omnibus PRISM/NSA/free Edward Snowden/encryption tutorial thread

In short, the argument for giving Snowden a pardon rests solidly on a foundation of "he's special, none of the rules apply."

That's the crux of most arguments for extrajudicial pardon, isn't it? There's an awareness that there are no legal avenues to pursue but the circumstances of the case dictate that there are moral arguments for the law to not be applied. There would be no legal precedent and making the case against a general public-interest-disclosure exemption is a separate issue.

Snowden's supporters aren't just arguing that he disclosed information in a vaguely defined 'public interest', they argue that he exposed rampant illegal behaviour at the NSA and didn't see an alternative route to bringing it to light. Whether that's true or not, idk, but it's a stronger justification than 'the public right to know'.

But the unfortunate truth of our times is that Obama is not going to pardon Snowden and Manning. His administration has invested too much capital in demonizing them to turn back now. However, there are other leakers and whistleblowers for whom the arguments in favor of pardons are not only compelling but politically palatable, too. Their names are Stephen Kim, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou, and Thomas Drake. All of them were government officials who talked with journalists and were charged under the Espionage Act for disclosures of information that were far less consequential than the classified emails that Hillary Clinton stored on her server at home or the top-secret war diaries that David Petraeus shared with his biographer and girlfriend....

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/19/why-obama-should-pardon-all-leakers-and-whistleblowers-not-just-edward-snowden/

good link morbz

That author's disinterest in the facts or the rule of law is really, uh, fascinating

How do you pardon somebody after all the charges against them were dropped? I'm not saying that Thomas Drake didn't get screwed but he also didn't get convicted of anything.

Jeff Sterling's lawyers specifically called out Petraeus' wrist slap and got his sentence significantly reduced by the judge, who also pointed out the pertinent differences between both respective breaches in her ruling.

I could be pissing in the wind here, but haven't pardons been issued to people who weren't convicted before? "symbolic" et al

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_or_granted_clemency_by_the_President_of_the_United_States

You're almost as good at Wikipedia as I am

Kiriakou compared to Petraeus is a much more interesting case although the former did make some of his own bed by lying repeatedly and then pleading guilty to same. Petraeus should have done time, for sure.

Any discussion of the Stone movie anywhere? I can't seem to find it.

but the pardon sends a ludicrous message that all your NDAs are null and void immediately, which is a simultaneously silly and horrible stance for any state to take

So you think that if you have a non-disclosure agreement, you have to do anything your employer asks and keep it quiet, be it unconstitutional or illegal?

I feel like I'm speaking a different language over here. No. That's not at all what I meant. I mean that a pardon would signal, in varying degrees to people depending on their inclination, something along the lines of "these TOP SECRET stickers? That's just a serving suggestion. Go ahead and talk about stuff whenever and wherever to whomever, we might act tough at first but you know, whatever." And it would also signal to every informant that we only kind of care about protecting their identity, which is the same as not caring at all.

So you think this guy should be locked up too:

Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an activist and former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.

I get that there are legitimate reasons for top secret classification sometimes, but there are also times when it is not legit.

seems like people that are in the field of espionage and stealing top secret documents don't really need a reason to keep doing what they are already doing

it would also signal to every informant that we only kind of care about protecting their identity

VP Cheney's staffer was the one who did this

OK, there's no defense of the intelligence business that you won't counter by arguing (badly) against a position that I haven't actually taken at any point

what does tombot think about harold thomas martin the third

personnel security at the fort needs to probably abandon the insipid theatrics of polygraphs and piss cups and get better at spying on its own people

paul berman, camus-loving liberal champion of the iraq war (and a pretty good writer, sadly), has written one of the dumbest takes on snowden i've ever read:

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/214286/edward-snowden-very-little-brother

funny how that combines contempt for snowden w misplaced holy awe at his "hacking"

Here is a man who, like everyone else, has opinions. Only, in his case, his technical skills allow him to act on his opinions.

his position and the information it gave him allowed him to act on his opinions, just like any other whistleblower (or traitor, if you like) of any other era

His technical skill was dumping shit onto a USB drive and exfiltrating it

well once he'd gotten past the ice, sure

touch and go for a while tho, he almost had to jack out

then where would he have been? on his back in the lee kuan yew pods with $3k of illegal grafts in his brainstem and a trace flashing like the ass end of an ambulance, that's where

So Martin worked for Booz Allen Hamilton and has not been charged with espionage

lol USG

The battle over encryption, which dates to the 1990s, could heat up quickly with Trump's win and the reelection of Republican Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.

