Slightly off topic: The article mentions a "dead man's switch" set up by Snowden prior to making his disclosures. If he is assassinated, apparently all the documents will be publicly released.
Greenwald also mentioned that the totality of what Snowden controls is "enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States." Let's assume that's not an entirely hyperbolic statement.
From the point of view of the Obama Administration, the real threat is not Snowden's/Greenwald's principled (even patriotic) drip of information, but that an enemy of the US might kill Snowden, and stage it to look like a US op, thus tripping the dead man's switch. Snowden has, on his own, made himself a prime target for any sufficiently ambitious US antagonist.
And so the US wants Snowden back not only to prosecute him, but also to "protect" him. (Nothing like four years of solitary to keep you safe, comrade.)
Until and unless he is granted a pardon or some other form of immunity from prosecution, it seems that Snowden's best interest is to stay in the strongest and most secure country he can find. A country with a highly developed security apparatus (to protect him from hostile agents), one that is adversarial to America (to disallow his rendition or extradition), but not openly antagonistic (to want to kill him to harm the US).
And that is exactly the country where he finds himself right now.
Obama and Putin have quite the chess match coming up. God bless the man whose life is in their hands.
solitary confinement could trigger it as well probably, it depends on how things have been set up.
Obama should have handled this in a totally different way, he should have treated him as a partner for having shed light upon a corrupted practice of the NSA, and should have asked the people heading the NSA to resign.
This would have been a checkmate against any other US antagonist in my opinion, but I admit that is definitely too easy to judge things you don't know in every aspect from the comfort of your own home.
The problem is Obama completely agreed with what the NSA was doing, and most likely even ordered everything to be done that way (that's why he so viciously defended the FISA Amendments Act last year, and why he tried to get lawsuits dismissed).
However, I agree that is what he should do anyway. Clapper and Alexander should get fired immediately, and so should Holder - but he's been bailing out Holder so many times, I'm starting to think it's a lost cause that he'd ever stop protecting him. If there was a video of Holder shooting a man in head, he'd probably still pardon him.
I disagree with your last part, though, that it would prevent other whistleblowers from coming out. Why would it? It would prove Snowden did a good thing, and more would come out later to fix the system (which is exactly what should happen).
Isn't it silly to fire the officials when the blame lies with the presidents? In my opinion, it's about as useful as blaming Rumsfeld for Bush's war. Appointed officials are servants who fall on their swords when needed to protect the boss. Punishing the underlings just insulates the presidents from blame.
Perhaps, but only to the extent that Bush would remove him... and, if tried, to the extent that he violated laws. Bush stood behind him, happily letting him take flak from the media and political opponents for years.
The buck has to stop with the president. How depressing for our civilization that people get worked up blaming a lower level appointee whose job it was to be operationally in charge of dirty work that was fully supported by the president.
I agree. But considering that underlings are used as chess pieces and must have their big picture plans approved by the president, it's folly to focus more than 5% of the attention on them.
In Rumsfeld's case, he was tasked with creating a shitstorm by acting crass and making controversial remarks. It worked flawlessly and diverted tremendous criticism and attention from Bush and the larger policy direction. Eventually when he'd done that effectively for years, his resignation was engineered to help Bush turn over a new leaf.
Rumsfeld was the architect of the military strategy that resulted in the Iraqi civil war, and was one of a few very loud voices in the administration in the aftermath of 9/11 militating for an invasion in the first place.
You're arguing that Rumsfeld was incompetent? I'd say he's among the most competent executives ever to deliver to his superiors exactly what they wanted.
Without hindsight bias, and considering that selling a cheap war was critical to getting buy-in from congress, Rumsfeld architected a great plan.
I'd argue that Rumsfeld is an incredible intellect and expert tactician who made zero mistakes.
Let's assume for a moment that there exists an individual who (via unknown mechanisms) knows about 90% of the hidden affairs of marriages in the world.
Should that person "blow that whistle", as it were, suddenly turning almost all relationships "honest"? Or would it cause widespread havoc and upheaval?
The biggest threat to the gov is quite possibly that Snowden's courage is contagious and it opens the flood gates on the more secret sides of power, stating with the intelligence and war industry.
It could potentially change how government currently works.
So far the actions of the Obama administration are quite consistent with walking a line between maximum deterrent and just not too much public uproar.
Given the sheer number of people with clearances[1], which I assume has grown primarily over the last 11 years, I wonder if demand or scaling problems has hindered the background check and psych evaluations that would normally try to reject those sort of people from jobs involving sensitive material.
