unless your goal is to get the public behind the NSA in order to hang Snowden one way or the other
My opinion is that this is exactly it. Once Snowden is here, the "amnesty" will end just as soon as they can hang a false statements charge on him, then parade him in handcuffs or on trial to discredit everything associated with him, including Greenwald et al stories, after which they can continue their business as usual. Make no mistake that Clapper, Alexander and Holder would LOVE to make a Rosenberg out of him.
Is Alexander seriously comparing this to him taking 50 hostages and then killing 10 people?
And this is the same Alexander who helps CIA kill that many people per day with his mass surveillance and "signature drone strikes" - right? Just checking to see if he's the right guy to question Snowden's morals.
Ever seen the monty python sketch where hitler, goebbels, etc. are put on trial and their defense is, basically, "we didn't kill anyone, we only gave the orders"
Sorry, i do not mean to compare alexander to a nazi, i'm just ridiculing the idea that the head of the nsa, a general, is merely a bureaucrat.
Generals are always to some extent bureaucrats (how did we get to WWI?) but they're bureaucrats in a military organization who give orders that directly result in people being killed.
Alexander is saying "He's already committed a crime and is promising to do another. How do we give him a free pass on the first crime if he promises not to do the second?"
If Snowden takes the deal, then he looks like the guy they are trying to paint him to be - a traitor that can't stomach permanent exile.
If he takes the deal unconditionally, he will have accomplished nothing other than isolate the United States from the rest of the world. Laws will not change, the people will not gain control of its government's activities.
Snowden can take the deal under one condition only - and that is that the NSA stops their improper practices under the supervision of Snowden. Of course, this will never happen.
Any interest Snowden expresses in a NSA deal will only be used to discredit him.
This is so stupid. Snowden hasnt leaked documents since he initially gave it to the first few reporters. Those reporters have stated from the beginning it was in their hands now to determine what is reported to the public.
> This is analogous to a hostage taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10, and then say, 'if you give me full amnesty, I'll let the other 40 go'. What do you do?
That is absolutely absurd. No lives are put in harms way like they could've been with the unredatcted wikileaks data. I believe the reporters are being cautious on what type of data they post.
You're being naive. This implies three possibilities in my mind: they either (a) figured out what he is holding back as "insurance", or (b) were unable to figure out what he was doing, or (c) it's a ploy to flush him out.
Either way, the fact that these guys put this together and did the good cop/bad cop routine on TV in itself is very telling. Looks like fear to me -- my question is, after all of the stuff released to date, what are these guys afraid of? The other question this brings up is what is Snowden really up to?
What exactly determine's the press's release schedule? Ratings? Milking? Ad conversation stats?
No idea why everything hasn't been released yet. It also isn't bulk data like the wikileaks fiasco. Looks like NSA program specs. Redaction can't be taking this long.
Funny how Snowden is now caught between a dictator in Russia and the Western for-profit press. Probably not a good place to be. I imagine he's smart enough to have an "insurance" file which means we'll never see the real dirt on the NSA.
The slow release schedule keeps the info in the news throughout the series. If it were dumped all at once, it would be "forgotten" by mainstream media by the time writers would have time to sort thru it.
I would imagine it takes a huge amount of work to properly report these stories. It takes time authenticate the documents (you can't just assume everything you get is accurate because it supposedly came from Snowden), you have to decipher all the intelligence jargon and put the story in context. You have to make sure you don't accidentally do something that puts American intelligence people in harm's way (my understanding is Snowden's insurance file includes lists of names and biographical details of agents.)
Glenn Greenwald did an AMA on reddit a while back where he was asked similar questions:
Q: I have to ask why the leaks are piece fed to the public? Why cant it be one big release? Thanks in advance.
Glenn Greenwald:
Many reasons:
1) It's irresponsible to dump documents without first understanding them and the consequences of publication.
2) It's 100% contrary to the agreement we made with our source when he came to us and talked about how he wanted us to report on them (if he wanted them all dumped, he wouldn't have needed us: he could have done it himself).
3) It would be impossible for the public to process a huge, indiscriminate dump, and media outlets would not care enough to read through them and report them because they'd have no vested interest in doing so (that's what WikiLeaks learned long ago, which is why they began partnering with media outlets on an exclusive basis for its releases).
