What are the differences between Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, and Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers back in 1971? Not much, really, but the distinctions that do exist are key:
- 1. Ellsberg, a true product of the establishment he was undermining, had the New York Times and the Washington Post simultaneously releasing in its entirety all that he had to share, while Snowden is dribbling his news through The Guardian and the Post, with neither paper taking much of a legal or ethical stand behind him, much less printing verbatim thousands of pages of classified material as happened with the Ellsberg case in the early 70s. If Snowden is the Ellsberg of this century, he’s Ellsberg on Twitter.
- Ellsberg stayed to face his accusers and Snowden ran — his trips to Hong Kong, Moscow, and who-knows-where taking over from the leaks, themselves, as the news story. His running is rationalized by saying it needs to happen in order to keep releasing information, but why not — like Ellsberg — just dump it all at once?
- Ellsberg released actual news, while so far Snowden has simply confirmed stories long in circulation. A pure espionage conviction would be difficult at this point, the news is so thin.
Clearly Daniel Ellsberg was a lot classier in his day than Edward Snowden is today. And that’s a big part of the problem, both with this story and the current intelligence fiasco that Snowden describes: too many cowboys.
9/11, as I wrote at the time, opened the national checkbook to over-react and over-spend on intelligence. As a result what we as a nation are doing is recording every piece of data we can get. We say we are doing so to detect and prevent terrorist acts but more properly our agencies expect to use the data for post-event analysis — going back and figuring out what happened just as law enforcement did after the Boston Marathon blasts.
The biggest problem with these programs (there are many) is that we inevitably play fast-and-loose with the data, which is exactly one of the tidbits dropped by Edward Snowden. Feds and fed contractors are every day looking at things like their own lovers and celebrities they know they aren’t supposed to check on, but what the heck? And the FISA Court? It can’t take action against something it knows nothing about.
When I started working on this column my idea was to look at Snowden from a Human Resources perspective. If government and contractor HR were better, for example, Snowden would never have been hired or he would have been better indoctrinated and never squealed. Snowden is an HR nightmare.
But having talked to a couple really good HR people, I think the Snowden problem goes far beyond better filtering and training to an underlying paradox that I’m sure bedevils every administration, each one suffering more than the one before it as technology further infiltrates our lives.
Nothing is as it seems, you see, so every innocent (and that’s where we all begin) is inevitably disappointed and then corrupted by the realities of public service.
President Obama campaigned in 2008 as an outsider who was going to change things but quickly became an insider who didn’t change all that much, presumably because he came to see the nuances and shades of gray where on the campaign trail things had seemed so black and white. But when that shift happened from black-and-white to gray, someone forgot to send a memo to the Edward Snowdens, who were expected to just follow orders and comply. But this is a generation that doesn’t like to follow orders and comply.
Sitting as he did on the periphery of empire, Snowden and his concerns were not only ignored, they were unknown, and for an intelligence agency to not even know it had an employee ready to blow is especially damning.
So what happens now? The story devolves into soap opera as Snowden seeks refuge as in a Faulkner novel. Maybe he releases a further bombshell or two, maybe he doesn’t. But the circumstances strongly suggest that we’ll see more Edward Snowdens in the future, because little or nothing seems to be happening to fix the underlying problems.
Those problems, in addition to there being too many cowboys, are that all the incentives in place only make things worse, not better. Snowden was a contractor, for example. Why not a government employee? Because government salary limits didn’t allowed hiring six-figure GED’s like Snowden. So do we bring it all in-house? Impossible for this same reason unless we redefine being a public servant to something more like the Greek model where government employees made significantly more money than their private sector equivalents.
How well would that go over right now with Congress?
We could give all the work to the military. The NSA, after all, is a military organization. That would be adding even more cowboys and dubious on Constitutional grounds, too.
The most likely answer here is that nothing will really happen, nothing will change, which means we’ll have more Edward Snowdens down the road and more nasty revelations about our government. And I take some solace in this, because such dysfunctional behavior acts as a check and balance on our government’s paranoia and over-ambition until that pendulum begins to shift in the other direction.
No matter what happens with Edward Snowden or what further information he reveals, there is far more yet to come.
Why is ‘whistle-blowing’ continually portrayed as a bad thing ? Surely a wrong should be addressed and a high degree of transparency encouraged ? “All that is necessary for evil to triumph…………” etc
In UK a report on child abuse comes to light after decades because the council was afraid of litigation ! What kind of society is that !!?? OK, sometimes ‘wrong’ is subjective – but surely it is, 99% of the time, better out than in. If it can’t be justified, don’t do it.
`Maybe now there will be a clearer process to allow the facts out with appropriate protection and positive recognition for the ‘whistle-blower’……. a trans-national UN wikileaks !
