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I think you are getting downvotes because you are making very controversial claims for which the evidence is very weak. For instance: 1. you say: "most succes

I think you are getting downvotes because you are making very controversial claims for which the evidence is very weak. For instance: 1. you say: "most successful double-agents in history" 2. you say: "probably sold US secrets to China and Russia" The NSA's leadership has repeatedly stated that they don't believe Snowden to be a foreign agent[0]. Unless you have more evidence than "based on the countries he fled to and who he is working with currently", your case is exceptionally weak. Additionally Snowden is not a "double agent". A double agent is a agent that is turned twice[1]. Even if Snowden were a foreign spy, he wouldn't be a double agent, unless he was recruited to work by a foreign government to spy on the US, but then was turned by the US to feed the foreign government misinformation. A theory that no one, outside of Alex Jones, is currently advancing. [0]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/nsa-chief-michael-rogers-edward-snowden-probably-not-spy http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/nsa-chief-micha... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent

dragontamer 12y ago
Thank you for the link. Nonetheless, the Metadata debate remains important, so I'll continue to bring it up. I've read through the rest of these threads, and they're all "Snowden's a hero!!!" without even touching upon the debate that he's brought up. EDIT: Its as if this "metadata collection" is the most evil thing in the world ever done. Good gosh. Its still hugely ironic to me that Snowden fled to the state with the "Great Firewall of China" literally spying on every Chinese blogger with police powers that make those guys _literally_ disappear if they say the wrong things... While over here in the US, this forum gets their panties in a twist over metadata collection. I am happy that we all hold the US to a higher standard, but I still hold my point: to take down a Swatter, the Police will need access to metatdata.
- dreamfactory2 12y ago
  Hong Kong was a stopover. It was the US gov made him stay there and blocked his travel to anywhere but Russia.
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    I doubt it. Part of Snowden's treasure trove was him revealing to China about US hacking into Chinese Universities. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/u-s-hacked-china-universities-mobile-phones-snowden-tells-china-press/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/u-s-hacked-... Snowden explicitly collected how the US was spying on China, went to China, and then "publicly" gave out those details. I think he was expecting the Chinese Government to take him in and protect him after the big reveal. For whatever reason, China didn't want him. Probably because China has enough issues with their own whistle blowers. Or maybe China already knew the information Snowden had, so they didn't value him at all. Russia apparently values Snowden very much. They like him if only because he serves as an anti-US rallying cry.
    - dreamfactory2 12y ago
      It's a matter of record that the US prevented him travelling after he got to Hong Kong. Your original comment claims he was a double agent for China and Russia. Now you speculate that he was a failed wannabe Chinese asset. Wild speculations aside, you might want to consider the revelations on their own merits rather than a ham-fisted smear against the source. The fact remains that they have been confirmed as true and are therefore not some kind of black propaganda. More worrying in some ways is that it seems he got everything using wget and further that there was no audit trail to understand what he got. If we believe as we are told that he was a relatively low level external contractor, that means internal security is non-existent and you can guarantee that any other competent agency also has everything (at least confirming part of your China theory above).
      - dragontamer 12y ago
        > Wild speculations aside, you might want to consider the revelations on their own merits rather than a ham-fisted smear against the source. The fact remains that they have been confirmed as true and are therefore not some kind of black propaganda. Fair enough. I'm more interested in the political implications anyway. So what do we do about Swatters? Metadata collection seems to be the only useful tool against them.
csandreasen 12y ago
Your own link contradicts your definition: In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent (also double secret agent) is an employee of a secret intelligence service, whose primary purpose is to spy on a different target organization, but who, in fact, is a member of the target organization. In other words, if Snowden worked for the NSA and spied on China or Russia, but at the same time was passing information over to China or Russia, he would then be a double agent. That's why it's so fishy when he repeatedly says that he specifically used to work on Chinese targets (for example: [1]), chose to flee the US and go to China, and his 3rd leak in the news was giving a Chinese newspaper a list of all of Chinese computers that had been targeted by the NSA[2]. That doesn't mean he's a double-agent, but it certainly raises some eyebrows... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY#t=7m16s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY#t=7m16s [2] http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-snowden-classified-us-data-shows-hong-kong-hacking-targets?page=all http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-sn...

dragontamer 12y ago

Thank you for the link. Nonetheless, the Metadata debate remains important, so I'll continue to bring it up. I've read through the rest of these threads, and they're all "Snowden's a hero!!!" without even touching upon the debate that he's brought up. EDIT: Its as if this "metadata collection" is the most evil thing in the world ever done. Good gosh. Its still hugely ironic to me that Snowden fled to the state with the "Great Firewall of China" literally spying on every Chinese blogger with police powers that make those guys _literally_ disappear if they say the wrong things... While over here in the US, this forum gets their panties in a twist over metadata collection. I am happy that we all hold the US to a higher standard, but I still hold my point: to take down a Swatter, the Police will need access to metatdata.

dreamfactory2 12y ago
Hong Kong was a stopover. It was the US gov made him stay there and blocked his travel to anywhere but Russia.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  I doubt it. Part of Snowden's treasure trove was him revealing to China about US hacking into Chinese Universities. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/u-s-hacked-china-universities-mobile-phones-snowden-tells-china-press/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/u-s-hacked-... Snowden explicitly collected how the US was spying on China, went to China, and then "publicly" gave out those details. I think he was expecting the Chinese Government to take him in and protect him after the big reveal. For whatever reason, China didn't want him. Probably because China has enough issues with their own whistle blowers. Or maybe China already knew the information Snowden had, so they didn't value him at all. Russia apparently values Snowden very much. They like him if only because he serves as an anti-US rallying cry.
  - dreamfactory2 12y ago
    It's a matter of record that the US prevented him travelling after he got to Hong Kong. Your original comment claims he was a double agent for China and Russia. Now you speculate that he was a failed wannabe Chinese asset. Wild speculations aside, you might want to consider the revelations on their own merits rather than a ham-fisted smear against the source. The fact remains that they have been confirmed as true and are therefore not some kind of black propaganda. More worrying in some ways is that it seems he got everything using wget and further that there was no audit trail to understand what he got. If we believe as we are told that he was a relatively low level external contractor, that means internal security is non-existent and you can guarantee that any other competent agency also has everything (at least confirming part of your China theory above).
    - dragontamer 12y ago
      > Wild speculations aside, you might want to consider the revelations on their own merits rather than a ham-fisted smear against the source. The fact remains that they have been confirmed as true and are therefore not some kind of black propaganda. Fair enough. I'm more interested in the political implications anyway. So what do we do about Swatters? Metadata collection seems to be the only useful tool against them.

csandreasen 12y ago

Your own link contradicts your definition: In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent (also double secret agent) is an employee of a secret intelligence service, whose primary purpose is to spy on a different target organization, but who, in fact, is a member of the target organization. In other words, if Snowden worked for the NSA and spied on China or Russia, but at the same time was passing information over to China or Russia, he would then be a double agent. That's why it's so fishy when he repeatedly says that he specifically used to work on Chinese targets (for example: [1]), chose to flee the US and go to China, and his 3rd leak in the news was giving a Chinese newspaper a list of all of Chinese computers that had been targeted by the NSA[2]. That doesn't mean he's a double-agent, but it certainly raises some eyebrows... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY#t=7m16s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY#t=7m16s [2] http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-snowden-classified-us-data-shows-hong-kong-hacking-targets?page=all http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-sn...