Verizon

[Kat Kid]

Yep. This guy sounds perfectly rational. A contractor in Hawaii can pull up to his desk and wiretap the president if he wants. But be careful! The U.S. government kills journalists!

"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge or even a president," Snowden said.

The U.S. intelligence community, Snowden wrote to [WP reporter Barton Gellman], "will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information."

There is a certain internal discord between his claims of the omniscience of the government and his ability to thwart their wishes.

[felix rex]

Yep. This guy sounds perfectly rational. A contractor in Hawaii can pull up to his desk and wiretap the president if he wants. But be careful! The U.S. government kills journalists!

"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge or even a president," Snowden said.

The U.S. intelligence community, Snowden wrote to [WP reporter Barton Gellman], "will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information."

There is a certain internal discord between his claims of the omniscience of the government and his ability to thwart their wishes.

He pulls his hoodie over his head and laptop when he types in passwords in his hotel.

[EllRobersonisInnocent]

Snowden is a hero

[Kat Kid]

Couple good thoughts reactions:

Max Boot:

He claims he is willing to sacrifice a comfortable lifestyle in Hawaii "because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building." In reality, of course, the United States is the greatest champion of liberty the world has ever seen -- this is, after all, the nation that defeated Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and has championed democracy from Libya to the Philippines, freeing untold millions from oppression.

Is this really the argument being made against Snowden?  Maybe I am cherry picking some idiotic things here, but Boot and King make me want to root for this guy.  Counterpoint: it doesn't help Snowy that he set up shop in China.  Hong Kong is a hilarious distraction.

Matt Yglesias:

On the subject of PRISM and U.S. high-tech exports, here are some facts from Orin Kerr:*
The reality of global Internet access means that U.S.-based Internet services often have a heavily foreign customer base. Consider Gmail, the popular e-mail service provided by Google. Google is headquartered in California, and its servers currently reside there. But Gmail’s business is truly international, and slightly less than 30% of Gmail’s users reside in the United States. This chart shows the percentage of Gmail’s users that are in a handful of different countries as of 2012:
Country % of Gmail Users
United States 29.7%
India 8.9%
Japan 3.4%
Russia 3.3%
Brazil 3.2%
United Kingdom 2.9%
China 2.7%
Iran 2.6%
Facebook’s user base is even more heavily foreign than is Gmail’s user base. To be sure, using Facebook has become as American as apple pie: About 54% of Americans presently have a Facebook account. At the same time, only about 16% of Facebook’s users are located in the United States. The rest, about 84%, access Facebook from abroad. For United States-based services like Gmail and Facebook, United States users form a small subset of its global customer base.
From the standpoint of the National Security Agency the fact that U.S. online services companies have such large foreign customer bases is a huge opportunity. The legislative and judicial frameworks around surveillance do not appear to give foreigners anything in the way of protections. But foreign customers may not be very happy with that arrangement. Over and above the use of PRISM snooping as grounds for formal legal barriers to U.S. Web exports, there's just a great business opportunity here for someone to build a webmail service that's based in Berlin or Paris or Stockholm or someplace else where the local government is prepared to erect a firm privacy framework.

You might ask yourself why a program like PRISM needs to be secret, and I think this is part of the reason. When PRISM is known publicly, then non-participation in PRISM becomes a possible marketing point for non-American online services platforms. That's bad for American companies (who would therefore push for a high level of secrecy as a condition of involvement) and also bad for the NSA, whose ability to collect this data hinges on foreigners not abandoning American platforms.

Good points, I guess, but I do have a bit of a hard time figuring out the harm of the releases in so far as it would seem any terrorist that would be caught using the means so far discussed would not be a very competent terrorist.

[CNS]

Well, I have only read three articles on this guy so far, but all three have made their first priority to let me know that he dropped out of high school and never finished his computer science studies at a junior college.

Getting important facts established and out of the way first is a great way to convey the depth of the issue.

[felix rex]

Other than the damage of companies withdrawing from the program (and of the course the PR issue), it's not as bad as other recent leaks.