I guess you missed what Ellsberg had to say about Snowden in the Washington Post on Monday:
Snowden made the right call when he fled the U.S. By Daniel Ellsberg
“Many people compare Edward Snowden to me unfavorably for leaving the country and seeking asylum, rather than facing trial as I did. I don’t agree. …
” … When I surrendered to arrest in Boston, having given out my last copies of the papers the night before, I was released on personal recognizance bond the same day. Later, when my charges were increased from the original three counts to 12, carrying a possible 115-year sentence, my bond was increased to $50,000. But for the whole two years I was under indictment, I was free to speak to the media and at rallies and public lectures. …
” … There is no chance that experience could be reproduced today, let alone that a trial could be terminated by the revelation of White House actions against a defendant that were clearly criminal in Richard Nixon’s era — and figured in his resignation in the face of impeachment — but are today all regarded as legal (including an attempt to “incapacitate me totally”).”
Don’t forget that the FBI broke into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist and stole his patient files in order to find something to smear Ellsberg with.
I have no doubt that the FBI would do much worse to Snowden if given the chance.
Bob, I think that in your initial criticism of Edward Snowden as compared with Daniel Ellsberg, you’ve forgotten that Ellsberg was already a well established journalist with a reputation and newspaper contacts while Snowden is a tekkie and didn’t have any of those contacts. As to publication: almost none of the material Ellsberg published was highly classified but it would appear that Snowden has had little access to material at equivalent levels of sensitivity and, to his credit, has been unwilling to release more highly classified material.
Here’s Ellsberg’s take on the situation: https://www.ellsberg.net/archive/edward-snowden
Notice that Daniel Ellsberg thinks sticking around for the court case is not an option for Edward Snowden due to the way laws have been changed since 1972.
You won’t see this is the mainstream media, but Snowden has been given an award an organization of former national security officials:
Snowden Honored by Ex-Intel Officials
“Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, an organization of former national security officials, has honored NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, praising his decision to reveal the extent of U.S. government electronic surveillance of people in the United States and around the world.”
Clearly the best way to stop governments from doing bad things is to make them completely open and accountable with a good sprinkling of whistle blower candidates, like Snowden, thrown in to catch the coverups.
Bob’s preferred government organization either weeds out the whistle blower candidates before they are employed or “indoctrinates” them after employment to remove their whistle blower potential! Not a fan of open and accountable government eh Bob?
As for expecting Snowden to hang about so that the government can do a Bradley Manning on him… Whistle blowers are highly ethical, not highly stupid!
Stop US government arrogance now! Drop all charges against Bradley Manning. Stop trying to extradite anyone who embarrasses the government, and give Edward Snowden a Pulitzer Prize!
Bob, I’ve never been so disappointed in your thoughts as I am today.
Did you bother to read what Ellsberg himself had to say about Snowden’s flight (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-leaker-snowden-made-the-right-call/2013/07/07/0b46d96c-e5b7-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html)? Snowden would not have been treated with a relatively fair and even-handed justice as Ellsberg was. Snowden would be treated in an extreme manner like Bradley Manning.
A lot of what our government is up to is clearly no good. You seem to be of the opinion that we should just keep that under the rug and accept it as the way the world works. That is an appalling point of view.
I am of the same generation as Snowden. The generational difference is not that there are more cowboys. The difference is that we grew up with lies about the role our country plays in the world. When the scales fall from our eyes we lose respect for the existing authority and gain disappointment in the older generation that allowed an authoritarian government to take root out of fear.
Power is difficult to challenge effectively. Snowden is making a valiant effort to do what he can.
Stick to the tech industry in future posts.
The problem with your assertion is that yours was the only generation that grew up.
I can tell you that’s a complete crock.
Every generation likes to think that they discovered disillusionment, just like each generation likes to think they discovered sex. The thing is, your parents’ generation went through the same disillusionment, as did my parents and my own generation (Gen X). The difference is that, as Bob implied, the Feds threw a six figure salary at someone who should have been classified as a risk.
I can see both sides of the complaints about Snowden’s revelations, but really none of it surprises me. If you work in IT you know that private corporations are collecting reams of data on people, so why not the Feds? And really, the fact that there was spying going on at the G-8 meetings was news? The one thing that concerns me the most is that there’s no outside oversight of the NSA, unlike the spooks for the CIA. And if you told me that the CIA had a shadowy hand in outing the NSA and Snowden, it wouldn’t shock me either. These agencies like to protect their own turf, and if the CIA sees the NSA as intruding on their area of expertise, they’ll take measures to try to rein that group in.
