Manning, Assange and Snowden will be seen as heroes in our children's history books. They opened our eyes to the overreach of governments and they showed the power data can have in exposing regimes.
Assange has spent the better part of a year implying that Seth Rich was a Wikileaks source. If true, this is a shocking turn of events that could have broad implications.
If false, Assange will have permanently damaged his reputation, at least in my eyes.
If no evidence one way or the other comes to light, then people will just continue to believe what they want to believe about the case.
The key word there is "implying". Wikileaks mission statement doesn't rely on speculation, it relies on hard evidence, however, their PR strategy seems quite different.
Yea they seem to be promoting every 4chan conspiracy theory nowadays. I remember when they were pushing a really weird one, I think it was a Podesta cookbook ritual dinner or something, that's the one when I realized they were totally into pushing propaganda now and made me lose the last bit of respect I had for them.
"Losing all respect" for them has nothing to do with the 100% veracity of their published content. People get so intoxicated by celebrity culture these days...
Really? I see nothing obvious about it. Hell, the main people that seem to be making that claim is the CIA, an organization known to lie in the past and benefit from discrediting Wikileaks.
Regular journalists who had to flee the country and eventually start their own publication in order to continue to be able to publish the investigative stories spawned by the information.
Greenwald did not return to the US for quite some time out of legitimate fear that he'd be arrested and jailed immediately upon entry.
I've been keeping tabs on Assange's position over the years; from skipping bail, to entering the embassy, to the sporadic statements from Sweden, Britain, Ecuador and Assange. From descriptions of Sweden's strict laws around rape (misunderstanding of which caused the whole "rape capital of Europe" idiocy), to the statute of limitations running out on some of the allegations, and so on.
At no point have I ever seen any mention of Russia in general, or Putin in particular, in anything related to Assange. The closest would probably Assange's assistance to Snowden in Hong Kong, who eventually went on to seek asylum in Russia.
I felt the need to comment, since your "obvious" assertion took me so completely by surprise. I honestly have no idea how someone could come to such a conclusion.
I'm in the UK (same as Assange!); maybe where you are (the US?) the media is insert its own narrative?
The Russian government has been loosely tied with killing journalists and other opponents while Putin may also be amassing the largest fortune on the planet, so I don't think it's entirely unfounded.
Keep in mind that there is a massive propaganda campaign being done by the US to make Americans think Putin is evil.
Chances are, Putin is no more evil than any US president. Keep in mind that even the most ostensibly intelligent, reasonable, and articulate president in memory, Barack Obama, happily accelerated the campaign to convict journalists under the espionage act and ramped up drone executions abroad.
My point is that the US may legitimately consider Russia an adversary based on geopolitical realities (scarce resources, etc.) but none of this means Putin is more evil than a US president.
In the US there is some degree of public consent required for military action and foreign policy, and the best way to make this happen is to create a moral argument. So of course the leaders of all nations the US considers adversaries are framed as evil. But this is just meant to help achieve democratic consent, no serious policy thinkers actually believe it.
Not saying the US presidents are innocent by any means, but as far as I know they haven't been suspected of killing American journalists or political opponents.
Propaganda or not, anti-Putin Russians have a bit of a track record of untimely death.
Uh, what are terrorists if not political opponents?
Killing people who are deemed to hold certain beliefs without any judicial process linking them to specific criminal activity is simply killing political opponents.
This follows from the adage that war is politics with guns.
I also do not draw a major distinction between attempting to prosecute American journalists under the espionage act and simply having them killed. Arguably prosecuting them creates at least the same kind of chilling effect on journalism as a whole as murdering them does, and both leaders have the same goal of quelling dissent and intimidating reporters.
> I'm no expert, but _attempting_ to prosecute and actually killing is probably a worthwhile distinction.
You're being too charitable. Both have the same intent. The more asymmetrically powerful the ruler is, the less lethal the threat needs to be to create a chilling effect.
For example, rival gang members (with power parity) must kill each-other because they lack other mechanisms of coercion and must play their only card in the moment.
Creating martyrs is always sub-optimal compared to catching and incarcerating "criminals" or forcing compliance by the threat of capture or alienation/ostracism.
As a thought experiment, which state has stronger control over its citizens, Russia or Singapore?
For like 75% of things, yes — that substitution is completely apt. But there's some evidence that Putin pushes things a bit further that doesn't seem to be borne purely of propaganda.
What don't you think is entirely unfounded? Russia/Assange connections, or anti-Russia stories in the media?
While I agree with your characterisation of Russia and Putin, it doesn't offer any support ("founding"?) for either of these, other than as an ad hominem which can be applied to lots of countries/heads-of-state.
Oh sorry, I meant the intelligence community's disdain for Russia. I realize our ethical high ground is probably like, one stair higher than Russia at best.
Thank you; this was largely what I was referring to.
I find it deeply troubling that Assange appears to conveniently misunderstand the implications made at him: that he is acting as a willing tool of the Putin administration - not an accusation of publishing falsified documents (although i'll be surprised if it doesn't come to that), but by becoming a mouthpiece for the Kremlin to publish stolen information to advance their anti-democratic interests. Leaks are important and valuable because they empower democratic voters to make informed choices.
Wikileaks repeated derision of leaks since the election of President Trump has been particularly jarring. Leaks -and by this I mean ethically motivated ones, such as Chelsea Mannings- are an important protection mechanism in a democracy; and having a place to publish these is important; which is why I donated to wikileaks several years ago, around the time credit card companies began refusing their donations.
Supporting ethically motivated leaks to uncover wrongdoing is not at all the same thing as supporting a mouthpiece for a foreign regime that steals information and regularly murders journalists. The values that motivate me to support journalism are the ones that have prevented me from supporting Assange over the last couple of years.
> I honestly have no idea how someone could come to such a conclusion.
The Assange-Russia connection is a construct employed by the Democrats to counter the eventual fall-out when their Russian story deflates. (I.e. instead of standing there like complete morons, they can say "well, it has been Assange after all, but he has been controlled by Russia".)
Assange and Putin have little in common philosophically, other than a desire to challenge unchecked US power in the world. Putin challenges the unipolarity of the post Cold War world - see address to Munich Security Council 10 years go - and controls the media to bolster oligarchy. The man has a billion dollar house on his modest civil servant salary. Julian is for free markets and open information. The only places their worldviews intersect is dislike for American neocon foreign policy, and so they are both demonized in the NYT, WaPo etc. If Bernie was elected, I could easily see Julian turn on Vlad.
even if a huge amount of information about the US came from russia, the nature of leaks is that you can only leak what you have.
would it be better if more light was shed on russia? absolutely.
is the problem assange? probably not; it's almost certainly the lack of leaking by the US or other governments about russia.
the biggest responsibility assange has is making sure the leaks are true. that's impossible to do 100%, but by all accounts the accuracy is incredibly high given the size of their operation.
WikiLeaks and Assange are heading for a pretty mixed historical reputation right now -- WikiLeaks really needs to either get, or publish, some damaging dumps on conservative/right-wing candidates or else it's going to be remembered as just another partisan outlet focusing solely on opposition scandals.
