The number is irrelevant it is the good deed that counts.
‘‘How far that little candle throws its beams; So shines a good deed in a naughty world.’’ ~ William Shakespeare
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The government agencies seem to be stating that they don’t know. It’s bad journalism right now that is distributing false facts.
That’s what computer security people have been saying for years: the weakest link in computer security is people. If you can’t trust your imperially conditioned and vetted civil servants, then really, who can you trust?
The security clearance process includes background checks against all kinds of things: credit checks to weed out people who could be compromised for money, history checks for strange party affiliations. I’ve been interviewed for friends undergoing Q Clearance checks and they were extensive: what religion did they practice, what hours did they keep, were they friendly, shy, introverted, did they talk politics, did they have any unusual habits etc.
That said, from watching the first part of the Frontline story, the hubris was really overpowering – these people thought they were in a godlike position, and they easily minimized the oversights (kudos to the various agents they interviewed who became disenchanted with the process and retired from the agency).
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It’s to the point where Greenwald should just release an FAQ. Like this:
"Q. How many separate documents did Ed Snowden give you?
“A. We won’t say exactly how many, but the wild claims that he handed over 1.7 million documents are patently false. When I counted the files, it was tens of thousands, not even 100,000 total. If you separate each document into pages, it comes nowhere close to 1.7 million. More like several hundred thousand pages. As for the quantity, that’s all I’m going to say because it’s the QUALITY of these documents and what they contain that is the most important thing to keep in mind.”
See. It’s not that hard.
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If you know the numeral is 1,700,000 then you are in base 8 or higher, so we’re at a minimum of 491520 
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Except due to the extensive overreach of the NSA today, Snowden and many others working for the NSA are contractors, and so do not have the conditioning, the vetting or the hooks that a permanent job in the civil service would give. (Don’t underestimate the power of an early retirement plan, a cushy pension and numerous other benefits to keep employees in hand, even when the conditioning doesn’t take.)
Back in the day, when most INT was HUMINT, the security services understood this, and they still got bitten. Today’s ELINT nerdherders seem to think that they don’t need to understand people when they have control of our electronica, forgetting that people are the reason the security exists, and none of it would happen without people managing it.
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The lie I head-desk over more is that Snowden chose to flee to Russia to give all his secrets to the FSB. Literally 10 seconds with the Google is apparently too much for some people.
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This insight is so important that I just tweeted it!
One of the thing you find out about “computer” security is how much of it can be defeated by “social engineering” aka lying, tricking, stealing, cheating, bribing, threats, violence and blackmailing.
We call it “social engineering” to make it sound less nasty.
The other thing to understand is the effort to deamonize Snowden and anyone like Greenwald who help him is to send a clear message to everyone else. I heard this concern about the documents during Terry Grosses interview with him on Fresh Air. She believed the NSA. Know liars. Because they are the people who “keep her safe from terrorists” and because what they do is secret, they don’t have to prove it.
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I think the biggest lie is that “Snowden” and Greenwald are pulling one over on the Government.
Since when does someone who discloses secret information get to fly around in airplanes, not get arrested?
EDIT: Just prognosticating here but what might happen next is that “Snowden” will meet a blazing hot Russian girl, who is really a CIA operative intent on bringing him down, but after finding out what a great guy he is, falls for him. This causes her to change sides and the pair hatches a plan to shoot their way thru JFK Airport to get him to a sympathetic government agent( who is probably African American ).
EDIT: EDIT: Ok the reason the Young Couple In Love has to leave Russia is that the smoking hot Russian CIA operative learns of a plan by an over zealous government agent( who must be white, maybe we can get that Misssster Andersssson cracker from the matrix? ) to kill “Snowden” in Russia. So they have to make their way back to the US and into the protective hands of the sympathetic African American ( Probably FBI ) agent.