Ellsberg is entitled to his opinion just as you and I are and my opinion in this case is that Snowden should have spilled every bit of information he had to spill then waited for the police to arrive. In this aspect I disagree with Ellsberg and I’ll explain why. First I want more information from Snowden, not less. Fleeing was likely a factor in his decision to leak only a bit, thus giving some value to possible helpers in the additional materials yet to be divulged, just as the remaining secrets give the U.S. government that much incentive to grab Snowden and shut him up. But if everything is out in the open there’s nothing to shut up. By the same token I further disagree with Ellsberg that choosing not to flee woud instantly send Snowden into intel hell, never to be heard from again. I doubt that would happen specifically because there are people like me writing about this stuff. I wouldn’t let it drop and there are others in similar positions who would continue to question, keeping the subject in foreground. There’s a lot of misadventure here on all sides and therefore plenty to write about.
Bob, as some people already pointed out earlier, what happened to Bradley Manning (not some “Taliban” from half a world away that your government kills by the bucket, but an _American citizen_) ought to scare the crap out of pretty much anyone. Shock and awe applied to the American citizens. Do you know what torture is? Snowden is probably just trying to mitigate the heat under his arse the best he can. The real topic should be what happened to the Constitution and rule of law in your country…
Snowden is just a sidebar, Bob.
The story is that this and every dot and comma you and I and the world type into our computers is being read. Read by a human if we’re important enough, if not then scanned and recorded by the fastest software and hardware on the planet.
Yes, the story is that all of the wonderkins in Silicon Valley have sold out and become informers for the government.
Bob, I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from saying “we as a country” are doing these things. A few individuals in Washington decided to do these things. “We as a country” are 330 million people with 330 million unique opinions, and “we” didn’t all decide it was a good idea for a few individuals in Washington to monitor all of our communications.
Have to agree. You don’t address anything regarding the constitutionality of the FISA court’s rulings. Maybe you just feel there’s an information vacuum, but the concept of a secret judicial process only works if the FISA court exercises adequate oversight and control. If the court just rubber-stamps requests from the executive branch, the secrecy is just a cover for overreach by the security establishment.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from saying “we as a country” are doing these things. … “we” didn’t all decide it was a good idea.’
It doesn’t matter who decided. As a citizen you are ultimately responsible for what your country is doing – whether you like it or not, whether you feel included in the decision making process or not. For example, we have a President, whether you voted for him or not he’s the President.
Face the facts: your country, and mine, is a police state. You and I are responsible for this.
“It doesn’t matter who decided. As a citizen you are ultimately responsible for what your country is doing – whether you like it or not, whether you feel included in the decision making process or not. For example, we have a President, whether you voted for him or not he’s the President.”
A good case could be made that turnout under 50% is a vote of no confidence in the sitting government, a withdrawal of “just consent of the governed”, and a disavowal of the activities of said government.
Of course, “designated winners” prefer to force you to play their rigged games if they can — known fascists like Peter Orszag have endorsed compulsory voting, presumably as a means of protecting government legitimacy from its people, and don’t get me started on the PPACA’s effective indifference to health outcomes and overattention to financial-industry outcomes… not that leaving “designated winners” to their own devices, as Objectivist-Libertarian theory would have it, will make them any less coercive or more willing to deal on socially beneficial terms (a level playing field, for Libertarians; to uphold their ends of contracts, for Objectivists).
“A good case could be made that turnout under 50% is a vote of no confidence in the sitting government, a withdrawal of “just consent of the governed”, and a disavowal of the activities of said government.”
That is not the law of the land. Therefore, no case could be made. Yes, there is strong evidence that the US government is no longer “of the people, by the people, and for the people;” but that’s what everyone puts up with. It’s still your government, using you as justification for it’s actions, even if you don’t vote.
As many of us expected and as Bob wrote, the most likely outcome of 9/11 was a massive overreaction by the government. As feared they lived down to our expectations.
…
As any data security expert and the first thing they will tell you is the greatest risk to one’s data comes from the PEOPLE who have access to it. If you have a lot of interesting data and a lot of people have access to it, it is a recipe for big problems. If you have more data than you need and are not managing it with respect people will know and a few of them will act. This is human nature. It can be expected to happen over and over again.
..
What was lacking in this situation was for a safe and effective process for whistle blowing. This is not unlike the problem with harassment and discrimination in the work place. To fix the problem there needs to be an organization wide intolerance to breaking the rules. There needs to be a process whereby wrong doing can be reported. The process needs to be safe and effective. I mentioned this twice for good reason. The whistle blower must feel completely safe and free of fear. Every report must be taken seriously. It must be investigated. If there was wrong doing it must be acted upon. The process must produce clear and obvious results, every time.
…
Organizations work best when there is cooperation, collaboration, trust, respect, and an openness to feedback. When there are barriers to communication problems can develop and fester. Throughout society there are examples of harassment, abuse, and other problems. Terrible things happened to people and at the core of each problem was an organization unwilling to listen and take action.
…
The ends do not justify the means. What Mr. Snowden did was wrong. However if there was no internal process to address Mr. Snowen’s issues, then the NSA is equally at fault. And for the well being of our society, THAT problem must be fixed.