Remember that time Sarah Palin had to release her personal email acct? All that shady stuff, Spirit Cooking, $65k on 'hotdogs'? No? It's pretty telling when the people on the other side demand that their 'opposition' 'must be' just as bad.
I don't think you are part of some conspiracy. The vagueness is because you seem to hold a strong opinion on this subject and I wanted to know if you were aware of the basics.
The 'sounds like you know' is because I incorrectly assumed you swearing about that pic meant you knew who that is. It's a totally reasonable reaction. That's Anthony Weiner (former congressman). Joe Biden knows him well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdCuDF4u5Yg
It's from a performance art piece that lasted 736.5 hours. Abramovic sat there quietly all that time, anyone could sit down with her, there was no vetting. Assuming an average of two minutes per visitor, she received 22,095 people. I would guess most of us don't meet that many people in our lifetimes.
It's literally the same as if you posted a picture of me in the Louvre looking at a painting and standing next to someone you don't like, and then suggested this evidence proves I'm part of a paedophile ring with this person.
I'm def not trying to make this personal, your hypothetical 'literal' frame implies I failed.
Maybe pedo rings don't exist, or maybe it's not something some elite have a history of. Maybe I have no good reason to mention that island, or these people. You made it clear you don't know the who what or where on subjects I suggested are pretty basic and related, yet you seem sure you are informed. If you want to know more, you could. It's not something anyone can effectively research in an evening unless you decide to dismiss it.
> I'm def not trying to make this personal, your hypothetical 'literal' frame implies I failed.
I guess I was offended that Marina Abramovic is dragged into this on the flimsiest of evidence. She is one of the leading artists in the world, and this kind of malicious gossip is the complete opposite of the radical openness and self-consciousness that she lives through her work.
That's probably why this character assassination feels personal: if it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone.
> You made it clear you don't know the who what or where on subjects I suggested are pretty basic and related, yet you seem sure you are informed. If you want to know more, you could. It's not something anyone can effectively research in an evening unless you want to just dismiss it.
Here's the thing though: it's not something anyone can effectively research over the Internet -- full stop!
Edgar Welch, the Pizzagate gunman who drove to Washington to investigate the Comet restaurant, believed he had done deep research on this. His family said to reporters that he spent months obsessing about it. One day, he had enough. This is what happened next:
"According to texts cited by prosecutors, Welch believed he was doing a public service.
'Raiding a pedo ring, possibly sacraficing [sic] the lives of a few for the lives of many,' Welch wrote to one friend.
'Standing up against a corrupt system that kidnaps, tortures and rapes babies and children in our own back yard.'
He added: 'I’m sorry bro, but I’m tired of turning the channel and hoping someone does something and being thankful
it’s not my family. One day it will be our families. The world is too afraid to act and I’m too stubborn not to.'
When he went to Washington, Welch took with him the assault weapon, a .38 revolver and a 12-gauge shotgun.
When he walked into the restaurant, diners, including families with children, fled in panic.
According to court documents, Welch fired the rifle several times at a locked closet door, damaging computer equipment,
and aimed the gun at an employee who had entered the back of the restaurant and promptly ran back out. No one was injured.
Welch later said he regretted his actions."
Sorry, I can't edit the post anymore. (HN's monospace formatting still mystifies me. I thought there is a 'max-width' style on those blocks? At least on mobile it doesn't break the entire page...)
It's not a bit surprising to most people to see Clinton's folk get excited about a dinner with _that_ ritual. I mean, heck, everyone knows that's completely normal right? (I would rather not post her demo video, but it's on yt).
And it's perfectly normal for Bill (and?) to be visiting the unmentionable island.
How about Tony Podesta's taste in art? Totally normal right? (I _really_ cant post that here out of respect for basic norms, I recommend not googling it if you don't want see some extra creepy shit).
With the kind of scrutiny that comes from a mass dump of internal communications, yes, everyone is "just as bad".
Regardless of whether he ever actually said it, remember the quote attributed to Richelieu. Even an honest person's email can be spun to make them look like the greatest villain of history. Or if you prefer the modern reality-show metaphor: everyone has a "loser edit" lurking in their private data.
WikiLeaks basically only publishes "leaks" of people Assange personally dislikes/opposes. That's the definition of a partisan outlet, no matter how much you may dislike it.
A) Why is their bias relevant? Their business isn't writing opinion editorials, it's releasing secrets.
B) You'd be biased too if somebody was trying to kill you for doing your job. Furthermore, why is it bad to be biased against a candidate that wants to kill you? Does it interfere with the secrets leaking process? Was Deep Throat's testimony marred by his political convictions?
C) When asked which candidate he preferred Assange said that it's like choosing between Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.
D) If there was a critical dump of Trump emails which he sat on, fair enough. There wasn't.
A) I was responding to someone who said "I don't see the slant". That's how the slant became relevant.
B) Probably. And it would quite likely influence my choices in what information to release and what to focus on.
C) Ok?
D) How can we know there wasn't data critical of Trump's campaign that Wikileaks sat on? If Wikileaks wasn't selling anti-Hillary merchandise I'd have an easier time believing that there wasn't.
It's exceedingly unlikely that a State insider would talk to TruePundit, which was virtually unknown before this story, instead of WaPo, or Fox News if they really had an axe to grind.
The WSJ has a record of having anonymous sources whose stories pan out. TruePundit not so much.
It's pretty easy. When they were attacking the republicans everybody on the left loved them. Now they are attacking the democrats, ergo they have zero credibility and are working with our enemies.
What if there aren't any? Or what if they just don't get leaked due to lack of whistleblowers or better security? You can't say Wikileaks has an agenda because it only receives certain type of leaks.
The leaker went to The Washington Post when they had some damaging audio tapes on the conservative. There were clearly no need to go through Wikileaks. The DNC leak on the other hand were not published by the Washington Post, and I recall how the top voted article here on HN during that day said that Washington Post had been pulling articles off their site and it was only until very late on the day that they allowed any word about the incident.
But its a bit ironic to complain about a lack of leaks about the conservatives in an article about Chelsea Manning. President George W. Bush was a conservative president and the leak provided by manning through Wikileaks was criticizing the war that Bush ran. We would not be here talking if Wikileaks did not publish dumps on conservative.
How is Manning a hero? She released a trove of information without any regard for the sensitivity of the contents or the value in the document being made public. Snowden released specific facts and documents to reveal programs many believe to be unconstitutional.
Manning was a mentally troubled individual, who abused their access to sensitive documents and jeopardized national security, and repeatly attempted suicide. That's not a hero.
Manning leaked facts about actions of the government that most citizens wouldn't want to be part of, prompting change.
He/she also released stuff that was ethically good or neutral, but damaged the security. On the balance I'd say that was a service to the mankind and the US, motives irrelevant.
To some people, bravery is often indistinguishable from insanity, dropping on the proverbial grenade, chasing down a machine-gun nest. Most heroes don't feel brave though...
To those downvoting the parent post out of disagreement: outside tech circles that is the mainstream opinion of Chelsea Manning's actions.
