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Though I recognize the thread is pretty much over with, I'll add on to irishcoffee's claim... It's very important to understand what Snowden's motives in evalu

Though I recognize the thread is pretty much over with, I'll add on to irishcoffee's claim... It's very important to understand what Snowden's motives in evaluating the validity of the NSA documents. None of the documents have been released in their entirety, and often times the only thing that is released is a paragraph or two, or perhaps a couple of slides. Is there enough context in the partial source material presented to back up the article's claims, or is there more to the story? There have been several times when the media released one story, only to be contradicted when they later released further portions of the same document. For example, see [1], [2] and [3]. If he's whistleblowing on these program like he claims, there's no reason to doubt the validity of the documents; if he's just a disgruntled systems administrator with an axe to grind, the documents we see may cut down to remove the context and just show us what he and Greenwald want us to see, knowing full well that the NSA generally can't provide evidence denying the claims without releasing more classified information. When you add things like claims that other writers were forbidden from criticizing or contradicting Greenwald's narrative on Snowden at the Guardian[4] and at the Intercept on other subjects[5], it adds to suspicions that we're getting a distorted view of the subject. Regarding Snowden's grandstanding, you don't even need to go all of the way back to high school to start seeing claims that don't quite mesh with reality. He lied about his qualifications to get his initial job as an NSA contractor[6] and by his own admission took the Booz Allen job specifically to gather information to leak[7]. That doesn't strike me as whistleblowing - instead of "I saw something wrong and I'm reporting it" it's instead "I'm determined to find something wrong and report it." That alone should sound sirens in everyone's head that whatever was released had a skewed perspective to it. He claimed to be a senior intelligence official, while the NSA claims he was a low-level systems administrator. If we look at his actual words, though, compare for example his description of PRISM in 2013[8] to his description of it in 2014 after all of the details were released[9]. They're so different that it's apparent to me that he didn't actually know any of the details on PRISM beforehand except for general information mixed with his own assumptions. Other sources have documented a whole litany of other contradictions in his statements ([10] for example). I've seen so many people say not to focus on Snowden, focus on the documents, but you can't fully evaluate the context of the documents without knowing his motive. Is he a heroic whistleblower like he claims, or is he a disgruntled ex-employee trying to lash out at his former employer and gain notoriety in the process through misleading disclosures? [1] http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2014/04/what-is-known-about-nsas-prism-program.html http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2014/04/what-is-known-about... (jump down to section 5, just below the 'PRISM Tasking Process' slide) [2] http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2013/11/screenshots-from-boundlessinformant-can.html http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2013/11/screenshots-from-bo... [3] http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2015/02/snowden-would-not-have-been-able-to.html http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2015/02/snowden-would-not-... [4] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2015/03/20/new-editor-for-guardian-newspaper/25094233/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2015/03/... (search for 'verboten') [5] http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/ken-silverstein-intercept-stifled-serial-reporting-203236.html http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/ken-silverstein-... [6] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/us-usa-security-snowden-idUSBRE95K01J20130621 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/us-usa-security-sn... [7] http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-sought-booz-allen-job-gather-evidence-nsa-surveillance?page=all http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-s... [8] http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-says-nsa-has-direct-access-to-tech-companies-2013-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-says-nsa-has-direct-a... (search for "We've got PRISM") [9] http://blog.ted.com/we-dont-have-to-give-up-liberty-to-have-security-edward-snowden-at-ted2014/ http://blog.ted.com/we-dont-have-to-give-up-liberty-to-have-... (search for "The NSA's own slides") [10] https://www.beaconreader.com/joshua-foust/the-edward-snowden-snow-job?ref=profile https://www.beaconreader.com/joshua-foust/the-edward-snowden...

