NSA Whistleblower Comes Out of the Shadows

Despite the risks to his personal safety, the whistleblower who leaked the FISA court order and NSA surveillance programs to The Guardian has revealed himself. Prior to giving the tapes to columnist Glenn Greenwald, the 29 year old Edward Snowden chose to leave the US for Hong Kong because of it long history of respect for freedom of speech. Like six other whistleblowers, he expects that he will be charged by the Obama administration under the 1917 Espionage Act. In the 12 minute video that was produced and copyrighted* by American documentary film director and producer, Laura Poitras, he explains his decision to give the secret warrant and programs to Greenwald and leave the United States.

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations
by Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras, The Guardian

The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

 

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations - the NSA.

TheMomCat :: NSA Whistleblower Comes Out of the Shadows *

Published on Jun 9, 2013

Copyright © 2013 Praxis Films / Laura Poitras
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this video is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Shit, I just spouted off yesterday on one of these ...

... arguments over at Agent Orange:

Oh, they are only interested in the contents ...

 
... when a pattern of behavior has been established.

Sure.

The scary thing is that since the programming of the detection of the pattern of behavior is done behind closed doors by technical people, looking for a pattern of behavior that involves opposition to corporate control of the government is as possible as a pattern of behavior that involves association with "radical islam" or whatever.

"But they can't get a warrant for that!" Well, then, take that list, and search for additional patterns of behavior that indicate something that you can get a warrant for. Misreported income on tax returns, purchases of Category 1 Controlled Substances (such as marijuana), whatever.

Hell, this can be even scarier than being targeted because they've read the contents of the communications based on the pattern of anti-corporate activity ... they'd not know anything but the pretext was wrong. False positives would also be scrutinized for any little niggling thing that could be detected.

That is, if they can't get warrants to look at your communications for the actual behavior they are trying to punish, you behaving in some ways roughly similar to Anarchist Joe is all they can know until they find the thing that gives them their pretext. The lack of warrants for the actual behavior they are trying to suppress means they are channeled into moving straight from pattern-matching suspicion to sweeping for something else they can ding you on.

... but the angle I was commenting on is nowhere near as scary as the finale here: "Turnkey Tyranny".

Like I said, shit. Kafka was a prophet.

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Oh, and in case you haven't seen it ...

... David Simon, Creator of "The Wire" says its a faux-scandal.


We are shocked, shocked…

Basic line of discussion (argument is a bit strong a term to use for it) is basically, a lot of the reporting on this doesn't understand what is going on very well, and stuff happened in Baltimore in the 1980's, and so not a problem.

No indication that Simon understands the way in which the entirety of what is being discussed lays the foundation for Turnkey Tyranny. Which is shocking ... I mean, Simon offers a sympathetic portrayal of a cop who doctors evidence to get a wiretap on phone grounds and then gets off easy because nobody wants a scandal ... who could have seen coming that he would see the police procedural side of this and not get the political economy implications?

Indeed, I am shocked, shocked that Simon loses sight of the forest while focusing on the trees.

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all of the blase reactions are wrong

Shahryar's picture

how do I accent the "e" in blase? Anyway...

I've seen this in the last couple of days. "I don't care because I knew about it long ago". That's pretty weird. Here's why it's a big deal.

The Bush Administration was criminal. Yes, we all knew it. That didn't make it ok. It was criminal! So we elected people who would reverse it.

Except they didn't. But since they said they would, we have plenty of people who believed they did! Others could see through it but had no proof.

Now we do. So now it's clear that the Obama Administration is *as* criminal as the Bush Administration. I think that's worthy of some outrage.

Sure, I've been over Obama since early 2009. Am I supposed to no longer care because it's old news? "I don't care that the Obama Administration is criminal and doing all sorts of stuff that's unconstitutional. And you know why I don't care? Because I knew they were doing it. Ho hum!"

Any previous knowledge or belief has nothing to do with the crookedness and the power grabbing. Would a county prosecutor, upon finally getting the evidence to nail the murderer, say "you know, I knew he did it so what's the big deal about having the evidence? I simply don't care"? No, I don't think he would.

Anyway, the 'bots are coming out of the woodwork and really don't need any help from those who've seen through the Administration for some time.

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Yes, people heard 'we will obey the law' ...

... to mean "we will not engage in abuses", as opposed to, "when we engage in these abuses, we will carefully construct a legal fig-leaf and then claim that its legal".

But it was the latter that was actually intended.

Or, in other words, "its wrong that they are doing this illegal behavior" is ambiguous ... is it wrong only because it is illegal, or is it both wrong and illegal?

In the first case, get a secret ruling that it is legal, from a secret court that under existing national security laws is not subject to judicial appeal until 25 years later because no appeal court has the security clearance to hear the case, and you are good to go.

In the second case, a secret ruling may or may not make it legal, but it certainly does not convert it from wrong to right.

Too many people were hearing the second, when it was the first that was being said.

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