It's not my opinion, but I have several mil and ex-mil acquiantances and they were quite literally appalled when the sentence was commuted. Most of them are of the 'throw away the key' disposition, feeling that Ms Manning violated all her oaths and put lives at risk.
It may be the opinion in military circles (and I can understand why) but I don't think it's a mainstream opinion. I think all most people really remember about Manning's leaks are the civilian murder videos.
I saw the footage. "Don't bring your kids to war" was probably wrong as it was they who brought the war to the kids but I think that was a just a human reaction when they knew they'd got it badly wrong. They lit up a van with the minigun like they often had to, easy to call it with a replay button y'know. Very sad about them in it and them doing it too. I don't think the crew were 'rage lets go kill us some randomers'. Unfortunately, it happens. What was the reason and justification for releasing the footage and then all those cables too?
What would concern me far more is that although a lot of highly illegal activity was exposed by other leaks, Snowden et al not a single person to date has actually had any form of legal sanction to my knowledge. They may as well have not bothered.
And fellow police members will sweep another police member planting evidence or torturing a suspect under the rug. Doesn't make it any more right. Just highlights that the whole organization is rotten.
No, no he didn't. None of the information he released revealed anything criminal whatsoever. All he did was violate his oath and the law, and for what?
Manning did expose war crimes which is an act of heroism. She had similar motivations to snowden. Unfortunately the means of whistleblowing was careless in comparison to snowden which ultimately damaged her goal and public understanding of her cause.
Maybe the lesson is if youre choose to take such a big risk for a moral cause you need to take every possible effort to not cause collatoral damage along the way.
She didn't know what she was exposing, though - I don't think someone should get credit for accidentally doing something good while putting people's lives at risk.
So I just googled "Bowker", never having heard of them before, but I have a suspicion Google only serves me the version of the story that Bowker itself is telling the world. However, using wikipedia:
> "Bowker is the exclusive U.S. agent for issuing International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs), a universal method of identifying books in print. (...) It is now owned by Cambridge Information Group."
Ok... that kind of sounds like conflicts of interest waiting to happen. Not to mention ISBNs being the kind of fundamental infrastructure/natural monopoly combination where I definitely would not want to see a for-profit entity be in charge of it.
But that's just my gut-feelings. How does this set-up play out in practice?
Unfortunately, for the most part of the world, schoolbooks still are written the same way: Pretty long preparation phase, followed by a very short evaluation phase, followed by some politicians deciding whether the book will be the official book for counties/states/countries. The same politicians who would have to answer future students, why they did not intervene when the [then] hero was incarcerated for the same thing she is applauded for in some Utopos.
Brian Reynolds was prescient af. A quote from Alpha Centauri:
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Shame that he went on to work for Zynga. Talk about wasted potential...
Which is how figures like Thomas Drake[1] and Mark Klein[2] go the way of Claudette Colvin[3]; careful that you don't merely lionize the most reported figures in this struggle.
Also.. my apologies for leaning on a Civil Rights figure for an analogy, it's just the first thing that came to mind.
Wow - thanks, never knew. Especially impressed by Thomas. It takes a lot for a senior person to challenge the status quo. He had a lot to loose and also had to have a lot integrity to reach that far into the NSA and not have all integrity abrasively stripped away from him on the long winding road to the top.
Assange is the most powerful of all three hence why so much effort has been directed towards his destruction by those with a vested interest in seeing his efforts fail.
I think Assange does too - what he doesn’t trust is the US court system. He has said on multiple occasions that he is happy to go to Sweden to face charges there. What he is concerned about is being extradited to the USA afterwards.
I don't agree. Manning and Snowden irresponsibly put their government in an embarrassing position wrt every other country, friend or enemy. Snowden may be partially justified because he wanted to protect his people from his government, but was it really necessary to go all-public? Why talk to a journalist instead of a judge?
Assange, exactly what did he do of heroic? Again, secrecy is a very important weapon in international relations. Just stealing random documents from random actors... I can't see any advantage for people at large, but only for a few among those who were not hit by the randomly-aimed sabotages.
While not being pro-Trump, not at all, I can't see why he should be blamed for sharing selected information with a selected partner (Russia, very recently) while these three guys should be hosannaed.
I think this is why government agencies like the NSA need to have actual, real ways to whistle-blow. Methods that actually work, where impartial third parties are the ones assessing whether laws were broken, and not have the assessors be the very people being called out.
Did Snowden go to far? Very much worth debate, and I see both sides of the arguments. But did he have a better alternative than leaking? Not one that I can see.
> distrust of all government officials also elected Trump
I think that if HRC had immediately addressed the potential corruption revealed in those emails and stood behind her past actions boldly she'd be president now. She tried to ignore it and blame Russia/Wikileaks for her own words and deeds.
So I think the blame for Trump being elected is HRC's flawed strategy in dealing with the leaked info. It made her seem arrogant and above-the-law.
> anti-science culture
I'm curious what areas you'd point to where you think this is most prevalent. There's been a general decline in enlightenment values in our culture over the past 20 years, replaced by a preference for communities of shared belief. For all issues where science meets policy, holders of power have an incentive to simply create armies of believers rather than rational beings who can weigh the issues for themselves.
Shutting up was an option, but was it a moral, ethical one? He felt complicit in criminal activity. He could ignore his morals, quit and stay quiet while laws were being broken, or do something a bit more dramatic.
I hope I'm never in the same situation. I'd hate to have to live in Russia.
This line of thinking is the problem. When you have the head of the NSA perjuring himself in front of Congress, talking to a judge is not going to do anything.
These documents went public because they were proof of illegal activities by the NSA and because Snowden already use all internal recourses he knew of.
Three years later nobody has been indicted for these crimes which proves once again that official channels were not an option.
My friend, America has made its own bed and we should not shoot the messenger.
Getting mad at someone for releasing information that should not be hidden from the people who allow their government to exist, because now other bad guys know the info too, is like getting mad because your girlfriend's friend told her you were cheating on her.
It's a shifting of blame, and part of a propaganda campaign for damage control. Your opinion has successfully been bucketed into one of few.
Sometimes I find it useful to step back and remember that alliances, enemies, governments and countries are just human constructed actors in an unnecessary drama constructed and played out entirely by humans on an insignificant rock in space. From that perspective, it's hard to judge foils and vigilantes appearing in the grand plot.
IIRC Clapper (NSA) was asked a question by Wyden (D-OR) about a classified program in an open hearing. Wyden knew the real answer from a previous classified briefing, and forced Clapper to either lie or violate secrecy in public. So Clapper lied.
Because that is very dangerous and will usually not work.
Forgive me, but to ask this question seems to me a kind of frightening naivety.
> Again, secrecy is a very important weapon in international relations.
You seem to think it is more important that the US has power than that it wields that power justly. That's fine, but if you believe that, don't cloak your beliefs in the language of 'heroism' or 'responsibility'. When you align yourself with the ends of power at any cost, you will have lost that cause already.