> "enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States."
I don't see how this is not analogous to a longstanding marriage with a hidden affair. Would you reveal the affair thereby destroying the marriage (but gaining a greater measure of truth)? Or would you leave it in secret?
I don't believe that a thing based partly on secrets the revelation of which might bring about the end of that thing, is a sustainable thing, nor a healthy thing, nor a long-term-good thing.
That's not relevant here. The point is that in doing harm to the US government while attaining a higher level of truth one may inadvertently create more problems for its citizens than the original act itself causes.
In the marriage analogy, by revealing the affair you may get one partner to be honest going forward but the other partner may not forgive the first, leading to a divorce or a permanently strained relationship. The children may suffer as a result as well.
Imagine what might happen if damaging information were to get out- information more damaging than the NSA information itself. A healthy and informed debate and, if we're lucky, changes to the US security apparatus may take place but at the cost of putting the US in a weakened position influentially and economically. If you're not a US citizen this may seem like no big deal or a good lesson but for me, living in the US, I don't want to see that.
> Until and unless he is granted a pardon or some other form of immunity from prosecution, it seems that Snowden's best interest ...
Isn't that the rub? The rational action on Obama's part would be to pardon him, just to get him back. Instead, he is vindictively pursuing him across the globe and devoting resources that seem absolutely disproportionate to what was revealed.
Pardoning him would create a pretty bad precedent for everyone else with a security clearance. How do you tell the next guy that dumps a stash of classified documents in some journalist's lap that, no, that wasn't juicy enough to get a pardon, so he's going to jail?
Despite the public interest in what Snowden revealed is, the position of the administration can only practically be that whatever you think about it, if it's classified, it's not up to you to decide that it should be public.
don't think it's hyperbole. Snowden planned this for a while and looks like he had access to and knew where to find everything. USA probably spends $100+ Billion in intel and knowing what foreign leaders, generals and business leaders say and write can be more powerful than a few aircraft carriers.
Of course then there is the trust issue, many world leaders will be pissed to learn that their "friend" has been reading their emails and monitoring their phone calls, even private ones.
FTA: For those who say that they wish there was more attention paid to the substance of the NSA stories than Snowden: here is the list of the NSA revelations we've published over the last month. Feel free to focus on them any time.
Did Greenwald just say that Snowden has documents that could cause grievous harm the United States, and that he may have set up a dead man's switch that would cause them to be published should any harm come to Snowden?
Three possibilities I can see:
(1) Greenwald really can't think even one move ahead and see that he's just published a reason for any number of US adversaries to kill his source.
(2) Greenwald understands the implications of what he's published but is, owing to his own incentives, fine with the idea of his source being killed
(3) Greenwald doesn't believe what he's saying and isn't meant to be taken seriously.
Cards on the table: that guy could be reporting that water is wet and I'd still have him in bucket (3). Although now you kind of hope the freakshow government in North Korea is smart enough to bucket him the same way.
(5) Greenwald is thinking two moves ahead. Now that US adversaries have a motive to kill his source, the US finally has a motive to protect his source.
Russia is not going to let harm come to Snowden in their airport or on their airplane. No one's going to stab him with a poisoned umbrella or anything.
Greenwald and co. have been consistent since the beginning that precautions had been taken with the trove of documents to ensure the reporting would not be suppressed were something to happen to Snowden. It's recently been sensationalized as a "dead man's switch", but it's not new info.
So I think you're right.
Look at how reflexive the US has been with all the diplomatic threats and goofups compared to Snowden's team's patient and careful tactics. The US hasn't been on the receiving end of effective hardball tactics in a long long time. It's taking a while to sink in that they need a better strategy than the standard prosecutorial bullying.
Has he laid out in such stark terms, though? He has been saying the documents could cause "grievous damage" or something along those lines, but that's a far cry from "more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States."
The US has let Snowden linger in the Moscow airport, likely hoping that he'll do something stupid due to the stress.
By reminding everyone of the dead man switch, Snowden (via Greenwald) reminds the US that both have a shared interest in Snowden's asylum bid moving along smoothly.
Your conjecture above depends entirely on the idea that Snowden is unsafe at the Moscow airport.
2) wildly speculative and wildly inconsistent with all of Greenwald's other behavior.
3) I imagine you have some kind of conspiracy theory to justify this one?
In this case, the simplest answer is that a dead man's switch gives Snowden a bit of additional leverage, and that Greenwald mentioned it to help the reporter interviewing him understand the dynamics of the situation.
