I think the fact he was contacting journalists in December about information he had yet to take (he said he started taking documents in April) shows he had a single purpose to take documents illegally to expose what the NSA was doing. That's borderline spying if you ask me. It's not like he got hired and after several months realizes something wasn't right. He had a specific purpose in mind before even getting there.
"By last December, Snowden was contacting reporters, although he had not yet passed along any classified information. He continued to give his colleagues the “front-page test,” he said, until April."
"Asked about those conversations, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines sent a prepared statement to The Post: “After extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention."
I will always contend what he did was reckless and subverted the job the intelligence community was doing at the time. Unless you were living under a rock, you already knew the NSA was getting out of control. Wired's article in Feb of 2013 highlighted the new NSA facility and its growing capabilities:
Unless you were living under a rock, you already knew the NSA was getting out of control
Yes, definitely. If your threat model hasn't included global passive adversaries, at least since Mark Klein, then you're woefully naive and out of touch.
But what Snowden did is get people to care by revealing tangible details in a way that simply saying "everything is tapped" does not. Things certainly won't change overnight, and it may even take a few more like him to keep us on track to a secure Internet. But the fact that he got all of us talking, and we're still talking, is pretty remarkable.
And as long as he didn't physically hurt anyone, I can't see how anything could possibly be wrong with his methods. Remember, we're talking about unauthorized computer access versus institutionalized programs that are illegal under USG's charter, and of a type that would at least be publicly approved and transparent in any free society.
Comments
I think the fact he was contacting journalists in December about information he had yet to take (he said he started taking documents in April) shows he had a single purpose to take documents illegally to expose what the NSA was doing. That's borderline spying if you ask me. It's not like he got hired and after several months realizes something wasn't right. He had a specific purpose in mind before even getting there.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward...
"By last December, Snowden was contacting reporters, although he had not yet passed along any classified information. He continued to give his colleagues the “front-page test,” he said, until April."
"Asked about those conversations, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines sent a prepared statement to The Post: “After extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention."
I will always contend what he did was reckless and subverted the job the intelligence community was doing at the time. Unless you were living under a rock, you already knew the NSA was getting out of control. Wired's article in Feb of 2013 highlighted the new NSA facility and its growing capabilities:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
Yes, definitely. If your threat model hasn't included global passive adversaries, at least since Mark Klein, then you're woefully naive and out of touch.
But what Snowden did is get people to care by revealing tangible details in a way that simply saying "everything is tapped" does not. Things certainly won't change overnight, and it may even take a few more like him to keep us on track to a secure Internet. But the fact that he got all of us talking, and we're still talking, is pretty remarkable.
And as long as he didn't physically hurt anyone, I can't see how anything could possibly be wrong with his methods. Remember, we're talking about unauthorized computer access versus institutionalized programs that are illegal under USG's charter, and of a type that would at least be publicly approved and transparent in any free society.