Everything became clear when I read the New York Times article “Data You Can Believe In”. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html
Now, I understand why Obama is 1). The first true politician of the 21st century, and 2). Why he doesn’t seem so upset that unknown agencies are secretly watching everything we do and organizing it into a massive database. His presidential campaign pretty much did the same thing and was probably responsible for him winning both in 2004 and 2008. It’s the same thing that Facebook, Twitter, and Google also do everyday.
I don’t like it. I think it’s wrong, but unfortunately, it’s ubiquitous. Maybe Romney, if he won, would be more outraged about this snooping and might have done something about it. After all, he has stuff he really wants to keep out of the public eye.
The problem is that the Executive branch doesn’t want another terrorist attack on their watch, be that Bush, Obama or whomever sits in the office next. The fact is, as screwed up as Prism and whatever else the NSA is collecting may be, it’s simply a reaction to the American public and more poignantly, 24/7 news outlets that feed on and foster Americans’ fears about their own safety. Sadly, terrorists have succeeded on a level that even the 9/11 perpetrators probably didn’t even expect. That sad day claimed may innocent lives but it also claimed our freedom. Americans continue to trade away our liberties in exchange for the feeling of security.
Where’s the widespread outrage over Prism? it seems we, as a people, are more interested in crucifying the current administration over Benghazi than over spying on us.
As Bob pointed out, the data collection is only good for post game analysis.
Much like how the former Stasi in East Germany were surprised by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the NSA are great at tapping phone lines and reading e-mail, but have very little ability to make sense of the data.
Ah, ah, it’s only good for post-game analysis *in attacks* because attacks can be completed by small groups.
On the other hand, it’s worth considering that the NSA’s feed for PRISM is apparently sourced from existing CALEA-mandated interceptors placed by the notoriously right-wing jackbooted FBI. Network analysis performed on a continuous, ongoing basis (which admittedly isn’t PRISM but has been alluded to as a current intelligence practice) would be very effective for following Constitutionally protected political activity at every scale as it evolves, which is especially interesting to oligarchies looking to defend themselves against democracy.
” Ellsberg, released actual news…Ellsberg, a product of the establishment he was undermining , had the Times simultaneously releasing in its entirety…”
First – The pentagon papers were not news – they were simply the SECRET history of the Vietnam War.The pentagon papers were only secret because the media fails to inform the public of government lies.
Second – The NYTs did not publish thousands of pages of verbatim , but a series of articles based upon the Pentagon Papers.
“2 Ellsberg stayed to face his accusers and Snowden ran”
Snowden made the right call when he fled the U.S. – By Daniel Ellsberg, Washingtonpost,July 7
Ellsberg went underground with his wife for weeks. He was a fugitive of the FBI. America was a free nation in 1970: when Ellsberg surrendered he was released on a personal recognizance bond the same day. For two years that he was under indictment, he was free to speak to the media and at rallies and public lectures.
“while so far Snowden has simply confirmed stories long in circulation.”
The Journalists Against Journalism club do not circulate NSA stories – they spin them ( see NYTs Lincoln’s Surveillance State…). In describing Snowden as a “cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood”, the media fails to inform.
https://www.salon.com/2013/07/02/meet_the_journalists_against_journalism_club/
“But this is a generation that doesn’t like to follow orders and comply.”
@70 years old, Bill Binney, the NSA mathematician didn’t follow orders and comply in 2007. With 3 decades of service given to the NSA, he described the corporate feeding frenzy that happens there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dxnp2Sz59p8
I dont know if Binney is even a baby boomer…If Snowden or any other American is skeptical of institutional power, it is not due to any personal failing on their part. The lack of respect is a direct outgrowth of the bad behavior of the nation’s institutions.
“neither paper taking much of a legal or ethical stand behind Snowden , much less printing verbatim thousands of pages”
This says more about the media than it does about Snowden. The majority of press cares more about Hugh Grant’s privates than the public’s right to privacy. The British press routinely intercepted voice mails. Prime Minister Cameron’s ex-communications director, Andy Coulson, was held on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.
Bob, usually you’re quite insightful. Today however you’re anything but.
1, Snowden isn’t “dribbling” information out to The Guardian and the WaPo. Snowden in fact gave them everything he he felt might be safely released and asked them to make decisions as journalists on how best to release and report it.
2. Snowden ran and Ellseberg stayed say you? Ellseberg himself addressed this non-starter in an OpEd in the WaPo on July 7th. He points out that the America he was in when he leaked the Pentagon Papers and the America of today are like two different worlds. Ellseberg was released on his own recognizance after arrest. Snowden will almost surely get the Bradley Manning treatment.