4) The debate that we should be having would get overwhelmed by accusations that we were being irresponsible and helping the Terrorists; in other words, it would be strategically dumb to do.
5) There are already lots of risks for people reporting on these documents; there would be seriously heightened risks for anyone involved if they were just indiscriminately dumped.
Q: Out of the ones you have deemed to be worth releasing, what percentage of the Snowden documents have you released so far?
Glenn Greenwald: As I've said many times, there are thousands of documents, and the majority of ones that should (and will) be published still remain. Large numbers of people from around the world - including me and Laura Poitras - work every day as their primary or only occupation on getting these documents vetted, understood, and reported on as soon as possible.
NSA probably knows the trove may include certain info that would be super-embarrasing for the US government, and Snowden or Greenwald allusions to "even bigger" (or similar expressions) items support this possibility.
Yet undoubtedly the NSA, DOJ and other state elements, despite how we like to snark at the technical ignorance of politicians, must realize it is going to be practically impossible to suppress all the possible sources of this info getting out. And Snowden of course must be well aware that the pseudo-offer is very unlikely to be sincere, loophole-free or workable in practice.
Thus the real question is, why would NSA make such a futile gesture? It could hardly be intended at face value.
They have a PR problem. Attempting to "meet in the middle" (even if the middle is still somewhat ridiculous) makes them appear like reasonable people and somewhat mitigates their PR problem.
Snowden has 'insurance' that will leak if they kill him and they probably figured out what it was and would like it back. Most likely plans to the NSA death star
Also just because the NSA gives snowden amnesty doesn't mean UK won't extradite him for espionage. I'm sure they will play that game to jail him some how for life
This just comes across as weak/desperate on the NSA's side.
If I were him I'd tell the US to shove it. They made him intentionally stateless and pressured other nations to make seeking asylum difficult - that to me is a low blow when it comes to treating whistle-blowers - even by US standards.
This is nothing more than a trial balloon floated by someone in the administration. They want to gauge public opinion.
Frankly it would be stupid to grant him amnesty because it will pretty much open the door to copy cats. They can simply wait him out, Russia only does this when it has value on the international stage, its quite evident Putin has little respect for the President.
Not so sure. Remember the article 2/3 days back about how the NSA has no real idea exactly what kind of info he has. This move strikes me as a shallow attempt at damage control. Or more accurately an NSA person thinking "lets rather not find out how deep this goes".
Regarding Putin - yes no doubt its a pure PR exercise but I'm thankful that there is some kind of force to balance it in this case. As I said, a nation using citizenship & asylum interference to specifically target one person is deeply immoral in my books. If Putin is the one calling them out on that sht then so be it.
> The US National Security Agency is considering offering an amnesty to fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden if he agrees to stop leaking secret documents, an NSA official says.
That means as bad for the NSA as giving amnesty would be, they consider remaining documents worse.
That means however bad you've found the revelations so far, expect worse to come.
As for Snowden, I presume he's smart enough to realize amnesty from the NSA leaves dozens of other government entities or just angry people to get him, whether legally or illegally, who already flout the Constitution, lie, illegally detain and send people to countries that torture, etc.
I was thinking the same thing. He has to really have something awful on them - something so bad that they'd eat a ton of crow over it, and possibly lose their jobs over it. But it's still worth keeping under wraps.
The conspiracy theorist in me wishes that the X-files would do a movie on it, as we'd solve JFK and the aliens all in one wrap.
How does the NSA offer amnesty anyway? Is it not the Justice Department that would bring charges in this situation? It's like the family of a murder victim offering amnesty to the murderer... it's not really up to them.
The NSA isn't offering amnesty. An NSA official is saying that he would recommend offering amnesty if doing so would assure no further leaks of the information Snowden has revealed. Presumably, the Justice Department would be the recipient (or among the recipients) of that recommendation.
Or, alternatively, it means that the offer of amnesty is a lie, and just being posed as an attempt to capture Snowden and the documents.
That's not even untenable at this point either -- he's just enough outside of the public eye that it would be easy to manufacture another crime that he's also guilty of for which he could be separately arrested. Capture him during the exchange, wait a couple of weeks, then announce that he was arrested on some completely unrelated matter for which he will be tried and sentenced, secretly, in a tribunal, behind closed doors.
It's not like we haven't established clear precedent.
This isn't even the most pessimistic of equally plausible scenarios -- we could just opt to kill him.
