So he presents facts through documents; the government presents innuendo about his motives and character. I’m going to go with facts. I don’t care if underlying his decision was a bad serving of sour grapes. The grapes change nothing about what the government is doing behind our backs.
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Mr. Snowden added that inside the spy agency “there’s a lot of dissent
— palpable with some, even.” But he said that people were kept in line
through “fear and a false image of patriotism,” which he described as
“obedience to authority.”
I’m just going to leave this here. Remind you of anything?
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Yep. So because this kind of corrupt garbage goes on at all large institutions – middle management covering its ass to the detriment of the institution and its employees, your solution is to blame the dudes getting screwed. Way to go Upton Sinclair. You’re a visionary man.
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It fascinates me that people continue to defend the lying shitbirds of the NSA after all the revelations showing them as the authoritarian, constitution-shredding megalomaniacs they are. What prompts a person to fixate on silly distractions and innuendo amid massive denial of the real issues? There are people who are really good at cutting away the chaff and getting at the core of an issue… and then there are those who are “good” at whatever the opposite of that is. What drives a person towards the latter? Seriously, I’d like to know because it has massive implications for human society. Nice shredding Rindan.
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I don’t think any actual breathing people defend the NSA. None I’ve met anyway.
Skagg above seemed to be postulating a Snowden conspiracy theory, rather than defending the NSA in any way.
Its all of a piece: promoting Snowden conspiracy theories that mitigate or attempt to detract from his efforts serve the interests of the NSA.
Its a lot more than “sour grapes”. I imagine the personal attack from a superior didn’t help, but the crux of the lesson, from Snowden’s perspective, seemed to be a lesson in institutional corruption. It was only later that he found documents showing blatantly illegal NSA operations. The earlier lesson helped determine his decision to NOT follow the chain of command once he began uncovering all the evidence. The other thing that helped was seeing what happened to Thomas Drake and the other whistleblowers at NSA, etc.
And its much more than sour grapes when you realize that a CIA personnel web interface that is easily hackable is a seriously dangerous security hole – talk about putting agents at risk… and yet the system is so upside down and corrupt that the guy trying to protect “agents in the field” who might be using this very system gets a reprimand and his boss covers his ass instead of protecting the agents. And yet somehow the guy trying to protect CIA assets is the one exposing them to danger!
If our spying agencies spent more time figuring out how to overcome institutional corruption and less time blanket surveilling innocent people we’d all be a lot safer. Does anyone think the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. have done a good job fighting terrorism? They have dropped the ball on pretty much every REAL threat that has arisen from 9/11 onwards (and before). They are very good at setting up and entrapping incompetent malcontents and not good at all at stopping actual terrorists. But the more they fail, the more money and power they get. At what point do these contradictions force a sea change? Sorry to get off track a bit, but really, these are important questions.
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I don’t think you are off track. This is all very relevant, and I wish more Americans got up on their feet and demanded change in those agencies. It’s not that “Just because they deal with national security, they can’t reorganize, become more efficient, and eliminate corruption”, it’s “BECAUSE they deal with our national security, they absolutely MUST become more efficient, reorganize, eliminate corruption, and introduce a system where your employees can rate your performance and introduce a “black box” where employees can anonymously report a misbehaving superior to the higher echelons”.
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The manager’s behaviour would have been just as fucking stupid if he were working for Glaxo Smith Kline or Mastercard, or somesuch, you mean? Yes, it would.
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Maybe the lesson here is that institutions exist primarily to perpetuate themselves. In a Darwinian way, institutions that don’t do this get out-competed and out-survived. One way they perpetuate themselves is to promote managers who will defend the institution above all else.
So, over time, all institutions will tend to be taken over by defensive, conservative time-servers. From the Catholic Church to Apple Computer, it always happens. People like Snowden will always be sand in the gears - and institutions know how to deal with that. This is why @codinghorror is right - change always comes from outside, from the new competitor who has not yet settled down into survival mode. Pity it’s so often a felony.
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Obligatory question: Do we have anything but Snowden’s word for this incident?