That said, I hate leaks and support prison sentences for those responsible. The guy is not really a villain (he's a bit too bumbling for that), but he's definitely not a hero.

[Kat Kid]

Other than the damage of companies withdrawing from the program (and of the course the PR issue), it's not as bad as other recent leaks.

That said, I hate leaks and support prison sentences for those responsible. The guy is not really a villain (he's a bit too bumbling for that), but he's definitely not a hero.

You hate leaks because you are a plumber.  But there would be no plumbers without leaks.

[sonofdaxjones]

Let's all take a step back and pause and reflect on the last fleeting memories of Hope and Change.

[felix rex]

Other than the damage of companies withdrawing from the program (and of the course the PR issue), it's not as bad as other recent leaks.

That said, I hate leaks and support prison sentences for those responsible. The guy is not really a villain (he's a bit too bumbling for that), but he's definitely not a hero.

You hate leaks because you are a plumber.  But there would be no plumbers without leaks.

That analogy implies I plug leaks. Leaks damage me, they don't keep me busy.

But if I was a plumber, I'd just contract this out to the triads or something.

[felix rex]

Let's all take a step back and pause and reflect on the last fleeting memories of Hope and Change.

Dax! When we hit this many pages without you, I was worried they found your hotel!

[felix rex]

Well, I have only read three articles on this guy so far, but all three have made their first priority to let me know that he dropped out of high school and never finished his computer science studies at a junior college.

Getting important facts established and out of the way first is a great way to convey the depth of the issue.

Also, girlfriend!

[felix rex]

BTW, what a great past year for bumbling espionage coverage.

[Kat Kid]

Oh man.  Fox News and Jim Pinkerton now trying to link Obama's use of big data analytics and some guy who was a campaign contributor who made an election analytics company and who provided research for Obama's re-election also uses analytics and I'm sorry I couldn't really follow whether that actually made it back to the topic at hand.

[Kat Kid]

Other than the damage of companies withdrawing from the program (and of the course the PR issue), it's not as bad as other recent leaks.

That said, I hate leaks and support prison sentences for those responsible. The guy is not really a villain (he's a bit too bumbling for that), but he's definitely not a hero.

You hate leaks because you are a plumber.  But there would be no plumbers without leaks.

That analogy implies I plug leaks. Leaks damage me, they don't keep me busy.

But if I was a plumber, I'd just contract this out to the triads or something.

Fair.  You are a compliment to plumbers.  Maybe like a suspenders salesman.

[sonofdaxjones]

One of the largest attacks on civil liberties and privacy in U.S. history.   Hey, let's attack Fox News!!   

[CNS]

Oh man.  Fox News and Jim Pinkerton now trying to link Obama's use of big data analytics and some guy who was a campaign contributor who made an election analytics company and who provided research for Obama's re-election also uses analytics and I'm sorry I couldn't really follow whether that actually made it back to the topic at hand.

Whatevs the link was supposed to be, I am confident it is accurate.  Data analytics is rare enough that if you catch two seemingly random events/ppl using them, you can fully guarantee that they are not random and are in fact linked through one boss level nefarious overlord who is no doubt up to no good.

[felix rex]

Oh man.  Fox News and Jim Pinkerton now trying to link Obama's use of big data analytics and some guy who was a campaign contributor who made an election analytics company and who provided research for Obama's re-election also uses analytics and I'm sorry I couldn't really follow whether that actually made it back to the topic at hand.

Did they mention in-q-tel? Regardless, that sounds great.

[felix rex]

Other than the damage of companies withdrawing from the program (and of the course the PR issue), it's not as bad as other recent leaks.

That said, I hate leaks and support prison sentences for those responsible. The guy is not really a villain (he's a bit too bumbling for that), but he's definitely not a hero.

You hate leaks because you are a plumber.  But there would be no plumbers without leaks.

That analogy implies I plug leaks. Leaks damage me, they don't keep me busy.

But if I was a plumber, I'd just contract this out to the triads or something.

Fair.  You are a compliment to plumbers.  Maybe like a suspenders salesman.