Further, this whole “he ran!” meme that some are…er….running with is just bollocks. Just the other day a “liberal” host at MSNBC was comparing Snowden unfavorably to other famous people who had engaged in civil disobedience and fights against injustice, at one point saying “Look at Nelson Mandela! He spent 27 years in prison!”, apparently unaware of the fact that Mandela had not turned himself in but had been on the run from the apartheid South African regime and was caught only after the US CIA provided info to the SA government on his whereabouts.
3. Not news? No Bob, this is news. Look at the global reaction. It’s one thing to say that people knew or suspected, but dramatic confirmation of the fears of those who were labeled “paranoid” by the “very serious people” just a few months ago has been a blockbuster news event with wide ranging (and still developing) effect and implication.
“Clearly Daniel Ellsberg was a lot classier in his day than Edward Snowden is today” is without basis. See Ellseberh’s op/ed for why.
“President Obama campaigned in 2008 as an outsider who was going to change things but quickly became an insider who didn’t change all that much, presumably because he came to see the nuances and shades of gray where on the campaign trail things had seemed so black and white” is a load of fertilizer. Anyone who thinks Obama was an outsider is simply not qualified to comment on politics. Obama was the ultimate inside play. And if you go back to to 2008 and parse his rhetoric very carefully, absent the soaring emotion, you will see that Obama is always what he was.
Really, love your work and find it on almost all occasions to be informative and entertaining. But this latest entry was a swing and a miss, and a swing and a miss, and a swing and a miss.
Everyone just needs to get over their shock that there is gambling going on at Rick’s. Snowden is just a run of the mill IT malcontent.
@Eric Harding
I guess you drank the kool-aid. Anybody who has watched the videos of the two interviews with Snowden knows that’s not true.
Thanks Mr NSA Agent!
disagree with those other two, that’s spot on and funny 🙂
Cringely, you really made me cringe there… you make me think the little credibility and power of persuasion you have accumulated during your life (hobnobbing with “Famous People” and some real Giants) went to your head and corrupted your ideals. And, BTW, I think your age is really showing…
P.S.: I hope you noticed ALL the comments ran against you, which should tell you something about the isolation of your position.
Well I do notice there appeared a minute ago a worldly cynic to support you…
“But this is a generation that doesn’t like to follow orders and comply.”
This oft-bruited narcissism is, I suspect, perfectly rational game theory: don’t play the patsy. The designated winners need them more than they need the designated winners.
Why follow orders when snapping necks is what actually serves the public interest?
“Ellsberg was already a well established journalist with a reputation and newspaper contacts”
Ellsberg was not a journalist in 1969 – He worked for RAND Corporation – a think tank offering research and analysis to the armed forces. With the assistance of a former RAND Corporation colleague and the staff of Senator Ed Kennedy—he made photocopies of the classified documents.
Comparing Snowden to Ellsberg has been overdone. Comparing Snowden to the elusive Bob Woodward is more interesting:
In 1969, Woodward was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal for his communications work while aboard the USS Fox and the U.S.S. Wright. While serving as a lieutenant,Woodward had a top secret “crypto” clearance – the same clearance that Lee Harvey Oswald had in the Marines.
From there, Woodward moved on to a Pentagon assignment, a job that included briefing top officers in the government. Admiral Thomas Moorer and former secretary of defense Melvin Laird are both on record noting that Woodward briefed Al Haig at the White House during this period.
Woodward did a fine job keeping CIA’s nose clean while making sure the world saw the Nixon’s nose was dirty:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/06/02/118821/-Bob-Woodward-ALL-smoke-and-mirrors#
Maybe Woodward should apologise to Nixon for not covering the Snowden story with any vigour.
It’s great to see such vigorous debate here even if some of it (one guy here claimed ALL of it) goes against me. This is my second column on Snowden. Maybe it was naive of me to assume that readers would remember the first one that covers some of the material I’m criticized for not including here.
I’m generally in favor of whistle blowing and that’s true in this case, too. I just wish Snowden had blown louder and longer. If the Post and Guardian are the sole gatekeepers and are withholding material then Snowden cut a stupid deal with them. He could have required they print everything and should have or taken his material to another publication. And since he’s spoken directly to the press he had a chance to correct that mistake. I’m sure he could call a press conference tomorrow in Moscow that would be very well attended.
Someone said I’m too old and maybe that’s correct. I’m old enough, for example, to remember when the Pentagon Papers were published in the Times and Post. And the reader who said they weren’t published in their entirety was simply WRONG. The type was very small but it came to tens of thousands of words in a single issue of each paper. I still have my copy somewhere. Sometimes what readers remember is simply wrong while I at least make an effort to check sources.
Finally there’s this trend for critical readers to write that I’ve blown my credibility, gone over to the dark side (whichever side they don’t like) and they’ll never read me again. I DON’T CARE. I don’t write this column to make money. I don’t write it to attract readers. Lord knows I don’t write it to PLEASE readers. It’s just my opinion, so take it or leave it as you see fit.
