The Snowden Saga, Ctd.
One Thing. It is worth noting that Ed Snowden is now shopping his wares to publications that have the most interest in particular U.S. spying programs. He told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post that the U.S. had been hacking Hong Kong & China for years. Then he released documents -- evidently via American documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras -- to the German magazine Der Spiegel, showing that the NSA was eavesdropping on European Union officials' conversations.
The only way one can find positive value in making such information public is to hold the belief that spying on our allies is unethical & that the public, here and in Europe, should have certain knowledge that the U.S. does so. I do not hold those views.
Another Thing. What the public does now know, with certainty, is the the National Secuity Agency is woefully insecure. Perhaps the most shocking thing about Snowden's disclosures is not what he revealed but the ease with which an NSA new hire is able to waltz out of one of its facilities with flashdrives and perhaps laptops loaded with classified data. In a story I linked yesterday, Former NSA director Mike McConnell, who is now a top guy at Booz Allen, told people at the Aspen Ideas Festival that his new favorite idea is making sure it takes two people to access classified data. What a concept! A buddy system! Good grief.
I watched the 2001 film "Spy Game" Sunday. The plot-line has the Robert Redford character -- a mid-level CIA spy -- trying to save an old friend that the CIA honchos see as expendable. Most of the film's main-story action takes place at Langley, where Redford plays a cat-and-mouse game with the higher-ups. Every time Redford makes a phone call or accesses data, the CIA bigwigs know all about it, even tho the Redford character takes steps to hide his activities. To get in and out of the building (in the film, anyway), CIA employees have to run through fairly rigorous security checks. Yeah, I know it's a movie. But if the NSA had any security at its Hawaiian facility, I don't see how Snowden's thefts would go undetected.
So when commentators hypothesize about who might have aided & abetted Snowden, I'd have to say, "Well, first, the buffoons at the NSA."
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Reader Comments (14)
"The only way one can find positive value in making such information public is to hold the belief that spying on our allies is unethical & that the public, here and in Europe, should have certain knowledge that the U.S. does so. I do not hold those views... Another Thing. What the public does now know, with certainty, is the the National Secuity Agency is woefully insecure."
Except for........a number of things. The American public DO have a right to know their government is hacking the communications of allied governments, because it IS unethical.
And the problem is not that the NSA is insecure, the problem is Snowden DIDN'T WORK FOR THE NSA. He worked for a private company that had, and still has, access to our most private information, and is apparently hacking the private accounts of allied governments and their officials. Booz Allen is not the government. They do not answer to us.
This is wrong, and the fact that it's Barack Obama who's carrying these policies out does not make it right.
@Anonymous. According to Wikipedia, Snowden was working at the NSA facility known as the "Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center[1] (KRSOC, also pronounced "KR-Sock"), also known as the Kunia Tunnel[2] or the Regional Signals Intelligence Operations Center Kunia, is a United States National Security Agency facility. It is a secured installation located on Kunia Road between Kunia Camp and Wheeler Army Airfield in central Oahu, Hawaii." I guess that should be, "It is an ostensibly secured installation...."
And, yeah, we know Snowden was a Booz Allen contractor.
If you know differently, please share.
Marie
The fact that you cite Wikipedia as a reliable source says a lot.
And the fact that Snowden showed up to work at a government facility does not mean he was a government employee. Many civilians work on government installations all over the country, but not many of them have access to my e-mails and cell phone records.
From the Guardian interview:
""My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked," Snowden said. "That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.""
And are you saying you're perfectly fine with private companies - who are answerable not to taxpayers, but to stockholders (who may or may not be American citizens) - having access to all your private information, and using the power of the American government to hack into computer networks of allied governments?
If so, please justify.
@Anonymous: I don't know what your problem is, but it isn't with me.
If you would like to comment on this site again, you will have to do so with a proper avatar or your own name, & you will have to write something that (a) makes sense, (b) contributes to the conversation, and (c) employs tone a responsible adult would use. Neither of your comments today passes muster on any of these counts.
Like most people, I am not fond of trolls. Find another site or straighten up.