The American waistline needs the support I provide.

[felix rex]

Oh man.  Fox News and Jim Pinkerton now trying to link Obama's use of big data analytics and some guy who was a campaign contributor who made an election analytics company and who provided research for Obama's re-election also uses analytics and I'm sorry I couldn't really follow whether that actually made it back to the topic at hand.

Whatevs the link was supposed to be, I am confident it is accurate.  Data analytics is rare enough that if you catch two seemingly random events/ppl using them, you can fully guarantee that they are not random and are in fact linked through one boss level nefarious overlord who is no doubt up to no good.

Data Analytics was created to keep black people in the ghetto.

[CNS]

One of the largest attacks on civil liberties and and privacy in U.S. history.   Hey, let's attack Fox News!!   

Dax, to start, this all pisses me off too.  However, if truly all that is going on is monitoring who sent mail to whom and how often, that type of monitoring has been happening for the entire life of our country.  Before email, when you dropped a letter into a mail box, get this, it went to a government facility where they analyzed where it came from and who it was going to before the letter arrived at it's intended destination.  And get this......YOU PAID FOR IT!

All mockery aside, I have a hard time believing that source and destination are all that was being monitored. 

[Kat Kid]

One of the largest attacks on civil liberties and privacy in U.S. history.   Hey, let's attack Fox News!!   

If only to see the tortured (ha! that works to great effect here.) response from the kinds of people that saw absolutely no problem with Bush-era abuses and expansions of the security state.

I'm pretty staunch in my 4th amendment stances (also 1st and probably stronger in 2nd than most liberals) but I also think that this is not close to the worst post-9/11 story.

[Kat Kid]

Oh man.  Fox News and Jim Pinkerton now trying to link Obama's use of big data analytics and some guy who was a campaign contributor who made an election analytics company and who provided research for Obama's re-election also uses analytics and I'm sorry I couldn't really follow whether that actually made it back to the topic at hand.

Whatevs the link was supposed to be, I am confident it is accurate.  Data analytics is rare enough that if you catch two seemingly random events/ppl using them, you can fully guarantee that they are not random and are in fact linked through one boss level nefarious overlord who is no doubt up to no good.

Data Analytics was created to keep black people in the ghetto.

Crack cocaine was actually the first thing that was 3d printed by the CIA.

[felix rex]

One of the largest attacks on civil liberties and and privacy in U.S. history.   Hey, let's attack Fox News!!   

Dax, to start, this all pisses me off too.  However, if truly all that is going on is monitoring who sent mail to whom and how often, that type of monitoring has been happening for the entire life of our country.  Before email, when you dropped a letter into a mail box, get this, it went to a government facility where they analyzed where it came from and who it was going to before the letter arrived at it's intended destination.  And get this......YOU PAID FOR IT!

All mockery aside, I have a hard time believing that source and destination are all that was being monitored.

Not a bad analogy. No one is opening your letters and reading them. And are we really storing the entirety of digital communications in a bunker under Yucca mountain, cross-referenced and tagged for easy retrieval? Really? Does that sound like something reasonable?

[felix rex]

Oh man.  Fox News and Jim Pinkerton now trying to link Obama's use of big data analytics and some guy who was a campaign contributor who made an election analytics company and who provided research for Obama's re-election also uses analytics and I'm sorry I couldn't really follow whether that actually made it back to the topic at hand.

Whatevs the link was supposed to be, I am confident it is accurate.  Data analytics is rare enough that if you catch two seemingly random events/ppl using them, you can fully guarantee that they are not random and are in fact linked through one boss level nefarious overlord who is no doubt up to no good.

Data Analytics was created to keep black people in the ghetto.

Crack cocaine was actually the first thing that was 3d printed by the CIA.

Obviously. How do you think we paid the triads to cancer-ray Chavez?

[Kat Kid]

Dax, if this was your line of reasoning we could be best buds.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/the-numbers-dont-lie-its-irrational-to-give-up-this-much-liberty-to-fight-terror/276695/