According to an article in the Guardian, where Greenwald’s original Snowden leak articles first appeared, there’s an article about Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, appealing his 9-hour detention when transiting through London between Greenwald in Rio and Poitras in Berlin that notes Miranda was found to have a hard drive with “58,000” documents:
“The judgment stated that Miranda, a Brazilian national, was stopped in transit between Berlin and Rio de Janeiro after meeting the film-maker Laura Poitras. He had been carrying encrypted files, including an external hard drive containing 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents, “in order to assist the journalistic activity of Greenwald”. The Guardian made his travel reservations and paid for the trip.”
If that statement is accurate, and strangely the reference to “UK intelligence documents” seems somehow exclusionary of the US NSA docs, since UK intelligence docs would be in reference, one would guess, to the GCHQ, then I’d surmise a minimum of 58K docs to possibly up to 100k or so. Certainly not “1.7 million” in any case. I guess now people will start to ask precisely how many pages total in the documents were taken… urgh.
I’m asking if it’s PsyOps at this point.
I think the bad journalism here is the believing of the government.
You know, thinking a bit more about this, it would seem likely the vast majority of docs Snowden obtained would be NSA, not GCHQ, and it would also be unlikely Miranda would have been traveling with the whole Snowden archive in any case.
The UK detention of Miranda in transit occurred months after the intial Greenwald/Poitras disclosures, so, logically, it’s more likely only a portion of the entire archive was being transported, maybe because Greenwald and Poitras were coordinating and working on a GCHQ-related story. Miranda was also found with, and had taken from him not just the external hard drive with “58,000” UK intelligence docs, but also a laptop and some thumb drives.
So, guesstimating on just that thin basis, the total document count might very well be much more than the “up to” 100K I suggested. I’m thinking now maybe 150K to 250K total [NSA and GCHQ, etc.] documents turned over to G/P by Snowden. Maybe. But, again, not 1.7 million. Neither Greenwald or Poitras seem to have noted anything other than “tens of thousands,” ambiguously enough.
Oh, this is a psyop 4 sure.
This whole story is playing out, boiling toad style… little bits at a time. Why is a supposed whistle-blower holding back on 99% of incriminating evidence, the actors seem to be immune to law enforcement?
A nice, neat narrative. Great for a feature film, coming soon.
See my brilliant comments above.
The answer is never. The U.S. Isn’t going to start assasinating American journalists involved in a such a high-profile story. Dropping bombs from so high above remote parts of Yemen or Pakistan that no one can see you is one thing. No one’s likely to be assasinated in this episode. What is likely is that the U.S. will pursue all means necessary to extradite Snowden to the U.S. where he can face a very pro-forma trial in which he is not permitted to raise any whistle-blower related defenses and faces the mostly pre-determined verdict of guitly-as-hell-traitor-spy.
Also, Glen Greenwald said in a recent interview on NPR Fresh AIr that they’re working on a bombshell story based on as yet undisclosed Snowden archive documents. Stay tuned.
That seems predisposed to select both for people who are talented at hiding things from those around them, and those who associate with people who cannot maintain a confidence.
Those who engage in espionage sort of demonize themselves, don’t they?
That has probably been answered by the description given by Gellman of his initial corespondance with Snowden, and the story given by Greenwald, MacAskill, and Gellman about the HK meeting with Snowden. (see: this guardian story and this PBS documentary)
As Barton Gellman described:
He believed he was risking his freedom, and possibly his life. And he warned me, as well, that if the U.S. intelligence community believed that by getting rid of me they could prevent the story from happening, he said that my life would be at risk.
Pubishing may be what saved their lives, because it makes their death a lot less profitable, and far more visible. The risk today is probably not zero, but it’s a lot lower than it was a year ago.
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What else would you expect from (N)ice §olite ®epublicans?
In dispute: whether Snowden took 10.000 or a million+ documents.
In fact: He took secret documents and fled to Russia.
This is like arguing about how many jeans or shirts he took. It’s a convenient smokescreen to fool the naive. THE GUY IS A SPY who BETRAYED the US to the RUSSIANS. PERIOD.
I’m inclined to think his pretty girlfriend was just a beard (*) and that he was recruited by the Russians a long time before he fled.
- Not saying he’s gay (or not). Just that his girlfriend was a facade to make him less suspicious.