But negotiating protection with the Russian government is a simple, safe, known-to-work strategy? Snowdon clearly isn't a neophyte who shies away from things because they are dangerous and difficult.
So what's your explanation? That Snowden could have found a way to raise issues through legal channels, could have found a way to overcome internal traction against his whistleblowing, but instead chose to undertake a dangerous and clandestine international chase for the sake of excitement?
Presumably, the scope of the scandal would have been much smaller. His immunity would almost certainly have been conditional on him abiding by this confidentiality agreement, then, probably, some investigators (the senate oversight committee perhaps?) would review his evidence and shut down the illegal bits, and that would be that.
> some investigators (the senate oversight committee perhaps?) would review his evidence and shut down the illegal bits, and that would be that.
I think you are very optimistic about the way the United States and its various instruments handle complaints, respect the law and police themselves.
I am not an optimist. I think most nations are more interested in their material goals than ideological integrity. I also think that model is more consistent with history than the other.
After all - how would a government with such transparency and integrity let its armed forces fire on civilians to begin with?
> Manning and Snowden irresponsibly put their government in an embarrassing position
In my opinion, the leaders who lied to the American people are the ones who put us in an embarrassing position. Manning and Snowden just helped us realize what is going on.
I think the biggest problem I have with this is more from a realpolitik angle. In theory, it's great that people like Snowden expose the invasive, over-reaching data collection American spy agencies are doing.
In practice, you can't disclose a country's national secrets without getting involved in realpolitik. Snowden ended up having to seek protection from the Russians. From my perspective, I have absolutely every reason to believe Russian spy agencies (along with many, many other countries) also engage in invasive data collecting. Which means the protection he needed sort of amounts to a "necessary hypocrisy". This protection also IMHO diminishes Snowden's goals -- politicians can now say he is "on the Russian side" and yell "traitor!", and (as the polls show) a large percentage of people will believe them, and will ignore any argument Snowden is making.
Personally, I agree with Snowden's goals, but unfortunately I think he was somewhat naive in his disclosure approach. In a way, I think the Manning / Wikileaks story is playing out the same way -- less regarding Manning, and more how Assange / Wikileaks is increasingly becoming politicized, too.
> I agree with Snowden's goals, but unfortunately I think he was somewhat naive in his disclosure approach.
My understanding is that Snowden intended to flee to South America but was forced to end up in Russia by the Obama administration, likely due to a rapid analysis of the options and the clear PR benefits of the "Russian side" stuff you describe.
The information leaked by Snowden revealed a lot of illegal activity being done by the US government as well as a lot of dishonesty about it. It revealed that Obama is at least as far to the right on surveillance as George W. Bush was, and that a system had been built that put all data collection systems used by the most notorious and corrupt regimes of history to shame.
That is the story. Focusing on Snowden's personality, his motivations, etc., is a distraction from the newsworthy content that should inspire corrective action (and likely criminal prosecution of many officials) via the democratic process.
> You can't disclose a country's national secrets without getting involved in realpolitik
I think this is true, but what we're seeing is that when you mess with the US Government you end up with a big-budget PR team driving the public perception of your actions and defaming your character.
In a sense, it's realpolitik, but in a sinister, preservation of power at all costs sort of way.
The US briefly had an adversarial moment in democracy during the social upheaval of the 1970s, but at present the asymmetry between entrenched power and the average person is larger than ever before.
The biggest cultural accomplishments the entrenched interests have achieved are (in my opinion) the idea that a major party can use the hashtag #resist with a straight face, and the utter demolition of the American left and culture of actual dissent.
The real problem is people are polarized: these folks are either total hero's or total traitors. They're usually a mixed bag. Here's a short write-up I did on Snowden as an example showing he's both a whistleblower and a traitor simultaneously:
I think the way Snowden went about things was extremely professional and honorable. While we can certainly debate Manning's approach, what issue is there with snowdens leaks? He didn't just dump a ton of stuff on WikiLeaks but instead did his best to involve a well respected journalist and have them work with the authorities to ensure no one was harmed in the process. Of course the government weren't exactly cooperative at every step and the journalists certainly had their part to play as well. That said, I find it hard to fault Snowden for anything. He saw a lot of concerning things going on, did his best to provide those details to an unbiased party accustom to dealing with such matters, and he generally did his best to stay out of things.
What? How can you put Manning in the same category?
Sure he established the trend and legitimized Wikileaks, but most of what he released was tactically valuable to enemies of the U.S. Arguably Manning did endanger the lives of U.S. service members and for that I will have a hard time forgiving her/him.
If you don't think that Pakistani and Iranian intelligence did not pass along the lessons learned to insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan then I don't know what else to say other than this:
I don't think it'll be cut and dried about Manning or Snowden either.
People still disagree about whether or not John Brown was heroic.
Whether they're seen as heroes or villains will likely depend on which side of the political spectrum one resides. Even now, Manning is considered a hero to most of the left while Snowden isn't and Snowden is a hero to the libertarian-leaning faction of the political right.
Manning's leaks embarrassed the Bush administration and Snowden's leaks embarrassed the Obama administration. Assange ruffled everyone's feathers.
I've noticed a chilling effect on speech among my friends who work for the Federal government. People just don't speak freely anymore b/c of surveillance.
About ten years ago, I was riding with my friend in his car and he wanted to score a bag of marijuana so he called his dealer and in plain-speak said he was looking for some weed.
I stared at him with my mouth hanging open and when the call ended, I asked him why he would do that.
He said that the dealer didn't care because he was small time and no one was listening anyway.
I don't hang out with this friend much anymore but I hope he has since wised up.
Chances are nothing will happen all that soon, but it's certainly plausible that in addition to storing a 60 day rolling window of all calls, the NSA stores a 3000 day rolling window of calls explicitly describing intent to commit crimes, even if the crimes are minimal.
> Snowden currently lives in Russia and has also been Putin's stooge for a while
You know he was en route to Ecuador when the US revoked his passport right? That made him stuck in Russia, with no way out.
And Putin's stooge? I assume you have some hard evidence of this. I'd like to see it.
What the rest of us are seeing is a Putin that granted asylum to Snowden basically as a middle finger to the US, and based on reactions like yours, it worked.
Putin got no information from Snowden that the rest of didn't get, because all the documents he took were handed over to journalists well before he arrived in Russia.
I take it you haven't seen that (obviously staged) Q&A with Putin with Snowden calling in, asking a ridiculously softball question. Any person with integrity would refuse serving as cheap PR for Putin's regime.
>You know he was en route to Ecuador when the US revoked his passport right? That made him stuck in Russia, with no way out.
That story always seemed improbable to me. Doesn't pass the Occam razor test.
> I take it you haven't seen that (obviously staged) Q&A with Putin with Snowden calling in, asking a ridiculously softball question. Any person with integrity would refuse serving as cheap PR for Putin's regime.
Naive to the extreme.
He has nowhere else to go but Russia. If he gets deported, its life in prison in some dank US black site, at the minimum.
How is insulting Putin in front of the world going to help him at all? Do you really think Putin would change his ways right there if he had done so?
