Let's sentence Edward Snowden to....Russia!

[Seth]

I think there probably was some middle ground available, short of stealing terrabyte after terrabyte of data and extorting the US government. Said gubmint folks tend to look askance at such things.

Snowden did not steal "terrabyte after terrabyte (sic)" of data. You're thinking of Manning. Snowden only leaked documents carefully selected to reveal the NSA's excesses while minimizing damage to legitimate security activities.

No, Snowden stole terabytes of data, downloaded wholesale and stolen from his office alright, just like Manning did. He just hasn't released it all...yet. But he has it, and he can release it any time he wants to...which might already have happened in Russia as he tried to avoid having his testicles fried in some deep cell in whatever facility replaced Lubyanka Prison when the KGB changed its name. Besides, his greatest danger to us is not what he stole, but what he knows about our systems, which endangers national security to an unknown extent and will cost us billions if not trillions of dollars to revamp and redesign systems and software to secure them against his knowledge. And a good deal of his knowledge is about HOW the intelligence community goes about it's job...in other words, he knows specifics about our "tradecraft" that can, have, and will continue to get Americans, particularly intelligence operatives, killed.

But the Obama administration didn't suddenly change the remit of the NSA.

Seth's answer is apropos, but in addition, Obama did massively expand these activities. Part of that was that Obama was more willing to fund massive data processing activities, but another part was that Obama was more willing to ignore constitutional limitations on government.[/quote]

[Warren Dew]

I think there probably was some middle ground available, short of stealing terrabyte after terrabyte of data and extorting the US government. Said gubmint folks tend to look askance at such things.

Snowden did not steal "terrabyte after terrabyte (sic)" of data. You're thinking of Manning. Snowden only leaked documents carefully selected to reveal the NSA's excesses while minimizing damage to legitimate security activities.

No, Snowden stole terabytes of data, downloaded wholesale and stolen from his office alright, just like Manning did. He just hasn't released it all...yet. But he has it, and he can release it any time he wants to...which might already have happened in Russia as he tried to avoid having his testicles fried in some deep cell in whatever facility replaced Lubyanka Prison when the KGB changed its name.

Snowden's data all fit on a laptop or two that he had with him, so it wasn't a lot of terabytes.

Besides, his greatest danger to us is not what he stole, but what he knows about our systems, which endangers national security to an unknown extent and will cost us billions if not trillions of dollars to revamp and redesign systems and software to secure them against his knowledge.

If there are bugs that make the systems insecure, those bugs will need to be fixed anyway. There might be a small window of vulnerability until the bugs are fixed, but it's likely already closed.

And a good deal of his knowledge is about HOW the intelligence community goes about it's job...in other words, he knows specifics about our "tradecraft" that can, have, and will continue to get Americans, particularly intelligence operatives, killed.

"Tradecraft" issues concern the human side of intelligence, not the technical side of intelligence. The NSA has no significant human intelligence activities, so Snowden would not have been exposed to them. If he had been a CIA covert agent, it would be a different story, but he wasn't.

[JimC]

The Obama Administration has been engaging in gross violations of the Constitution?

Democrats? Obama supporters? What say you to this charge?

The NSA has. Doesn't seem to matter much whose watch it's under.

But it does matter. Whatever some former administration did, the present administration (at any particular time) cannot use the "but everyone else is doing it" excuse. That's not how it works. Each administration, and each politician, and each Supreme Court Justice has a duty to the People and the Constitution and it is their absolute obligation to do whatever they can do to ensure that both are respected and they do their jobs with honor and obedience, even if that means denouncing the wrongful actions of governments and bureaucrats past.

If Obama thought it was wrong, he should have and could have put a stop to it, or at least reined it in. Like he said he would during the campaign.

He didn't, and during his terms, the buck stops at him. Therefore the blame lies with him. Full stop.

As I said, I'm not a big fan of all Obama does. I have no particular allegiance to Democrats or Republicans. But ok, let's say it really is his fault. In any case, it seems you agree with me that what the NSA is/was up to is awful. So Snowden did right.

An excellent hoist of Seth onto his own petard!

But, rather like your current political paralysis, the wider international community cares very little for the Republican/Democrat spat, or whether we can blame Obama or Bush for everything short of original sin.

The international community cares about your actions as a nation state...

[pErvinalia]

I think there probably was some middle ground available, short of stealing terrabyte after terrabyte of data and extorting the US government. Said gubmint folks tend to look askance at such things.

Snowden did not steal "terrabyte after terrabyte (sic)" of data. You're thinking of Manning. Snowden only leaked documents carefully selected to reveal the NSA's excesses while minimizing damage to legitimate security activities.

No, Snowden stole terabytes of data, downloaded wholesale and stolen from his office alright, just like Manning did. He just hasn't released it all...yet. But he has it, and he can release it any time he wants to...which might already have happened in Russia as he tried to avoid having his testicles fried in some deep cell in whatever facility replaced Lubyanka Prison when the KGB changed its name. Besides, his greatest danger to us is not what he stole, but what he knows about our systems, which endangers national security to an unknown extent and will cost us billions if not trillions of dollars to revamp and redesign systems and software to secure them against his knowledge.

Ney, gazillions!!1!

[mistermack]

On the subject of Snowdon's finances, I find it very unlikely that he is skint.
He was earning about 200,000 just before he jumped ship, and it sounds like he had planned the jump for a long time

He's probably got a million salted away somewhere, in bitcoins or swiss or russian accounts. He's a capable person, and there's no chance that he didn't plan his finances, while he was planning to jump.

And even half a million would go a long way in Russia. That's without what the Russians will surely pay him for what he knows.
It's peanuts to a state the size of Russia.

[Coito ergo sum]

But, rather like your current political paralysis, the wider international community cares very little for the Republican/Democrat spat, or whether we can blame Obama or Bush for everything short of original sin.

This is a recent change from what it was. The wider international community most certainly did care about the Republican/Democrat split, most certainly sided with the Democrats, and most certainly suggested that Americans were stupid for having elected Bush at all and most certainly swallowed hook, line and sinker the notion of Barack Obama as savior of the universe, to the point of prospectively giving him a Nobel Peace Prize in anticipation of him doing great peaceful things, etc.

The international community cares about your actions as a nation state...

The international community is as far up its own ass as our community is. Fuck off with this holier-than-thou bullshit. FFS, it never stops.

[pErvinalia]

[JimC]

But, rather like your current political paralysis, the wider international community cares very little for the Republican/Democrat spat, or whether we can blame Obama or Bush for everything short of original sin.

This is a recent change from what it was. The wider international community most certainly did care about the Republican/Democrat split, most certainly sided with the Democrats, and most certainly suggested that Americans were stupid for having elected Bush at all and most certainly swallowed hook, line and sinker the notion of Barack Obama as savior of the universe, to the point of prospectively giving him a Nobel Peace Prize in anticipation of him doing great peaceful things, etc.

The international community cares about your actions as a nation state...

The international community is as far up its own ass as our community is. Fuck off with this holier-than-thou bullshit. FFS, it never stops.

"holier-than-thou bullshit" might be a reasonable term if the international community were poking its nose into purely internal concerns of your country

However, people outside the US have every right to be critical when your actions as a nation state impinge on them, such as intrusive spying by your security agencies on foreign citizens, kept covered up until revealed by Snowden et al.

So the US can fuck off, whenever it wants to be an international bully boy.

[Audley Strange]

Well my position on it is that he is not a whistleblower, but a grass and the reaction is because Criminal organisations fucking hate snitches.