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

yeah i think it's possible to absolve snowden for finding sanctuary where he can whilst being cognizant that russia and china are rather worse than the united states

Oh I agree. It's just such a lame tu quoque to pull: "but but but look at China and Russia! They ain't sweethearts either!" While true, it is completely beside the point.

so people get that Moscow is likely a layover, right?

chuck schumer is angry

"The fact that [Russian officials] allowed him to land, indicates that we are not in a place of cooperation," Schumer said on CNN's State of The Union. He added that this could have "serious consequences" for Russian-U.S. relations.

Schumer also said he is "very disappointed" in Hong Kong's decision to let him leave, adding that he believes the "hand of Beijing" was involved here.

Russia & China not being evil enough for the US

"He added that this could have "serious consequences" for Russian-U.S. rleations"

Russia/Poetin: http://files.myopera.com/drlaunch/albums/37656/o-rly001.jpg

Schumer is still under the illusion that the US has as much power in the world as it had in the Sixties. He's living in the past, mahnnn.

i don't know where he got the crazy idea that beijing might have been involved in hong kong's decision to let snowden leave, though. he must have some sort of top secret nsa intelligence that the rest of us have no idea about

True, but it's people like Schumer who just do not understand what this is about. This is not about "oooohhh China's no picknick either!", this effectively is about how the US deals with dissidents; exactly the same way like China or Russia do. Capture them, try them, lock 'em up. The US isn't any holier than "the hand of Beijing" when it concerns this. As is proven by himself. Manning, Agee, Drake, Assange to thread.

I believe the hand of Schumer is involved in lotsa Wall St jagoffs

Can we send David Gregory and Schumer to Russia

and send Dianne Feinstein too, please

I'd actually keep the current Supreme Court and trade the other two branches

Reading anti-Snowden comment threads is a hugely demoralizing experience. People just bending over backwards in the name of authoritarianism. And if Cheney's outing of CIA informant or Clapper's recent perjury is brought up, they get a free pass cos apparently the law only counts if it's in favor of State power.

And the argument that PRISM disclosures simultaneously

1) something everyone already knew about anyways and does nothing to damage our global position

and

2) puts the US at a huge disadvantage and is equivalent to TREASON

scooter libby got a free pass?

Wikipedia:

"On June 5, 2007, the presiding trial judge, Reggie B. Walton, sentenced Libby to 30 months in federal prison, a fine of $250,000, and two years of supervised release, including 400 hours of community service,[14][15][16][17] and then ordered Libby to begin his sentence immediately.[18] On July 2, 2007, when Libby's appeal of Walton's order failed, President Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact."

The money for the fine could probably have been raised from wealthy Bush/Cheney backers, so the 400 hours of community service were his only tangible forfeit. Not quite a free pass, but much worse than what Snowden would get.

much worse better than

"we've changed our passwords"

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/23/sunday_shows_what_you_missed/

Booz Allen Hamilton still needs to get a return-on-investment: After Profits, Defense Contractor Faces the Pitfalls of Cybersecurity

WASHINGTON — When the United Arab Emirates wanted to create its own version of the National Security Agency, it turned to Booz Allen Hamilton to replicate the world’s largest and most powerful spy agency in the sands of Abu Dhabi.

It was a natural choice: The chief architect of Booz Allen’s cyberstrategy is Mike McConnell, who once led the N.S.A. and pushed the United States into a new era of big data espionage. It was Mr. McConnell who won the blessing of the American intelligence agencies to bolster the Persian Gulf sheikdom, which helps track the Iranians.

“They are teaching everything,” one Arab official familiar with the effort said. “Data mining, Web surveillance, all sorts of digital intelligence collection.”

Yet as Booz Allen profits handsomely from its worldwide expansion, Mr. McConnell and other executives of the government contractor — which sells itself as the gold standard in protecting classified computer systems and boasts that half its 25,000 employees have Top Secret clearances — have a lot of questions to answer.

The blowback from this is going to suck.