> If he gets deported, its life in prison in some dank US black site, at the minimum.
So what, Manning did go to prison. If you do the crime, get some integrity and do the time instead of being a poster boy for a dictator.
>That's what happened.
No, what happened is that he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow. The fact is that we don't have direct flights to Equador from Moscow, so if he wanted to go to Equador, and not in Moscow, he probably wouldn't end up here.
> So what, Manning did go to prison. If you do the crime, get some integrity and do the time instead of being a poster boy for a dictator.
This is laughable. You say poster boy, I say you are falling hook, line and sinker for the tried and tested character assassinations and smear jobs that the US media and intelligence services love to perpetuate so much.
> No, what happened is that he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow. The fact is that we don't have direct flights to Equador from Moscow, so if he wanted to go to Equador, and not in Moscow, he probably wouldn't end up here.
Who said anything about direct flights? And Ecuador was only one of his potential destinations. He had more than one journey planned to add noise precisely to reduce his chances of being caught in this kind of heinous shit;
So, he wasn't actually going to Equador like you said earlier, but "one of potential destinations". Yeah, right. You can't even keep your story straight, how am I supposed to argue with that?
>You know he was en route to Ecuador when the US revoked his passport right?
"Useful idiot" (pro-tip: calling people idiots is a bad idea when you don't want to offend them, or to engage in a debate with them) describes Snowden perfectly. He might've meant well at first, but ended up playing Putin's fiddle. The other option is that he's a spy and defected voluntarily. Trying to get to South America via Moscow makes him an actual idiot.
What's not straight about it? You;re the only one having trouble with it.
He intended to go to one of three countries in south/central America. Why would you pick and book only one destination when you have US intelligence services trying to hunt you down? That seems retarded.
As you seem to be a fan of Occams Razor, what seems to be more likely?
That he was a liberty-minded contractor that discovered gross violations of personal privacy and civil liberties across the Western hemisphere and out of a sense of public good he decides to drop the dox bomb on the NSA and release everything he could lay his hands on?
or
This was some cunning and elaborately orchestrated Russian operation to plant a guy that used to talk immature shit on Ars Technica into the NSA in order to steal documents relating to the US and UK intelligence community's digital panopticon and then having hiom offload all he found to fucking journalists before he ever arrived in Moscow to collect his 'Putin's #1 Boy' trophy and life-time supply of Stolichnaya?
I mean, you complain that he didn't outright challenge Putin in a live broadcast. Think about it. What would that achieve exactly? Russia is a lost cause when it comes to personal freedoms and civil liberties. The only way that will change is if Putin and his cronies all fuck right off and die. That's not likely.
Snowden can not change a fucking thing about Russia, but a country he was born and lived in? A country that preaches freedom, democracy and liberty and asserts itself as the paragon of virtue where people may actually fucking listen if they can drag themselves away from the news-as-entertainment for a few fucking minutes?
As much of an authoritarian shitheel and all-round scum bag as Putin is, he is not responsible for every ill that befalls America. By complicitly buying into the propaganda that the Russians are to blame for every instance of US imcompetence or outright disrespect of its own constitution you are giving the actual assholes a free pass.
By blaming the Russian boogeyman under the bed every time a citizen identifies and cries foul of your country's gradual slide into plutocractic surveillance state you accelerate it.
I'm not sure why I should be surprised by any of this. This is the country that just made Donal Trump a fucking president and half of whom are convinced that Fox News is fact-based rather than irrational hate-based.
Oh, and "useful idiot" is the actual term that's used. I didn't make it up.
I think that a simple supposition that Snowden intended to defect to Russia from the beginning explains everything that has happened.
>I mean, you complain that he didn't outright challenge Putin in a live broadcast.
He didn't have to participiate in this circus show at all. Nobody would bat an eye if he didn't appear there. It was his conscious decision to participiate in Putin's PR campaign.
Also, you seem to be under an assumption that I'm an American citizen and I'm just mad about Snowden obviously betraying his home country. That's where you're wrong, because I'm actually a Russian citizen and want Snowden to gtfo for various reasons, some of which I already stated.
Why was it flagged? Saying that Assange is Putin's stooge is allowed, but not Snowden even though Snowden actually lives in Russia? Double standards, anyone?
Snowden is a traitor. If he'd only released information on the NSA's domestic spying he would be a hero. His revelations about the NSA's foreign activities crossed the line.
“There is no question in my mind that as she navigates the future, she will remain and emerge as an even stronger advocate for trans justice, government transparency and the core principles of democracy.”
So out of prison with some pretty big expectations on her back. She'll be a figurehead forever, willingly or not; not an easy life ahead of her.
183 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] threadIf false, Assange will have permanently damaged his reputation, at least in my eyes.
The key word there is "implying". Wikileaks mission statement doesn't rely on speculation, it relies on hard evidence, however, their PR strategy seems quite different.
Check out wikileaks twitter account some time.
I personally see Assange as the most important of these three. He started a revolution and enabled all the Snowdens and Mannings to reach the masses.
Also, you are just as equally pushing an agenda.
Regular journalists who had to flee the country and eventually start their own publication in order to continue to be able to publish the investigative stories spawned by the information.
Greenwald did not return to the US for quite some time out of legitimate fear that he'd be arrested and jailed immediately upon entry.
At no point have I ever seen any mention of Russia in general, or Putin in particular, in anything related to Assange. The closest would probably Assange's assistance to Snowden in Hong Kong, who eventually went on to seek asylum in Russia.
I felt the need to comment, since your "obvious" assertion took me so completely by surprise. I honestly have no idea how someone could come to such a conclusion.
I'm in the UK (same as Assange!); maybe where you are (the US?) the media is insert its own narrative?
This manifests in all sorts of odd ways, the most ridiculous of which was this:
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-...
Keep in mind that there is a massive propaganda campaign being done by the US to make Americans think Putin is evil.
Chances are, Putin is no more evil than any US president. Keep in mind that even the most ostensibly intelligent, reasonable, and articulate president in memory, Barack Obama, happily accelerated the campaign to convict journalists under the espionage act and ramped up drone executions abroad.
My point is that the US may legitimately consider Russia an adversary based on geopolitical realities (scarce resources, etc.) but none of this means Putin is more evil than a US president.
In the US there is some degree of public consent required for military action and foreign policy, and the best way to make this happen is to create a moral argument. So of course the leaders of all nations the US considers adversaries are framed as evil. But this is just meant to help achieve democratic consent, no serious policy thinkers actually believe it.
Propaganda or not, anti-Putin Russians have a bit of a track record of untimely death.
Uh, what are terrorists if not political opponents?
Killing people who are deemed to hold certain beliefs without any judicial process linking them to specific criminal activity is simply killing political opponents.
This follows from the adage that war is politics with guns.
I also do not draw a major distinction between attempting to prosecute American journalists under the espionage act and simply having them killed. Arguably prosecuting them creates at least the same kind of chilling effect on journalism as a whole as murdering them does, and both leaders have the same goal of quelling dissent and intimidating reporters.
I'm no expert, but _attempting_ to prosecute and actually killing is probably a worthwhile distinction.