The cynic in me likes this interpretation, but "the documents" aren't capture-able any longer because they're not all in one place. Several people have access to them, some of whom are not stupid (Bruce Schneier, etc.) and can operate redundant distributed cryptosystems. The cat is out of the bag on this one and it's never going back in. This doesn't stop them from wanting to arrest/torture/kill/* Snowden, but the government isn't dumb enough to imagine they'll ever get their papers back.
Agreed. USAgov doesn't negotiate with terrorists and in their mind that's what E.Snowden is. There's no turning back for him; he better just keep on leaking and keep on running forever. He can't return to the life he once had. If USAgov gets their hands on him... checkmate.
> That means as bad for the NSA as giving amnesty would be, they consider remaining documents worse.
Well, it would mean that, if it were serious. Snowden has already said that he has transferred control of all the documents to journalists and no longer has any control of them, and the whole amnesty spiel was predicated on him having control of the documents and being able to demonstrate that it was impossible for any more of them to escape.
It's not really a statement of intent to provide amnesty, its an attempt to:
1. Reiterate the claim that Snowden has compromised the "keys to the kingdom" when it comes to US national security,
2. Provide a justification for the continued hard line against Snowden based around the need to protect those supposed vital-to-national-security secrets that have not been revealed, rather than retribution for the clear abuses that have been revealed.
I believe it was mentioned that the NSA still doesn't quite know how much Edward Snowden made off with. (Who knows if that statement is truthful or not). So it doesn't necessarily mean that the remaining documents he has are worse. But it would definitely imply they are in possession of secrets worse than the ones already revealed!
The same way they have the authority to tap everyone's phones: they are one and the same with the unchecked military power of the United States with carte blanche to di whatever they want from spy on ex-lovers, to imprison people in solitary for years before trial, to lie openly to congress without repercussions.
Given that there have been stories saying that the NSA have not been able to work out exactly what he took from them, this implies that they are afraid of what he has yet to reveal.
We know that he deliberately didn't release material that was specifically going to endanger individuals or operations and that newspapers have been even more careful to only reveal generalities. This suggests that there is no need for the NSA to worry about stuff that is not suitable for publication. Which implies that there are other stories which are a really big deal, which both he and newspapers would be happy to publish, but which they have not published yet.
But what? I can't imagine what else they could've been up to on top of what we've learnt. Maybe I just have incredulity burnout.
I imagine the NSA also looks quite extensively at worst case scenarios. Without knowledge of what he has, assuming he has some fairly damaging material he has not seem disposed towards revealing (ignoring the even possibility he has even more damning material he is willing to release), they still have to worry about future changes in his reasoning on what's acceptable to release, and third parties without such compunctions (or evenmies) getting access to the data in some manner.
With that in mind, the best manner to recover the data completely and securely may be to get him back on their side.
> "This is analogous to a hostage taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10, and then say, 'if you give me full amnesty, I'll let the other 40 go'."
No. This is analogous to YOU taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10 of them, and then someone coming to you and telling you to stop shooting people or they are going to tell on you if you don't release the rest of the hostages.
NEVER forget that people like Alexander are professional murderers, liars, and plain: THUGS. They have been in the business of oppressing their fellow human beings for decades.
They are masters at owning the battlefield - which means they will frame their argument in the very substance of the TRUTH, twisting it to suit their intended purpose - in this case, to gain lost ground in the "honor" and "righteousness" department - two vile substances which propel many a killing, murdering, destruction machine.
Turn the table back on Alexander, always. Whenever he is given credence as the victor in the moral argument, remind the victim of his propaganda that they are responsible for the continued actions of this government if they agree with its statement, its message, and its positions on its crimes against humanity.
Until Americans realize they ARE responsible for the machine they have created, and under whose labour they live their very protected lives, we will get no true change.
The dystopian fantasies of yesteryear are now a reality. We’ve allowed the coming of an age where the civil liberties our forefathers fought so hard for are being eroded by the day. Freedom of Press, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly are mere ghostly images of their original intent. We’ve woken up to an Orwellian Society of Fear where anyone is at the mercy of being labeled a terrorist for standing up for rights we took for granted just over a decade ago. Read about how we’re waging war against ourselves at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/09/living-in-society...
55 comments
[ 449 ms ] story [ 3558 ms ] thread"If we 'consider' this, it's because the most important information is still not out there, yet."
