharlin 13y ago
Using your powers to acquire sensitive information in order to blackmail political opponents is certainly nothing new - just ask J. Edgar Hoover.
- erichocean 13y ago
  Is there something special about "newness" when determining what our response should be to a particular "bad thing" (generically: evil)? It almost seems like posts like yours–something tptacek is perhaps the master of–are saying, perhaps subtly or even inadvertently, "this evil is not new, and therefore you should not oppose it". My take is this: just because some humans who were born before me were unable to recognize, or if they were, oppose, a particular bad thing makes no difference whatsoever. There is no statute of limitations on opposing evil and doing good. Wrongs can—and should—be corrected no matter how much time has passed since the discovery and the subsequent correction.
  - aristus 13y ago
    It might also be a subtle hint to read up on history. In the specific case of Hoover, the public did react. When Hoover died, ending decades of quiet terror, his 3rd in command was passed over for promotion to the top job. In retaliation he started leaking a lot of dirty laundry to the press, which caused a huge reaction that ultimately ended with the resignation of the president, huge shakeups of all spy agencies, and a giant crack in faith from which we've yet to recover. One disgruntled spook with a fistful of secrets paralyzed all "four" branches of the government of the most powerful country in the world for over a year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

Derbasti 13y ago

At this point, it may well be impossible to shut down the NSA. I imagine every opposing politician gets visited by some agent at some point, showing him records of his own wrongdoings. Imagine every politician ever be forced to choose between the end of his career and opposing the NSA. How can we get out of this mess?

pgeorgi 13y ago
Order some armed body to take over all NSA sites and burn things to the ground. Reason being in the set of (libel|slander|extortion|treason).
- gaius 13y ago
  That is precisely what the Founding Fathers intended to happen in this situation. Calling the militia!
  - horseapples 13y ago
    This is exactly why that amendment exists. Instead, the vast majority of the individuals with the guns are far more upset that about protecting bigotry than protecting their rights. And the liberals on the side of rights, are generally less inclined to actually use guns.
    - DennisP 13y ago
      I know a lot of those individuals with guns, and would say that's more a media caricature than reality.
    - InclinedPlane 13y ago
      It boggles my mind how quickly people who know absolutely nothing about guns and have almost no knowledge of the lives of gun owners are nevertheless so extremely willing to put forward ideas about such based on nothing but prejudice and ignorance.
    - iterationx 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Create 13y ago

We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world. This should not actually be a complicated inquiry. http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html http://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-thought-requires-free-media http://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-t...

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

Hey I'm as big of a hair-on-fire guy as the next guy, but this is getting too much. A bit of context. Please. The U.S. has always overreacted to existential threats. In fact, that's the way the system is designed. If it has to fail, it fails towards a dictatorial president and overbearing laws -- which are removed by a frequently-elected and truly representative Congress as soon as the threat is gone. We've been going along like this for 240 years or so. There is nothing new about the abuse of power or removal of freedoms (unfortunately). So what's changed? First, internet companies are tracking every freaking thing you do online. They figured out that the average Joe will give up his privacy for free email, and they're having a field day with it. Governments trump companies, and since the data is already collected, every government on the planet is wanting a piece of that action. Second, there is no ever-changing Congress looking to score points with the folks back home. Instead, there's a static political system that fears looking bad -- and it's grown a perpetual fear machine built up around terror that can make it look really bad. Folks do this issue a great disservice when they focus only on the U.S., or only on the NSA. Look guys, if the U.S. and the NSA disappeared tomorrow, you'd have the same problems you have now -- you just wouldn't know so much about them. This has nothing specifically to do with them. (I'm not making excuses, only pleading for context). The tech community brought this on themselves. We are the people to blame. The trade-off of tracking data for free stuff was too good to be true. In fact, instead of the tracking data being almost worthless to the average citizen, as it turns out this data is much too valuable to give up under any circumstances, at least in the aggregate. Until that leaky bucket is fixed somehow, nothing changes.

deelowe 13y ago
There's a big difference between my agreement with a private company which allows me to use their webmail service in exchange for scraping my data for ad use and agents of the state watching everything I do with the expectation that this data will be used to harass, fine, detain, prosecute, or execute me or my family. The distinction here is that state entities are granted authority to do things no corporation can. TL;DR - Google doesn't use this data to kill people or rig elections.
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago

joseflavio 13y ago

"all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed" -- Preamble of the declaration of independence It is going to be very difficult to motivate people to change something... until a big part of population is starving I believe...

radiorental 13y ago

What Snowden _really_ revealed is that the goal of the terrorists has been achieved. The 2996 souls who lost the lives on 9/11 were unfortunate collateral damage. The hysteria since and "hollowing out of our democracy" is the goal of a terrorist. This is not to say things weren't peachy before the attack, but the US has lost so much moral standing, respect & power since due to our government's actions. We should have kept calm and carried on, we did the complete opposite.

frostmatthew 13y ago
> The hysteria since and "hollowing out of our democracy" is the goal of a terrorist. Exactly! "we will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms" - George W. Bush (9/12/01) It's a pity he (and/or Obama) didn't actually follow through with that promise.

jebblue 13y ago

The article is hosted on the same site that cooperates with terrorists, regardless how you feel about Snowden, pro or con: http://www.aim.org/aim-column/al-jazeera-still-promoting-gun-violence-and-terrorism/ http://www.aim.org/aim-column/al-jazeera-still-promoting-gun...

samstave 13y ago
If you are concerned with that then you should be just as concerned that the USG was providing arms to Syrian "rebels" and weapons to Mexican drug cartels in only the most recent examples of supportin terrorism. The USG is basically a terrorist incubation machine.

DonGateley 13y ago

What's wrong with this logic is the presumption that the intelligence community would share any effective results of their work with the public. That would be just plain stupid. Rather than an endless argument over disclosing and justifying results, it is far simpler to simply say there aren't any. Yeah, image takes a hit but those people are much less concerned with image than with doing what they have been chartered to do. Anyone to whom any of this (other than the capabilities) comes as any surprise at all is naive indeed and probably has no memory of the hostile spy era that spawned and justified it.