Burr spearheaded a failed effort last year to pass legislation requiring that companies build 'back doors' into their products that would allow government agents to bypass encryption and other forms of data protection.

Such requirements are fiercely opposed by the tech industry, which argues that back doors weaken security for everyone and that the government has no business mandating tech product design.

"I imagine (Trump) is going to be a guy who is probably going to mandate back doors," said Hank Thomas, chief operating officer at Strategic Cyber Ventures and a veteran of the National Security Agency. "I don't think he's ultimately going to be a friend to privacy, and the fearful side of me says he will get intelligence agencies more involved in domestic law enforcement."

http://news.trust.org/item/20161110005059-q7znd

Saw somebody tweet yesterday about how many new Signal check-ins they were getting on their phone.
You can't put back doors in everything.

Verge has a handy update on what does what

http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/10/13585712/secure-encrypted-messaging-services-signal-imessage-president-trump

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/

Intelligence experts urge Obama to end Edward Snowden's 'untenable exile

Fifteen former staff members of the Church committee, the 1970s congressional investigation into illegal activity by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, have written jointly to Obama calling on him to end Snowden’s “untenable exile in Russia, which benefits nobody”. Over eight pages of tightly worded argument, they remind the president of the positive debate that Snowden’s disclosures sparked – prompting one of the few examples of truly bipartisan legislative change in recent years.

...

The lead signatories of the Obama letter are Frederick Schwarz, who was chief counsel to the Church committee and is now at the Brennan Center for Justice, and William Green Miller, the committee’s staff director who went on to become US ambassador to Ukraine in the 1990s.

...

In their letter, which they have also sent to the US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, the 15 cite the former CIA director David Petraeus as an example of the kind of official leniency that has so far eluded Snowden. Petraeus violated both the law and national security by leaking confidential information to his biographer and lover, then lied about it to the FBI.

“Yet he was allowed to plead guilty to just one misdemeanor for which he received no jail time,” the letter says. The reference to Petraeus is pointed at a time when the former military commander is being actively considered by President-elect Donald Trump to become US secretary of state.

Dutch newspaper announcing that at 20.00 gmt "shocking news' will be revealed, researched by 60 papers and journalists worldwide from 1.7tb of data.

(Posting it in this particular thread is my own personal guess, don't know if it's from Snowden stuff)

no anglo papers have the story?

Appears that that isn't the case. Der Spiegel naming papers from Denmark, Holland, Romania, Serbia, France, Spain, Austria, Belgium

Is the case

EU data dump?

brexit vote fixed by putin, i knew it

#fml it's about Cristiano Ronaldo tax-evading for a gazillion dollars... Bitterly disappointed.

Twitter in #wellthatsdisappointing meltdown

"SIDtoday is the internal newsletter for the NSA’s most important division, the Signals Intelligence Directorate. After editorial review, The Intercept is releasing nine years’ worth of newsletters in batches, starting with 2003. The agency’s spies explain a surprising amount about what they were doing, how they were doing it, and why."

https://theintercept.com/snowden-sidtoday/

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/this-low-cost-device-may-be-the-worlds-best-hope-against-account-takeovers/

deeeeeeelightful (eff Obama)

@charlie_savage
BREAKING: Obama admin permits NSA to give raw (unminimized to protect privacy)12333 surveillance to FBI/CIA/DEA/etc

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch signed the new rules, permitting the N.S.A. to disseminate “raw signals intelligence information,” on Jan. 3, after the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., signed them on Dec. 15, according to a 23-page, largely declassified copy of the procedures.

Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.’s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.

Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for “minimizing” privacy intrusions.

nope no chance of abuse here

I'M GLAD LYNCH THOUGHT ABOUT IT OVER HER HOLIDAZE

@Snowden
Days ago, I criticized the Russian government's oppressive new "Big Brother" law. Now, threatening rumors. But I won't stop.

I don't know if the rumors are true. But I can tell you this: I am not afraid. There are things that must be said no matter the consequence.

if putin does kick out snowden presumably everybody who thinks he's a russian spy will finally stfu

rly, do they ever stfu?

nobody with snowden opinions is ever going to stfu about snowden

i liked it so much better when "snowden's secret" was that people are sausage containers