So it's basically counter-productive, unless your goal is to get the public behind the NSA in order to hang Snowden one way or the other.
My opinion is that this is exactly it. Once Snowden is here, the "amnesty" will end just as soon as they can hang a false statements charge on him, then parade him in handcuffs or on trial to discredit everything associated with him, including Greenwald et al stories, after which they can continue their business as usual. Make no mistake that Clapper, Alexander and Holder would LOVE to make a Rosenberg out of him.
And this is the same Alexander who helps CIA kill that many people per day with his mass surveillance and "signature drone strikes" - right? Just checking to see if he's the right guy to question Snowden's morals.
Sorry, i do not mean to compare alexander to a nazi, i'm just ridiculing the idea that the head of the nsa, a general, is merely a bureaucrat.
Alexander is saying "He's already committed a crime and is promising to do another. How do we give him a free pass on the first crime if he promises not to do the second?"
If he takes the deal unconditionally, he will have accomplished nothing other than isolate the United States from the rest of the world. Laws will not change, the people will not gain control of its government's activities.
Snowden can take the deal under one condition only - and that is that the NSA stops their improper practices under the supervision of Snowden. Of course, this will never happen.
Any interest Snowden expresses in a NSA deal will only be used to discredit him.
> This is analogous to a hostage taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10, and then say, 'if you give me full amnesty, I'll let the other 40 go'. What do you do?
That is absolutely absurd. No lives are put in harms way like they could've been with the unredatcted wikileaks data. I believe the reporters are being cautious on what type of data they post.
Either way, the fact that these guys put this together and did the good cop/bad cop routine on TV in itself is very telling. Looks like fear to me -- my question is, after all of the stuff released to date, what are these guys afraid of? The other question this brings up is what is Snowden really up to?
No idea why everything hasn't been released yet. It also isn't bulk data like the wikileaks fiasco. Looks like NSA program specs. Redaction can't be taking this long.
Funny how Snowden is now caught between a dictator in Russia and the Western for-profit press. Probably not a good place to be. I imagine he's smart enough to have an "insurance" file which means we'll never see the real dirt on the NSA.
I see an ironic lack of transparency here.
I think there's an ironic lack of transparency here and releases come out on some arbitrary (or planned) schedule that no one is privy to.
Q: I have to ask why the leaks are piece fed to the public? Why cant it be one big release? Thanks in advance.
Glenn Greenwald: Many reasons:
1) It's irresponsible to dump documents without first understanding them and the consequences of publication.
2) It's 100% contrary to the agreement we made with our source when he came to us and talked about how he wanted us to report on them (if he wanted them all dumped, he wouldn't have needed us: he could have done it himself).
3) It would be impossible for the public to process a huge, indiscriminate dump, and media outlets would not care enough to read through them and report them because they'd have no vested interest in doing so (that's what WikiLeaks learned long ago, which is why they began partnering with media outlets on an exclusive basis for its releases).
4) The debate that we should be having would get overwhelmed by accusations that we were being irresponsible and helping the Terrorists; in other words, it would be strategically dumb to do.
5) There are already lots of risks for people reporting on these documents; there would be seriously heightened risks for anyone involved if they were just indiscriminately dumped.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1nisdy/were_glenn_gree...
Q: Out of the ones you have deemed to be worth releasing, what percentage of the Snowden documents have you released so far?
Glenn Greenwald: As I've said many times, there are thousands of documents, and the majority of ones that should (and will) be published still remain. Large numbers of people from around the world - including me and Laura Poitras - work every day as their primary or only occupation on getting these documents vetted, understood, and reported on as soon as possible.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1nisdy/were_glenn_gree...
Interesting how the "we must vet this stuff first" ties in pretty closely with a long profitable release.
Wikileaks was arguably worse. Assange embargoed documents and timed releases to maximize the political impact and to advance his narrative.
Yet undoubtedly the NSA, DOJ and other state elements, despite how we like to snark at the technical ignorance of politicians, must realize it is going to be practically impossible to suppress all the possible sources of this info getting out. And Snowden of course must be well aware that the pseudo-offer is very unlikely to be sincere, loophole-free or workable in practice.
Thus the real question is, why would NSA make such a futile gesture? It could hardly be intended at face value.