But there’s some power in what I do and that comes from longevity and consistency. If you came here and stayed it’s because of that. You won’t always agree with me but you’ll know where I stand and why, which is the only promise I’m making to anyone.
“Maybe it was naive of me to assume that readers would remember the first one that covers some of the material I’m criticized for not including here.”
No, that’s not it. It’s that this latest column is so disconnected from what is, and that disconnection stands on its own (or more properly does not stand at all.)
Since I can’t edit, I’ll add this here…
Appealing to thoughts from a previous column is akin to saying “Ignore the fart I just let and recall the wonderful smell of the roses I brought you last week.”
Bob, love ya man, but as I said before, this column was a swing and a miss X 3.
BTW, your “Snowden should have demanded” riff is all wet. Snowden DID demand. The WaPo declined, Greenwald and The Guardian refused. Snowden took what he could get. Where the hell are you getting your (mis)information?
I find myself conflicted with both Manning and Snowden cases.
In the first I weigh the fact one may never know who or what was compromised, against in my book culpably lax security and server punishment. If in fact Manning endangered men in the field, the question is whether he did do knowingly, or with intent, or maliciously or for whatever motive and I think it essential for natural justice he be openly and quickly tried.
Snowden fails to impress upon me the necessity the argument sine qua non, the imperative of his whistle-blowing. Save that it is a remarkable advertisement for the alert which we should all note concerning the extent of government surveillance and the pervasive costs to society which are universal and borderless.
Though I cannot deny that it took considerable will to make the decisions they did, and whilst it can be argued differently, both, without the present state of law, seem to have had little to loose in terms of career or family. But ignoring what can be argued both ways, it’s the junior positions both held which strikes me as problematic. What need is there to have highly classified traffic in the hands of men who dfo *not* have families and careers to loose? It strikes me as a elementary structural failing, and if there is a tendency to make gestural sacrifices, I don’t think I am wrong in that the young or the very old are more likely to take such actions.
Now the problem is, in this world of grey, that if you have such a bloated operation as to require junior staff to handle highly classified documents, then if the incentives are greater, dint the seriousness of concern as to operation excess and society, and you have more individuals with less to loose under the old laws, do not the new laws, draconian as they are, become a necessity?
It seems we are tied in a Gordian Knot of the first order.
If by nature of bloat there simply be ever more in circulation classified highly, and by the nature of burgeoning bureaucracy and career ambitions incentive even to over classify material to inflate employment positions, and so it seems the system itself is creating the leaks, not in a self correcting manner, but in the way a grinder sheds sparks or spews dust, by simple friction. The image of a vast Mobius strip of secret labelled papers cycling furiously suddenly appears in my mind.
The problem seems to me as intractable equally as it seems the whistle-blowers likely ineffective, and my conflict in this is if on reflection, either had concluded they were likely to be ultimately ineffective, does not that bias any decision as to their motivation and even morality in doing so, if risk of real harm to others or operatives was unknown. Snowden says he winnowed his papers for such reasons, but public ability to know the veracity of that is next to nil. For both, I am left scratching my head, and wondering why the far safer route of publishing a book about the problems would not only suffice for their ends, but be far safer for all concerned.
” And the reader who said they weren’t published in their entirety was simply WRONG.”
In June of 1971, portions of the report were leaked to the press and widely distributed. Maybe you are thinking of Beacon Press? Semi-complete editions of the Pentagon Papers were published by Beacon Press and Bantam Books. The “Gravel Edition” was edited and annotated by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.
In 2007 (40th anniversary), the National Archives published 7,000 pages – 34% of the report was published for the first time. The complete Report is now available with no redactions:
https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers/
Members of Congress Dangerous were just as courageous then as they are today – Ellsberg had to shop the Pentagon Papers around to members of Congress for a year and a half (Fulbright, McGovern, Mathias, and McCloskey) before he found Senator Mike Gravel. I don’t think that Snowden had that luxury today.
The Most Dangerous Man In America describes Ellsberg’s experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKGZk3OjHM
As part of Mike Gravel’s filibuster against a two-year draft extension. At 1 a.m. with no other senators present, establishing unanimous consent to insert 4,100 pages of the Papers into the Congressional Record of Mike Gravel’s subcommittee:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel#Vietnam_War.2C_the_draft.2C_and_the_Pentagon_Papers
We have a big problem in our country and the world. The problem is that human nature, which was developed back in primitive times, is not up to controlling the powerful technology available today. Bemoaning opinions that don’t gibe with your own will do nothing whatsoever to solve this problem. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
with that insight, Sir, I heartily agree. And what of the culture we engender in today’s youth, affected by pervasive intrusions and ever more miscarriages which might instill fear in any man? Because such possibilities, reemote statistically as they may be, are so horrendous as to require justification, the black and white and shades of grey become ever more blurred, and maybe merely by the confusion, or increasing difficulty of moral appraisal, we incline to ever more binary interpretations by reflex. The harder it becomes to make distinctions, the less distinctions will be made. In my fifth decade, I have to say I sighed in despair when i started to notice my own generation assuming positions of power, some literally so, former schoolfriends, because being brought up by my father who if alive would be 106 this year, i perceived a very different moral universe from my peers.