You're being too charitable. Both have the same intent. The more asymmetrically powerful the ruler is, the less lethal the threat needs to be to create a chilling effect.
For example, rival gang members (with power parity) must kill each-other because they lack other mechanisms of coercion and must play their only card in the moment.
Creating martyrs is always sub-optimal compared to catching and incarcerating "criminals" or forcing compliance by the threat of capture or alienation/ostracism.
As a thought experiment, which state has stronger control over its citizens, Russia or Singapore?
Was the US bombing of Al Jazeera's office better because the journalists killed didn't have American passports?
What don't you think is entirely unfounded? Russia/Assange connections, or anti-Russia stories in the media?
While I agree with your characterisation of Russia and Putin, it doesn't offer any support ("founding"?) for either of these, other than as an ad hominem which can be applied to lots of countries/heads-of-state.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5n58sm/i_am_julian_as...
It has been reported in the UK too. I've certainly seen the allegations reported in the Guardian, for example.
I find it deeply troubling that Assange appears to conveniently misunderstand the implications made at him: that he is acting as a willing tool of the Putin administration - not an accusation of publishing falsified documents (although i'll be surprised if it doesn't come to that), but by becoming a mouthpiece for the Kremlin to publish stolen information to advance their anti-democratic interests. Leaks are important and valuable because they empower democratic voters to make informed choices.
Wikileaks repeated derision of leaks since the election of President Trump has been particularly jarring. Leaks -and by this I mean ethically motivated ones, such as Chelsea Mannings- are an important protection mechanism in a democracy; and having a place to publish these is important; which is why I donated to wikileaks several years ago, around the time credit card companies began refusing their donations.
Supporting ethically motivated leaks to uncover wrongdoing is not at all the same thing as supporting a mouthpiece for a foreign regime that steals information and regularly murders journalists. The values that motivate me to support journalism are the ones that have prevented me from supporting Assange over the last couple of years.
The Assange-Russia connection is a construct employed by the Democrats to counter the eventual fall-out when their Russian story deflates. (I.e. instead of standing there like complete morons, they can say "well, it has been Assange after all, but he has been controlled by Russia".)
He had a TV show on Russia Today..
How is it obvious? Where is the evidence? All I see is the axe he has to grind with the US, which is not entirely unreasonable.
would it be better if more light was shed on russia? absolutely.
is the problem assange? probably not; it's almost certainly the lack of leaking by the US or other governments about russia.
the biggest responsibility assange has is making sure the leaks are true. that's impossible to do 100%, but by all accounts the accuracy is incredibly high given the size of their operation.
Think about the nature of Wikileaks. Assange is a "stooge" for the opponent of any government embarrassed by leaked information.
In the same way, you might argue that if the NYT publishes an article about corruption in the US military it too is a stooge for some US enemy?
It's so strange how partisan loyalty can make people believe some pretty farfetched and illogical things.
You may think it's a joke, but some people will believe even obvious nonsense if you keep repeating it. Back in December, a man drove to Washington to "self-investigate" with a gun: https://www.google.fi/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2017...
Alex Jones has apologized for spreading this story. Don't be worse than him.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15893
https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/12/1223066_re-get-ready-f...
How many times did the Clinton's visit that island?
Bernie people: Please read Skippy's email.
https://i.redd.it/5nuf25zglpvx.jpg
How about that island?
Any visitor. AT THE FUCKING MOMA. How many pictures of her do you think were taken?
The links you posted didn't have anything about an island, so if you want me to do your googling for you, please be more precise.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramović#The_Artist_Is...
The island is Little St. James.
What are you trying to accomplish with all these bizarre hints ("sounds like you know...")? Do you think I'm part of some conspiracy?
The 'sounds like you know' is because I incorrectly assumed you swearing about that pic meant you knew who that is. It's a totally reasonable reaction. That's Anthony Weiner (former congressman). Joe Biden knows him well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdCuDF4u5Yg
It's from a performance art piece that lasted 736.5 hours. Abramovic sat there quietly all that time, anyone could sit down with her, there was no vetting. Assuming an average of two minutes per visitor, she received 22,095 people. I would guess most of us don't meet that many people in our lifetimes.
It's literally the same as if you posted a picture of me in the Louvre looking at a painting and standing next to someone you don't like, and then suggested this evidence proves I'm part of a paedophile ring with this person.
Maybe pedo rings don't exist, or maybe it's not something some elite have a history of. Maybe I have no good reason to mention that island, or these people. You made it clear you don't know the who what or where on subjects I suggested are pretty basic and related, yet you seem sure you are informed. If you want to know more, you could. It's not something anyone can effectively research in an evening unless you decide to dismiss it.
I guess I was offended that Marina Abramovic is dragged into this on the flimsiest of evidence. She is one of the leading artists in the world, and this kind of malicious gossip is the complete opposite of the radical openness and self-consciousness that she lives through her work.
That's probably why this character assassination feels personal: if it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone.
> You made it clear you don't know the who what or where on subjects I suggested are pretty basic and related, yet you seem sure you are informed. If you want to know more, you could. It's not something anyone can effectively research in an evening unless you want to just dismiss it.
Here's the thing though: it's not something anyone can effectively research over the Internet -- full stop!
Edgar Welch, the Pizzagate gunman who drove to Washington to investigate the Comet restaurant, believed he had done deep research on this. His family said to reporters that he spent months obsessing about it. One day, he had enough. This is what happened next:
(Quoted from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/25/comet-ping-p...)Do you think Welch was well-informed by Internet research?
Also, you brought her up, and are mass pasting when you could just link, yet not a word about the island.
No, you did. You posted a Wikileaks link to an email sent by her, and you didn't explain why it's relevant.
It's not a bit surprising to most people to see Clinton's folk get excited about a dinner with _that_ ritual. I mean, heck, everyone knows that's completely normal right? (I would rather not post her demo video, but it's on yt).
And it's perfectly normal for Bill (and?) to be visiting the unmentionable island.
How about Tony Podesta's taste in art? Totally normal right? (I _really_ cant post that here out of respect for basic norms, I recommend not googling it if you don't want see some extra creepy shit).
Regardless of whether he ever actually said it, remember the quote attributed to Richelieu. Even an honest person's email can be spun to make them look like the greatest villain of history. Or if you prefer the modern reality-show metaphor: everyone has a "loser edit" lurking in their private data.
WikiLeaks basically only publishes "leaks" of people Assange personally dislikes/opposes. That's the definition of a partisan outlet, no matter how much you may dislike it.
Assange himself admitted it was payback,
"This is payback because she's coming after me, but otherwise we disseminate information in a fair and balanced way" doesn't seem plausible to me.
"Can't we just drone strike this guy?" -- Clinton, on Assange
Clearly selling t-shirts is worse though.
B) You'd be biased too if somebody was trying to kill you for doing your job. Furthermore, why is it bad to be biased against a candidate that wants to kill you? Does it interfere with the secrets leaking process? Was Deep Throat's testimony marred by his political convictions?