BTW, I'm not sure what it "says" about me that all I had to do was make a quick check of Wikipedia to ascertain you had wasted our time with an erroneous inference, but it does say that you didn't bother to find out what you were writing about before you wrote it. I gave you an opportunity to refute the Wiki entry; instead, you just slammed Wiki -- which turns out, not surprisingly, to be accurate, while you were not.
Marie
CW: comment removed for the reasons I cited above.
Re: The Shadow's woes grows;
@Anonymous, You, Madam, have a most wonderful sense of humor.
Can I call you "Nobody"? Nobody used her cell phone three times today. Nobody wrote ten E-mails today; three to that hornets nest of insurrection known as Realitychex.
Cracking Nobody's cloak of hidden identity required 1000 monkeys working round and on the clock for Booz Allen.
(Yes, Nobody paid for the work done with her taxes and yes, the monkeys came up with a "Hamlet" text during their breaks that will soon be a major motion picture with Dick Chaney playing the role of Claudius.)
Nobody doesn't want the Feds shopping her dirty laundry to contractors.
Nobody believes nothing from Wikipedia.
Nobody believes her credit card companies don't track her purchases. Nobody believes her "Supersaver Grocery Card" doesn't record her favorite bottles of wine.
Nobody you are somebody. You are a file of ones and zeros in a folder of other ones and zeros in a sub-set of more ones and zeros. So, stand tall, Nobody or Anonymous, somebody knows about you.
PS. You, and Everybody can share my identity, "JJG" or my secretary's "Ricardo Cabeza". We don't mind. Ricardo doesn't have a green card and drinks cheap tequila; I got seven passports and a fondness for Irish whiskey.
@Snowden: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/europe/snowden-applies-for-asylum-in-russia.html?ref=global-home&_r=0
According to the Gray Lady, Putin says if Snowden wants to stay in Russia, he has to stop releasing US classified data. If Snowden won't stop, Putin says Snowden has to leave, and Putin doesn't care where. How does Eddie do that? Putin's press secretary says Snowden's fate is "not a theme on the Kremlin’s agenda.” Ecuador says his Ecuadorean travel document is invalid. A knotty problem.
What happens if Snowden does stop and Greenwald, et.al. decide to go ahead, sacrificing Eddie for the "greater good?"
@JJG: You do Gary Farmer a disservice.
@James Singer: or Emily Dickinson.
Leave it to Frank Rich to ask the right questions and to bring clarity to our own complicity in regard to privacy rights. Terrific article.
"We don’t like the government to be watching as well—many Americans don’t like government, period—but most of us are willing to give such surveillance a pass rather than forsake the pleasures and rewards of self-exposure, convenience, and consumerism."
http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/domestic-surveillance-2013-7/
@ James Singer; Fine, now I'm in a fix. I don't know Gary Farmer and I disservice-d him. I go to Wikipedia, but you can't believe anything from there. Wicked Wiki says Gary Farmer is a North American native who acts and sings in a blues band. Son o' bitch, who knew? But is it true? I'll look through my mega data stash and get back to you. And if the NSA could pass on my deepest apologies to Mr. Farmer I would be most grateful.
@JJG That's the right Gary Farmer. He plays an American Indian--and the center of gravity--in the film "Dead Man." His character's name is Nobody. He reprised the role, briefly, in "Moondog."
Thanks, Diane...I'm on the Frank Rich feature, wherein he also noted this re Snowden: "The public was not much interested in the leaks in the first place. It was already moving on to Paula Deen."
Ain't that the troot?
Rich has a great perspective. Knew he would!
Re: spying on countries with whom we're not at war: the US Army and US Navy spied on the Japanese prior to WW II (as far back as 1922, when Japan had been an ally as recently as 1918) and cracked their diplomatic code before hostilites began. Unethical? When war did start, since the Japanese kept using the same code, the US could read their dispatches.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Europeans who are in such high dudgeon about us spying on them are spying on us.
As Lord Palmerston is reputed to have said:
“Nations have no permanent friends or allies [or enemies] , they only have permanent interests.”