Thanks for writing this. You’re probably correct in your criticisms of Snowden, but I don’t think it really matters. What matters is what we know now. I want to know what data is being gathered and that people can get put in jail for overstepping clear boundaries. I want transparency. I’m Canadian, so can’t do more about the Snowden issue than have an opinion but will do what I can to push for openness and accountability in Canada. I’ve no doubt CSIS is overstepping its boundaries. It is just so tempting.
I’m glad to see that the commenters on this article have their eyes on what really matters; the fact that governments are getting away with things that they have no business doing.
Did the info Manning leaked make any difference? Any heads role? Any changes made? I can’t even recall what he leaked, biggest impact was watching Assange hole up in London.
This too will pass with lots of comment but no action or change.
That’s on us, not Manning. Change will come when the masses wake up from their stupor and demand it,
I would like to see Bob write a column on how cryptography can fix this whole issue.
If all emails and private communications were strongly encrypted, this problem wouldn’t exist. this is the real solution. No administrative or legal solution will work. It’s too easy to snoop and the temptation is too great.
frustratingly forget where I read this, but what about the Kremlin order for typewriters?
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I certainly like the appeal of elegance in the idea, even if it for all I know could even be imagined as a joke, ridiculing the vast high tech budgets spent.
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but perforce see Bruce Schneier for comment on the imperfections of security once human fallibility is counted.
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we’ve a problem, and the scale of the problem is a problem in itself.
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Maybe once those “in charge” of these organizations start to think on the problem of scale and bloat, we may see a more natural solution. By reducing bloat, one may see a correlated reduction in security and even intelligence failures.
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Now, and I am not a US citizen, but there is supposed to be separation for internal and external intelligence in the UK also, and despite the worry, it seems separation of surveillance between citizen and non citizen, foreign and domestic entities, has little no functional chinese wall, and if the peril of false positives and maltreatment of domestic nationals is abundant in any event, in part caused by sheer operational scale, that strikes me as one place to eliminate overlap and duplication of resources. I see no reason to hive more than one bureau and one office determining classification of internal and external targets. Tenuous as it may be, cutting size may help address many ills.
= = =
It’s hard to know what to think about Snowden & I respect what Cringely, who I’ve read and often enjoyed for 20 years or so, has to say about this strange young man. As I understand it from what Snowden has disclosed, NSA has direct access to the full database(s) of “telephony metadata” that law enforcement agencies can only access on a case-by-case basis after getting a court order, but that like law enforcement agencies, NSA needs a warrant to “listen in” to phone conversations. NSA gets its warrants from the FISA court and has a 100% success rate in obtaining them, unlike law enforcement with the regular court system. OK, this is news and it was classified until Snowden put it out there, but there are some differences in what NSA is doing and what law enforcement does. If you believe NSA analysts are listening in willy-nilly on friends and celebrities’ phone calls, there’s no arguing with you. I worked at NSA (in an Army Intelligence element) for 8 years, have known many NSA analysts in my intelligence career, and have not found them to be anything other than fairly serious-minded foreign intelligence professionals. When NSA looks at a domestic phone conversation they started with a foreign connection involving known or suspected terrorists or other persons of intelligence interest. It’s hard to prove a negative, I know, but I really doubt that wild fantasies about unrestrained eavesdropping bear much relationship to reality. Finally, as someone said earlier, haven’t we all been aware for a long time that anything we put into unencrypted digital format, whether in a cell phone conversation or onto the Internet, is “out there” and may be heard or seen by who knows who, and might have a very long shelf life? It’s all potentially insecure, & welcome to the late 20th century.
FWIW, I agree that the government has treated Bradley Manning badly. He unlawfully disclosed classified information, period. Give him a year breaking rocks at Leavenworth and a dishonorable discharge, & let him get on with his life — none of this Espionage Act bullshit and 20-year to life sentences. Snowden’s case is complicated by his long stays in China and Russia, and who knows who he might have talked to apart from the media, but he’s basically like Ellsberg, a self-promoting blowhard who deserves to be forgotten after his 15 minutes of fame. He’s confirmed what we all have long suspected, and that’s about the extent of the damage he’s done.
” If you believe NSA analysts are listening in willy-nilly on friends and celebrities’ phone calls, there’s no arguing with you.”