C) When asked which candidate he preferred Assange said that it's like choosing between Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.
D) If there was a critical dump of Trump emails which he sat on, fair enough. There wasn't.
B) Probably. And it would quite likely influence my choices in what information to release and what to focus on.
C) Ok?
D) How can we know there wasn't data critical of Trump's campaign that Wikileaks sat on? If Wikileaks wasn't selling anti-Hillary merchandise I'd have an easier time believing that there wasn't.
“sources at the State Department,” a vague and anonymous reference that does not yield to verification.
Anonymous sources are unreliable? That seems important to remember...
The WSJ has a record of having anonymous sources whose stories pan out. TruePundit not so much.
Why wouldn't she simply deny it if it wasn't true?
But its a bit ironic to complain about a lack of leaks about the conservatives in an article about Chelsea Manning. President George W. Bush was a conservative president and the leak provided by manning through Wikileaks was criticizing the war that Bush ran. We would not be here talking if Wikileaks did not publish dumps on conservative.
Manning was a mentally troubled individual, who abused their access to sensitive documents and jeopardized national security, and repeatly attempted suicide. That's not a hero.
It's not my opinion, but I have several mil and ex-mil acquiantances and they were quite literally appalled when the sentence was commuted. Most of them are of the 'throw away the key' disposition, feeling that Ms Manning violated all her oaths and put lives at risk.
What would concern me far more is that although a lot of highly illegal activity was exposed by other leaks, Snowden et al not a single person to date has actually had any form of legal sanction to my knowledge. They may as well have not bothered.
Yes, yes he did.
> All he did was violate his oath and the law, and for what?
Public service. It's pretty much the best justification for doing what you mentioned.
Maybe the lesson is if youre choose to take such a big risk for a moral cause you need to take every possible effort to not cause collatoral damage along the way.
> "Bowker is the exclusive U.S. agent for issuing International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs), a universal method of identifying books in print. (...) It is now owned by Cambridge Information Group."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.R._Bowker
Cambridge Information Group? click
> "Cambridge Information Group (CIG) is a privately owned group of information services and publishing companies and educational institutions."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Information_Group
Ok... that kind of sounds like conflicts of interest waiting to happen. Not to mention ISBNs being the kind of fundamental infrastructure/natural monopoly combination where I definitely would not want to see a for-profit entity be in charge of it.
But that's just my gut-feelings. How does this set-up play out in practice?
In a nutshell they have a monopoly and their fees for licensing are extortionate - and they won't even talk to you unless you're "very serious".
They crushed a startup I consulted with eight years or so ago by playing along and then vastly increasing their fees just prior to launch.
Also, their only API (I haven't checked but I doubt things have changed) is EDI.
So, they have important and valuable data that they don't like to license, and make hard to access when they do.
I don't think that something of such importance should be in the hands of a private entity.
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Shame that he went on to work for Zynga. Talk about wasted potential...
Excellent quote!
Even though it's not the same, and in my opinion still not as great as AC, if you liked that game I can highly recommend Stellaris.
Also.. my apologies for leaning on a Civil Rights figure for an analogy, it's just the first thing that came to mind.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Klein [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin
If you haven't seen it, I suggest watching Thomas Drake's talk[1] at 29c3.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDM3MqHln8U#t=1451 (although I've linked to Thomas Drake's talk, the other talks by Jesselyn Radack and William Binney in the same video are also worth watching)
Assange, exactly what did he do of heroic? Again, secrecy is a very important weapon in international relations. Just stealing random documents from random actors... I can't see any advantage for people at large, but only for a few among those who were not hit by the randomly-aimed sabotages.
While not being pro-Trump, not at all, I can't see why he should be blamed for sharing selected information with a selected partner (Russia, very recently) while these three guys should be hosannaed.
Did Snowden go to far? Very much worth debate, and I see both sides of the arguments. But did he have a better alternative than leaking? Not one that I can see.
Well, shutting up was an option :-)
Now, exactly, who got better after his revelations? This is a sincere question.
Many of us are now much more skeptical of the honesty of officials, even when they are under oath.
This is overwhelmingly a good thing for democracy.
I think that if HRC had immediately addressed the potential corruption revealed in those emails and stood behind her past actions boldly she'd be president now. She tried to ignore it and blame Russia/Wikileaks for her own words and deeds.
So I think the blame for Trump being elected is HRC's flawed strategy in dealing with the leaked info. It made her seem arrogant and above-the-law.
> anti-science culture
I'm curious what areas you'd point to where you think this is most prevalent. There's been a general decline in enlightenment values in our culture over the past 20 years, replaced by a preference for communities of shared belief. For all issues where science meets policy, holders of power have an incentive to simply create armies of believers rather than rational beings who can weigh the issues for themselves.
I hope I'm never in the same situation. I'd hate to have to live in Russia.
I think that your government getting naked in front of allies is a problem, too.
Getting mad at someone for releasing information that should not be hidden from the people who allow their government to exist, because now other bad guys know the info too, is like getting mad because your girlfriend's friend told her you were cheating on her. It's a shifting of blame, and part of a propaganda campaign for damage control. Your opinion has successfully been bucketed into one of few.
Citation needed.
Clapper: "No, sir.
Wyden: "It does /not/?"
Clapper: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps but not wittingly."
https://youtu.be/AGYn7ER5U_0
Because that is very dangerous and will usually not work.
Forgive me, but to ask this question seems to me a kind of frightening naivety.
> Again, secrecy is a very important weapon in international relations.
You seem to think it is more important that the US has power than that it wields that power justly. That's fine, but if you believe that, don't cloak your beliefs in the language of 'heroism' or 'responsibility'. When you align yourself with the ends of power at any cost, you will have lost that cause already.
I think you are very optimistic about the way the United States and its various instruments handle complaints, respect the law and police themselves.
I am not an optimist. I think most nations are more interested in their material goals than ideological integrity. I also think that model is more consistent with history than the other.
After all - how would a government with such transparency and integrity let its armed forces fire on civilians to begin with?
In my opinion, the leaders who lied to the American people are the ones who put us in an embarrassing position. Manning and Snowden just helped us realize what is going on.
In practice, you can't disclose a country's national secrets without getting involved in realpolitik. Snowden ended up having to seek protection from the Russians. From my perspective, I have absolutely every reason to believe Russian spy agencies (along with many, many other countries) also engage in invasive data collecting. Which means the protection he needed sort of amounts to a "necessary hypocrisy". This protection also IMHO diminishes Snowden's goals -- politicians can now say he is "on the Russian side" and yell "traitor!", and (as the polls show) a large percentage of people will believe them, and will ignore any argument Snowden is making.
Personally, I agree with Snowden's goals, but unfortunately I think he was somewhat naive in his disclosure approach. In a way, I think the Manning / Wikileaks story is playing out the same way -- less regarding Manning, and more how Assange / Wikileaks is increasingly becoming politicized, too.
My understanding is that Snowden intended to flee to South America but was forced to end up in Russia by the Obama administration, likely due to a rapid analysis of the options and the clear PR benefits of the "Russian side" stuff you describe.