@russian_market 20m

BOARDING IS OVER. SNOWDEN DIDN'T SHOW UP. POOR CNN & BCC JOURNALISTS WHO ARE FLYING TO CUBA NOW....HASTA LA VISTA!

Twitter is hilarious now. Reporters ON THE PLANE tweeting Snowden ISN'T on the plane. Plane already on its way to Havana...

awesome

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/statuses/349106511257161729

and Aeroflot isn't even serving drinks!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/24/edward-snowden-booked-on-plane-from-moscow-to-havana-live-coverage

Maybe Rihanna took his place?

xp Lol

I enjoy seeing the entire state-media complex being turned into Dean Wormer by one guy.

Snowdenplane is really fucking funny

Now it's REALLY becoming a "Catch-22" reference.

"Tweet him! Tweet him! Tweet the bombardier!"

http://www.diena.lv/uploads/thumbnails/705x457/article/1402/14013333/5225298_ORIGINAL_1371888009.jpg.jpg

like something out of blade runner

@Conor Friedersdorf
How could Snowden go to Cuba, a country where untried prisoners on hunger strikes are force fed with -- oh, wait, it's us doing that.

The intermediary told Mr. Snowden Friday night that the government could not predict what Hong Kong’s independent judiciary would do, but that serving jail time while awaiting trial was a possibility. The intermediary also said that the Hong Kong government would welcome Mr. Snowden’s departure, Mr. Ho and the person who insisted on anonymity said. Both declined to identify the intermediary.

The Hong Kong government said that it would not interfere with Mr. Snowden’s departure and even provided unobtrusive police protection for him as he went through the airport, both of them said.

But, Mr. Ho said, Mr. Snowden went through the same security and immigration channels as most passengers at the airport, rather than a special channel usually used for people involved in highly political cases — a sign that the Hong Kong government wanted to minimize its involvement in Mr. Snowden’s departure.

At the same time, the Hong Kong government’s encouragement for Mr. Snowden to leave, instead of a suggestion that he stay and fight any return to the United States, had persuaded him that staying was risky because the Hong Kong government might not be on his side. “He would not like to fight with the Hong Kong government, with the Chinese government and the U.S. government” against him, Mr. Ho said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/world/asia/snowden-departure-from-hong-kong.html?_r=0

So of course Snowden wasn’t on that plane. He couldn’t have been. If he’d disappeared into Cuba the Snowden story would be over and all that would be left is the NSA story. And that’s not the plan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/24/wonkbook-does-edward-snowden-even-exist/?hpid=z3

Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas

Doesn't really make me feel great about either Snowden or Booz Allen's hiring practices:

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/snowden-says-he-took-job-with-contractor-to?ref=fpblg

i mean afaic if dude was capable of using his skills and experience to get into a position to expose these programs, and if he set out to do so deliberately from the start, that's another notch for his temperate subversion in my book.

that said, i think this collective desire to lionize leakers as Great Heroes of The People is completely misguided. i'm glad he did what he did, and i'm glad he had the foresight to figure out how to do it more effectively than manning's indiscriminate document dump.

Leakers are necessary in a security state. I'm glad someone is willing to push some of these secrets out into the light.

ends/means etc

MLK said there are just laws and unjust laws. i think the info snowden made avaiable had little reason to be classified and that the public is better off than it was 2 weeks ago

Sure, which is why I value the info more than Snowden

the sheer number of documents that get classified every year is kind of stunning.

for me the issue isn't every leaker being a hero so much as the obama admin's reaction to leakers being horrifyingly over-the-top and frankly kind of tyrannical.

i do pretty much regard snowden as a hero, though.

snowden's a cool dude but i'm probably a bit more defensive of him than i would be ideally, given the mud-slinging attempts against him etc. i mean ideally the guy wouldn't be chraged w/ espionage

yeah agreeing w/ JD as per yoosh

You guys are in my cabinet iirc

can i be seward?

I call dibs on Salmon P. Chase.

I want to be Secrtareies of Fart

http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/784386973.jpg

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/06/demonizing-edward-snowden-which-side-are-you-on.html#entry-more

way more in favor of demonizing Assange tbh

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/pages/poll-edward-snowden