Also just because the NSA gives snowden amnesty doesn't mean UK won't extradite him for espionage. I'm sure they will play that game to jail him some how for life
If I were him I'd tell the US to shove it. They made him intentionally stateless and pressured other nations to make seeking asylum difficult - that to me is a low blow when it comes to treating whistle-blowers - even by US standards.
Frankly it would be stupid to grant him amnesty because it will pretty much open the door to copy cats. They can simply wait him out, Russia only does this when it has value on the international stage, its quite evident Putin has little respect for the President.
Not so sure. Remember the article 2/3 days back about how the NSA has no real idea exactly what kind of info he has. This move strikes me as a shallow attempt at damage control. Or more accurately an NSA person thinking "lets rather not find out how deep this goes".
Regarding Putin - yes no doubt its a pure PR exercise but I'm thankful that there is some kind of force to balance it in this case. As I said, a nation using citizenship & asylum interference to specifically target one person is deeply immoral in my books. If Putin is the one calling them out on that sht then so be it.
That means as bad for the NSA as giving amnesty would be, they consider remaining documents worse.
That means however bad you've found the revelations so far, expect worse to come.
As for Snowden, I presume he's smart enough to realize amnesty from the NSA leaves dozens of other government entities or just angry people to get him, whether legally or illegally, who already flout the Constitution, lie, illegally detain and send people to countries that torture, etc.
The conspiracy theorist in me wishes that the X-files would do a movie on it, as we'd solve JFK and the aliens all in one wrap.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
The NSA isn't offering amnesty. An NSA official is saying that he would recommend offering amnesty if doing so would assure no further leaks of the information Snowden has revealed. Presumably, the Justice Department would be the recipient (or among the recipients) of that recommendation.
That's not even untenable at this point either -- he's just enough outside of the public eye that it would be easy to manufacture another crime that he's also guilty of for which he could be separately arrested. Capture him during the exchange, wait a couple of weeks, then announce that he was arrested on some completely unrelated matter for which he will be tried and sentenced, secretly, in a tribunal, behind closed doors.
It's not like we haven't established clear precedent.
This isn't even the most pessimistic of equally plausible scenarios -- we could just opt to kill him.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/16/white-house-says-there-wil...
Well, it would mean that, if it were serious. Snowden has already said that he has transferred control of all the documents to journalists and no longer has any control of them, and the whole amnesty spiel was predicated on him having control of the documents and being able to demonstrate that it was impossible for any more of them to escape.
It's not really a statement of intent to provide amnesty, its an attempt to:
1. Reiterate the claim that Snowden has compromised the "keys to the kingdom" when it comes to US national security,
2. Provide a justification for the continued hard line against Snowden based around the need to protect those supposed vital-to-national-security secrets that have not been revealed, rather than retribution for the clear abuses that have been revealed.
Given that there have been stories saying that the NSA have not been able to work out exactly what he took from them, this implies that they are afraid of what he has yet to reveal.
We know that he deliberately didn't release material that was specifically going to endanger individuals or operations and that newspapers have been even more careful to only reveal generalities. This suggests that there is no need for the NSA to worry about stuff that is not suitable for publication. Which implies that there are other stories which are a really big deal, which both he and newspapers would be happy to publish, but which they have not published yet.
But what? I can't imagine what else they could've been up to on top of what we've learnt. Maybe I just have incredulity burnout.
With that in mind, the best manner to recover the data completely and securely may be to get him back on their side.
No. This is analogous to YOU taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10 of them, and then someone coming to you and telling you to stop shooting people or they are going to tell on you if you don't release the rest of the hostages.
> What do you do?
You let your hostages go.
NEVER forget that people like Alexander are professional murderers, liars, and plain: THUGS. They have been in the business of oppressing their fellow human beings for decades.
They are masters at owning the battlefield - which means they will frame their argument in the very substance of the TRUTH, twisting it to suit their intended purpose - in this case, to gain lost ground in the "honor" and "righteousness" department - two vile substances which propel many a killing, murdering, destruction machine.
Turn the table back on Alexander, always. Whenever he is given credence as the victor in the moral argument, remind the victim of his propaganda that they are responsible for the continued actions of this government if they agree with its statement, its message, and its positions on its crimes against humanity.
Until Americans realize they ARE responsible for the machine they have created, and under whose labour they live their very protected lives, we will get no true change.