irishcoffee 12y ago
Thank you for very clearly articulating whats I've been fumbling around trying to say, and for doing the reference legwork in a much better way that I did. I feel like only one side of this story is ever represented around here.
scintill76 12y ago
Excellent, thanks. Even the professional reporting on PRISM seemed to evolve over time (or maybe my understanding evolved) -- I wonder if it's a similar reason that Snowden's statements changed? Anyway, I agree it's suspicious, and Greenwald is a bit slippery too. I do have some objections off the top of my head, if somewhat superficial. > by his own admission took the Booz Allen job specifically to gather information to leak ... instead of "I saw something wrong and I'm reporting it" it's instead "I'm determined to find something wrong and report it." He'd already decided there was something wrong, though: "“Much of what I saw in Geneva [as a CIA spy around 2007],” he said, “really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world.”" and "Snowden has said he first contemplated leaking confidential documents around 2008." On a different altercation, "The incident convinced him, Snowden says, that trying to work through the system would lead only to reprisals." And he started stealing documents before Booz Allen Hamilton, according to the NSA: "It was that summer of 2012, Ledgett says, when Snowden made his first illegal downloads."[1] Those claims about his formative experiences could of course be fabrication to help his credibility, or maybe semi-honest retroactive re-framing of genuine incidents to justify his current course in his own mind. I'll assume they're honest, for purposes of explaining why I don't find the Booz Allen job so damning. So, he's made a decent case that taking the Booz Allen Hamilton job, while driven by admitted "ulterior" motive, wasn't merely "I'll have a peek at secret info and see who I can 'sell' it to later". He already had some ideas what was wrong and who he wanted to tell about it. Now, I will grant you that his perception of the documents he gathered to support his opinion was then biased, and that the collection of documents available biases what they can be used to claim. But that seems an unavoidable part of humans forming and expressing opinions. So long as his "opinion" wasn't formed based on what would "play well" in the media or something like that, I don't really see an issue here. If I haven't beaten this to death, another way to say what I'm trying to say here: imagine he worked in the same place for 5 years, and then in the last 3 months decided to start actively gathering documents to support a thesis. Would you say that skewed his results the same way? Why or why not? Because arguably, he did work in the same environment for 5+ years, and I don't see why just switching to another defense contractor for access poisons any opinion-forming or research he does there. If it does, we have to distrust anybody who has ever acted on an opinion in order to persuade us of it, because that means anything they say is skewed and they are now trying to fit facts into their narrative instead of the other way around. (Which is probably a good way to lean toward, but not very helpful if you take it to an extreme and want to ever learn about things that happen outside of your immediate consciousness.) > is he a disgruntled ex-employee trying to lash out at his former employer But it only became his former employer by Snowden's own choice to leak, as far as I understand both Snowden and the government say. Are you saying he now regrets losing his cushy $122k/yr job with Booz Allen, so we can't trust him? That's a stretch IMO -- the documents were obtained before his employer became the ex-employer, so they can't inherently be tainted afterward. And at this point, it's probably mostly the journalists picking through the documents and potentially coming up with misleading excerpts and framing, but why would their reason to do so be to spite their source's ex-employer? Snowden might be a naive idealist, an attention seeker, a troll, a spy, or something else, but "disgruntled ex-employee" is not making any sense to me. Maybe I'm taking it differently than you meant. [1] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2014/05/edward-snowden-politics-interview http://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2014/05/edward-snowd...

irishcoffee 12y ago

Thank you for very clearly articulating whats I've been fumbling around trying to say, and for doing the reference legwork in a much better way that I did. I feel like only one side of this story is ever represented around here.

scintill76 12y ago

Excellent, thanks. Even the professional reporting on PRISM seemed to evolve over time (or maybe my understanding evolved) -- I wonder if it's a similar reason that Snowden's statements changed? Anyway, I agree it's suspicious, and Greenwald is a bit slippery too. I do have some objections off the top of my head, if somewhat superficial. > by his own admission took the Booz Allen job specifically to gather information to leak ... instead of "I saw something wrong and I'm reporting it" it's instead "I'm determined to find something wrong and report it." He'd already decided there was something wrong, though: "“Much of what I saw in Geneva [as a CIA spy around 2007],” he said, “really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world.”" and "Snowden has said he first contemplated leaking confidential documents around 2008." On a different altercation, "The incident convinced him, Snowden says, that trying to work through the system would lead only to reprisals." And he started stealing documents before Booz Allen Hamilton, according to the NSA: "It was that summer of 2012, Ledgett says, when Snowden made his first illegal downloads."[1] Those claims about his formative experiences could of course be fabrication to help his credibility, or maybe semi-honest retroactive re-framing of genuine incidents to justify his current course in his own mind. I'll assume they're honest, for purposes of explaining why I don't find the Booz Allen job so damning. So, he's made a decent case that taking the Booz Allen Hamilton job, while driven by admitted "ulterior" motive, wasn't merely "I'll have a peek at secret info and see who I can 'sell' it to later". He already had some ideas what was wrong and who he wanted to tell about it. Now, I will grant you that his perception of the documents he gathered to support his opinion was then biased, and that the collection of documents available biases what they can be used to claim. But that seems an unavoidable part of humans forming and expressing opinions. So long as his "opinion" wasn't formed based on what would "play well" in the media or something like that, I don't really see an issue here. If I haven't beaten this to death, another way to say what I'm trying to say here: imagine he worked in the same place for 5 years, and then in the last 3 months decided to start actively gathering documents to support a thesis. Would you say that skewed his results the same way? Why or why not? Because arguably, he did work in the same environment for 5+ years, and I don't see why just switching to another defense contractor for access poisons any opinion-forming or research he does there. If it does, we have to distrust anybody who has ever acted on an opinion in order to persuade us of it, because that means anything they say is skewed and they are now trying to fit facts into their narrative instead of the other way around. (Which is probably a good way to lean toward, but not very helpful if you take it to an extreme and want to ever learn about things that happen outside of your immediate consciousness.) > is he a disgruntled ex-employee trying to lash out at his former employer But it only became his former employer by Snowden's own choice to leak, as far as I understand both Snowden and the government say. Are you saying he now regrets losing his cushy $122k/yr job with Booz Allen, so we can't trust him? That's a stretch IMO -- the documents were obtained before his employer became the ex-employer, so they can't inherently be tainted afterward. And at this point, it's probably mostly the journalists picking through the documents and potentially coming up with misleading excerpts and framing, but why would their reason to do so be to spite their source's ex-employer? Snowden might be a naive idealist, an attention seeker, a troll, a spy, or something else, but "disgruntled ex-employee" is not making any sense to me. Maybe I'm taking it differently than you meant. [1] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2014/05/edward-snowden-politics-interview http://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2014/05/edward-snowd...