I just re-read it a third time and do not see what you're referring to. If you'll humor me and paste in the relevant paragraph I'll give it extra attention and (I hope) admit if I was wrong above.
Snowden made it very clear weeks ago that there was a dead man switch for the release of documents. Greenwald was just restating it with some sensationalism. Just trying to get more people to read the article.
Isn't Greenwald now relying on all of the governments of Iran, North Korea, China, Syria, Russia, and who knows who else to also understand that he's just being a sensationalist?
I too immediately thought this statement was a misstep in Greenwald's otherwise discriminating journalism. The possibilities you outlined detail exactly why, but I would add a fourth, if somewhat far-fetched, circumstance to your list.
(4) Snowden has verified knowledge of an imminent death threat from the USG and is using Greenwald to convey awareness of his "dead man's switch" for his own protection. Employing Greenwald as a channel for this message, as opposed to himself, gives him some cover legally and won't further alienate Snowden from the public who might see him as blackmailing the United States if he were to outright state this in say, a new video interview.
No, he didn't. He said it would cause embarrasing damage to the US Government, not to the US per se. Besides this is no news, Snowden himself said so earlier.
Read. [...] the reality that he has all sorts of documents that could quickly and seriously harm the US if disclosed, yet he has published none of those.
Greenwald was criticized for saying that the USG "should be on it's knees begging every day", a clearly inflammatory thing to say. To act like the criticism is the result of some grand government conspiracy is a bit much.
There are plenty of people outraged by the substance of what has been leaked who also don't like the idea of a) great harm coming to the country or government or legit intelligence operations, or b) a 30 year old person stuck in a Russian airport who has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of what is leakworthy and what is not, what programs are legal and good and which are illegal and evil.
On another note, the idea of a dead mans switch that harms the government of Country A is probably an attractive target for other governments that want to harm Country A.
"There are plenty of people outraged by the substance of what has been leaked who also don't like the idea of ... a 30 year old person stuck in a Russian airport who has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of what is leakworthy and what is not, what programs are legal and good and which are illegal and evil."
Of course such determinations should be left to the professionals, our Supreme Leader, the oh-so-popular Congress and the stalwart defenders of liberty and justice: the Courts -- which are all so trustworthy, moral, and competent.. and who would never hide anything under the pretense of "national security" to cover their own asses, to grab more wealth and power, or keep the public from knowing of atrocities and crimes they, their buddies or their lackeys have commited.
At the very least, deciders chosen by a government elected by the people, whatever value that has, is of more value than a single self-chosen person who happened to have the correct level of access and skills to access more documents than he was supposed to.
Ostensibly elected (or selected, if the election was decided through fraud) in a system where more than 40% of eligible voters are too disgusted, cynical, or apathetic to vote.
In a system where elections are so influenced by money that billions are spent on advertising candidates. Where virtually all the discussion of the candidates is about their personalities and presentation (such as whether a candidate wore a flag lapel, or how he golfed) rather than about their policies and stances on concrete, important issues.
In a system where the majority of those who do vote are embarrasingly ignorant of politics, history, and the candidates and parties for whom they're voting (largely thanks to the horrendous media coverage mentioned above, and the atrocious education system in the United States).
In a system where the elected candidates can do the opposite of what he campaigned on virtually without consequence or most of their constituents noticing (thanks to the media, yet again).
In a system where gerrymandering has effectively guaranteed the seats of most members of Congress, no matter how poorly they perform. (Given the record low approval ratings of Congress, virtually all of them should been thrown out ages ago, but that's not going to happen any time soon.)
In a system where there are only two parties who agree on most issues, and collude to keep third parties and serious alternative from ever being viable.
In a system where the people appointed by the elected/selected politicians get to make decisions outside the (incredibly flawed) legal process, in secret, and with virtually no oversight or accountability to the public.
In a system that tortures prisoners, violates human rights, starts unprovoked wars that kill millions of people.
I'm sorry, but I just don't place much trust in such a system. And I applaud whistleblowers who risk their lives to expose wrongdoings.
But, few congressmen had any idea of the true extent of this; and Clapper has already admitted to being untruthful to them.
Which leaves the president. You can't believe that providing 1 bit of information every four years is sufficient to maintain a democracy, can you?
While there are allowed exceptions, a Republic operates on a default assumption of public access and transparency in government, and the liberty and privacy of the individual. The converse system, where there is a presumption of secrecy in government, and transparency of the individual, is a tyranny, as government, the people's servant, has become their master.