The information leaked by Snowden revealed a lot of illegal activity being done by the US government as well as a lot of dishonesty about it. It revealed that Obama is at least as far to the right on surveillance as George W. Bush was, and that a system had been built that put all data collection systems used by the most notorious and corrupt regimes of history to shame.
That is the story. Focusing on Snowden's personality, his motivations, etc., is a distraction from the newsworthy content that should inspire corrective action (and likely criminal prosecution of many officials) via the democratic process.
> You can't disclose a country's national secrets without getting involved in realpolitik
I think this is true, but what we're seeing is that when you mess with the US Government you end up with a big-budget PR team driving the public perception of your actions and defaming your character.
In a sense, it's realpolitik, but in a sinister, preservation of power at all costs sort of way.
The US briefly had an adversarial moment in democracy during the social upheaval of the 1970s, but at present the asymmetry between entrenched power and the average person is larger than ever before.
The biggest cultural accomplishments the entrenched interests have achieved are (in my opinion) the idea that a major party can use the hashtag #resist with a straight face, and the utter demolition of the American left and culture of actual dissent.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/10/nsa_has_under...
Just depends on which leaks and motivations we're talking about.
Did they put them in that position, or did they simply reveal the reprehensible position that the government had assumed?
Sure he established the trend and legitimized Wikileaks, but most of what he released was tactically valuable to enemies of the U.S. Arguably Manning did endanger the lives of U.S. service members and for that I will have a hard time forgiving her/him.
People said that about Snowden too, but because there was no evidence of this it's all just wild speculation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_probability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)
People still disagree about whether or not John Brown was heroic.
Whether they're seen as heroes or villains will likely depend on which side of the political spectrum one resides. Even now, Manning is considered a hero to most of the left while Snowden isn't and Snowden is a hero to the libertarian-leaning faction of the political right.
Manning's leaks embarrassed the Bush administration and Snowden's leaks embarrassed the Obama administration. Assange ruffled everyone's feathers.
After all of this, Pollard is still in prison.
I stared at him with my mouth hanging open and when the call ended, I asked him why he would do that.
He said that the dealer didn't care because he was small time and no one was listening anyway.
I don't hang out with this friend much anymore but I hope he has since wised up.
enjoy
You know he was en route to Ecuador when the US revoked his passport right? That made him stuck in Russia, with no way out.
And Putin's stooge? I assume you have some hard evidence of this. I'd like to see it.
What the rest of us are seeing is a Putin that granted asylum to Snowden basically as a middle finger to the US, and based on reactions like yours, it worked.
Putin got no information from Snowden that the rest of didn't get, because all the documents he took were handed over to journalists well before he arrived in Russia.
All you have is wild speculation.
>You know he was en route to Ecuador when the US revoked his passport right? That made him stuck in Russia, with no way out.
That story always seemed improbable to me. Doesn't pass the Occam razor test.
Naive to the extreme.
He has nowhere else to go but Russia. If he gets deported, its life in prison in some dank US black site, at the minimum.
How is insulting Putin in front of the world going to help him at all? Do you really think Putin would change his ways right there if he had done so?
Come on.
> That story always seemed improbable to me
Why? That's what happened.
So what, Manning did go to prison. If you do the crime, get some integrity and do the time instead of being a poster boy for a dictator.
>That's what happened.
No, what happened is that he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow. The fact is that we don't have direct flights to Equador from Moscow, so if he wanted to go to Equador, and not in Moscow, he probably wouldn't end up here.
This is laughable. You say poster boy, I say you are falling hook, line and sinker for the tried and tested character assassinations and smear jobs that the US media and intelligence services love to perpetuate so much.
I don't meant to offend here, but;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
> No, what happened is that he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow. The fact is that we don't have direct flights to Equador from Moscow, so if he wanted to go to Equador, and not in Moscow, he probably wouldn't end up here.
Who said anything about direct flights? And Ecuador was only one of his potential destinations. He had more than one journey planned to add noise precisely to reduce his chances of being caught in this kind of heinous shit;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
And you seem to be having trouble with even the fact that he had his passport revoked. That did happen.
>You know he was en route to Ecuador when the US revoked his passport right?
"Useful idiot" (pro-tip: calling people idiots is a bad idea when you don't want to offend them, or to engage in a debate with them) describes Snowden perfectly. He might've meant well at first, but ended up playing Putin's fiddle. The other option is that he's a spy and defected voluntarily. Trying to get to South America via Moscow makes him an actual idiot.
He intended to go to one of three countries in south/central America. Why would you pick and book only one destination when you have US intelligence services trying to hunt you down? That seems retarded.
As you seem to be a fan of Occams Razor, what seems to be more likely?
That he was a liberty-minded contractor that discovered gross violations of personal privacy and civil liberties across the Western hemisphere and out of a sense of public good he decides to drop the dox bomb on the NSA and release everything he could lay his hands on?
or
This was some cunning and elaborately orchestrated Russian operation to plant a guy that used to talk immature shit on Ars Technica into the NSA in order to steal documents relating to the US and UK intelligence community's digital panopticon and then having hiom offload all he found to fucking journalists before he ever arrived in Moscow to collect his 'Putin's #1 Boy' trophy and life-time supply of Stolichnaya?
I mean, you complain that he didn't outright challenge Putin in a live broadcast. Think about it. What would that achieve exactly? Russia is a lost cause when it comes to personal freedoms and civil liberties. The only way that will change is if Putin and his cronies all fuck right off and die. That's not likely.
Snowden can not change a fucking thing about Russia, but a country he was born and lived in? A country that preaches freedom, democracy and liberty and asserts itself as the paragon of virtue where people may actually fucking listen if they can drag themselves away from the news-as-entertainment for a few fucking minutes?
As much of an authoritarian shitheel and all-round scum bag as Putin is, he is not responsible for every ill that befalls America. By complicitly buying into the propaganda that the Russians are to blame for every instance of US imcompetence or outright disrespect of its own constitution you are giving the actual assholes a free pass.
By blaming the Russian boogeyman under the bed every time a citizen identifies and cries foul of your country's gradual slide into plutocractic surveillance state you accelerate it.
I'm not sure why I should be surprised by any of this. This is the country that just made Donal Trump a fucking president and half of whom are convinced that Fox News is fact-based rather than irrational hate-based.
Oh, and "useful idiot" is the actual term that's used. I didn't make it up.
I think that a simple supposition that Snowden intended to defect to Russia from the beginning explains everything that has happened.
>I mean, you complain that he didn't outright challenge Putin in a live broadcast.
He didn't have to participiate in this circus show at all. Nobody would bat an eye if he didn't appear there. It was his conscious decision to participiate in Putin's PR campaign.
Also, you seem to be under an assumption that I'm an American citizen and I'm just mad about Snowden obviously betraying his home country. That's where you're wrong, because I'm actually a Russian citizen and want Snowden to gtfo for various reasons, some of which I already stated.
Including overseas operations.
So out of prison with some pretty big expectations on her back. She'll be a figurehead forever, willingly or not; not an easy life ahead of her.