Assuming it’s accurate: Having worked in industry for three decades, I can certainly attest that bad management happens; I’ve had my share. But that doesn’t strike me as justification for going straight to the media next time, especially with confidential information. I’m not at all convinced the fact that he was working on a government contract rather than a private contract changes that.
No, the justification is the egregious actions of the various agencies involved, and the collusion of their peers worldwide. The terrible line-manager is incidental.
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Not according to the headline of this item. Take your pick: Either it’s part of his justification, or it’s not worth discussing.
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No, that was good. I was simply going to the lowest possible government character assassination element. I don’t believe that it was sour grapes alone, if that at all. I was stating that if it was sour grapes, I don’t give a shit.
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Yes, I learned in my old job of being a subscription coordinator at a major metropolitan magazine that, if a co-worker and her boyfriend hide cocaine in the warehouse, then break in to retrieve it, the media and/or police shouldn’t be notified because that would be really embarrassing for the owner and publisher of the magazine, and they would lose lots of advertising $$$. And after being there for four years and handling subscribers’ personal info - including credit card numbers - and never taking advantage of this knowledge, I was “let go” (after trying to resign) because I couldn’t be trusted. I know, not the same degree of whistleblower as Mr. Snowden. But still…
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Yes, because Snowden has lied to the public, how can we truly trust him. Oh wait, I was thinking of the NSA. They are the ones who lied, before congress under oath. Snowden is the one who has never been shown to lie to the public and has uncovered countless lies and breaches of the constitution. It is so hard to keep the two straight.
Let me show you a video of what a liar looks like. Clapper knows that the NSA collects every single phone record of every single American and he lies, under oath, before congress. That man is a fucking liar who is busy taking a shit on the fourth amendment.
First, his reasons don’t fucking matter. Snowden could have done it because Russians promised him a hundred puppies to stomp on while getting blow jobs from Ukrainian prostitutes, and it wouldn’t change the fact that he uncovered the largest warrantless domestic spying regime in US history, and that his uncovery of this has allowed this treasonous bullshit to finally get its time in a real court… you know, one with two sides.
Second, his concern that upon self reflection, inserting back doors into the encryption of the its citizens, collecting every single phone record by every single American, or spying on all internet and e-mail traffic, the NSA might shake its head and go “seems legit” and call it a day is obviously, clearly, and unquestionably true. All of this has come to light publically, and there has been no “oops, upon further thought, I guess that is naughty and illegal”. The only way for even a slim shot in hell of putting an end to this was to leak it.
Any patriotic American should be thankful because of Snowden, victims of the state now are actually going to have to face what they have done in a real court with two sides, that we can start to secure our communications, and that there is finally a full throated democratic debate about what the limits on unchecked spy agencies should be. Snowden’s reasons for giving us this opportunity not only appear to be pure, they are completely and utterly inconsequential.
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This is a sad and pathetic attempt by the government to find fucking anything to paint a patriot as anything best. The fact that they have to dig this far down the barrel and bring up an e-mail spat with a former employer where Snowden genuine concern for the safety and security of the institution just shows how pathetic their attempts are getting to find anything.
As to this being a justification or not, there is a lot of space between this incident causing him to go “fuck it, I am bringing down the NSA!!!” and this being one more incident that proves how messed up the system is. I think the mass warrantless domestic spying, the intentional destruction of public encryption, and in general the epic tsunami of lying and shitting on the constitution rate a bit higher on Snowdens “Top 100 reasons why I should leak” list.
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Beg pardon, but I have the impression Snowden himself brought it up. If not, my apologies. But if so, I stand by my two options: Either it’s irrelevant (which is where you’re putting it), or it’s a damned weak argument in his support.
Snowden never used the bad management as direct justification for going to the press. He was responding to the recent story that he had a blemish against his career at the CIA for appearing ready to release documents back then. But he says that was not the case, that he was let go there for trying to make management aware of the security lapses, and that he was essentially tossed out for opening his mouth internally. It probably figured into his later decision not to go up the chain of command.
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So you’re taking it as indirect justification. We agree that we disagree.