Not insofar as a vigilante is defined as a non-governmental actor working to change the government. If you don't trust the process and that set of possible people who act outside it, you don't trust anyone or thing at all. You can hold this position in any particular case, but not as a general rule, at least if you want to be able to act coherently in these types of situations.
> There are plenty of people outraged by the substance of what has been leaked who also don't like the idea of a) great harm coming to the country or government or legit intelligence operations, or b) a 30 year old person stuck in a Russian airport who has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of what is leakworthy and what is not, what programs are legal and good and which are illegal and evil.
Oh please, there's enough outrage to go around for a whistleblower publishing stuff that most foreign intelligence services already knew and suspected, and even if it weren't that way still accted accordingly as though was real, but God let the public know, lest they know how tight the chain is.
It is extremely unlikely those documents have anything of strategic value for other nations; it is almost absolutely certain they are important for the public.
> b) a 30 year old person stuck in a Russian airport who has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of what is leakworthy and what is not, what programs are legal and good and which are illegal and evil.
No, he's not the ultimate arbiter, that's what the US government tried to be, in secret, until Snowden stepped up. And others with access are free to step up as well.
30 year old person stuck in a Russian airport who has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of what is leakworthy and what is not, what programs are legal and good and which are illegal and evil.
Snowden didn't do that, the USG appointed him to that role by not doing an adequate job of it themselves. Snowden is merely a symptom, not a cause.
"the tactic of the US government has been to attack and demonize whistleblowers as a means of distracting attention from their own exposed wrongdoing and destroying the credibility of the messenger so that everyone tunes out the message. That attempt will undoubtedly be made here."
looking back at all the articles recently published on HN about it, this has undoubtedly happened here as well in a sense.
My feeling is that people are already starting to somehow forget about the revelations by replacing them in their mind with the engaging story of a whistleblower on the run.
It is all about word choice. It would be just as true to say asylum seeking exiled whistle-blower. Both descriptions are totally accurate, neither description is neutral.
Every mainstream newspaper, tv and radio channel has to have a state-issued license to operate. This means that state can always find a reason to dismiss the license and make business shut down. This fact creates a great bias towards discussing something safer in the eye of the state. Talking about Snowden character is so much safer than speaking openly about how NSA spies on everyone by forcing companies to give them access to communication channels and hardware and then forces them to lie to their customers about privacy.
"Free speech" exists only when there is no license to get and no armed SWAT team that will come if you don't have one.
There are business licenses, code inspections, and changing zoning requirements. Not quite the same as a spectrum license, but there are still many ways for a government to exert pressure on a newspaper.
Right, I'm not playing conspiracy theory or saying there is coercion, just responding to the comment that newspapers don't require any licensing. What with the IRS targeting political groups, you can't be too careful these days ;-).
then by bullying small countries out of letting him land
for re-fueling.
As far as I know Cuba was the country were a stop for re-fueling was planned on the way to South America.
I have read about pressure on Ecuador, but not Cuba.
Does that sentence mean that Greenwald (and probably Snowden and Wikileaks) have information that a stop in Cuba is not save?
In order to get a better idea, do read the whole article, here I just give one small sample: "Cuba agreed in 2006 to stop its practice of harboring American fugitives."
I wonder if that means people the US considers fugitives. As he is regarded by most of the world as an asylum seeker Cuba might decide they can let him in and they are still honouring that agreement.
Greenwald also mentioned that the totality of what Snowden controls is "enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States." Let's assume that's not an entirely hyperbolic statement.
From the point of view of the Obama Administration, the real threat is not Snowden's/Greenwald's principled (even patriotic) drip of information, but that an enemy of the US might kill Snowden, and stage it to look like a US op, thus tripping the dead man's switch. Snowden has, on his own, made himself a prime target for any sufficiently ambitious US antagonist.
And so the US wants Snowden back not only to prosecute him, but also to "protect" him. (Nothing like four years of solitary to keep you safe, comrade.)
Until and unless he is granted a pardon or some other form of immunity from prosecution, it seems that Snowden's best interest is to stay in the strongest and most secure country he can find. A country with a highly developed security apparatus (to protect him from hostile agents), one that is adversarial to America (to disallow his rendition or extradition), but not openly antagonistic (to want to kill him to harm the US).
And that is exactly the country where he finds himself right now.
Obama and Putin have quite the chess match coming up. God bless the man whose life is in their hands.
[Edited for clarity]