So….I take it that you missed the reporting on the NSA listening in to US troops having phone sex with their wives/partners?
We place our trust in laws, not in men. You’re essentially saying “Trust them, they’re good guys.” And that advice is really bad advice, has always been bad advice and will be bad advice forevermore.
Roman Berry, the incident(s) you cite involved deployed linguists monitoring cell phone activity in a war zone to collect intelligence and counterintelligence information, and yes, some of these conversations involved US personnel. Back in World War II nobody in a combat zone was allowed to send private, uncensored mail back to the USA, and military censors read a lot of entertaining and sometimes embarrassing stuff in the name of preserving operational security. No GI in a war zone has the slightest expectation of privacy. So your suggested parallel is not relevant.
Censorship is much different than voyeurism.
Especially if Taxpayers are paying overtime for the voyeurism.
under RIPA in the UK, warrantless intercept is extended very widely, even to local authority / municipal staff, and I’ve not been able to find any rules as to whom save for their work function, e.g. mental health departments may request intercepts, presumably if they consider someone at risk, but again no rules to be found.
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“very strange young men”, while not quite old enough to describe them as young men, that very description nevertheless has come to my mind on several occasions, and seems most apt.
Snowden doesn’t have a twitter.
Nothing but fakes and people with a lot of free time.
Horrible article.
Bob, have you seen the results of this new Quinnipiac poll (released today, July 10) showing a rather massive shift in public opinion of government surveillance, encroachment on civil liberties and Edward Snowden? That shift seems to coincide remarkably well with the Snowden revelations and the subsequent reporting/blogging/tweeting going on about the activities of the NSA, the FISA court (such as here and here), etc.
Surely you must concede that Snowden’s revelations are in fact “news”, and that the majority, if blissfully unaware before, seems to be finally gaining at least some grasp of what it all potentially means. Not trying to beat a dead horse here. Just still so perplexed by your post and wondering how it is your view as expressed is so completely at odds with what I might expect.
“This is my second column on Snowden. Maybe it was naive of me to assume that readers would remember the first one”
Did you remember your second column? The column title might have been “Snowden is an HR nightmare”
This suggest an opinion that Snowden leaks are the problem and not The NSA dystopia.
It’s like the problem with the Vietnam war was that the good guys lost. The press lost the war…
The press were cheerleading that war like every war. Please read Carl Bernstein’s piece on how the CIA controls the media and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up: https://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
“I really doubt that wild fantasies about unrestrained eavesdropping bear much relationship to reality…
like law enforcement agencies, NSA needs a warrant to listen in to phone conversations”
Wow…I guess it’s not just the DoD blocking sites that report on the NSA documents…
The NSA records all phone calls of everybody. They are not listening to everybody’s phone conversation.
The order authorizing the massive surveillance through Verizon was signed by Roger Vinson, a retired federal judge, who is despised by veterans for ruling that promises made in the 1940s to provide them health care don’t need to be honored. This is what Snowden leaked to the Post/Gaurdian. No fantasy.
“Give him a year breaking rocks at Leavenworth and a dishonorable discharge, & let him get on with his life”
They should wear iron yokes around their necks for the duration of the war on terror like the Saint Pat’s Battalion.
“…I have known many NSA analysts, and have not found them to be fairly serious-minded foreign intelligence professionals.”
I’m sure none of them wiretaped MLK or Attorney General Spitzer. And I’m sure none of them sent anonymous letters to MLK threatening to reveal information if he did not cease his civil rights work.
When SEC and Congress failed to prosecute Wall street ,Spitzer used his subpoena power to obtain corporate documents to build build criminal cases. Doesn’t the NSA Employ tens of thousands?
Well before she took on Snowden’s case, Laura Poitras had come face to face with privacy issues and state surveillance over her work as a documentary filmmaker:
https://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/17/long_before_helping_expose_nsa_spying
It seems to me that most older people have the gut reaction, ‘He’s a traitor’
Most younger people who who grew up with the internet have the gut reaction, ‘He’s a hero’.
Of course there are plenty of exceptions, but that seems to be the general tendency.
That, and the latest poll that shows 55% support of Snowden to 34% against – in spite of all the misinformation and propaganda being put out – gives me some hope for America.
I hate say this, but why is the NSA outsourcing to companies in the first place?
Promises to hire ex-NSA officials at huge wages plays a large part.
It has been said that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”. I cannot comment on whether Mr Snowden is good or bad, perhaps only history will tell us that, but at least he did something. What about the rest of us? We continue to go about our lives like the proverbial frog in a pan of ever warming water until our goose is cooked so to speak. We don’t see the effects of the governments actions so we don’t bother about it and we are outraged when someone upsets our ever so carefully balanced apple cart. But it was not so long ago in a country not so far away that men in uniforms came in the night to take good citizens away to the ghettos and worse and the path is not long for those same men to steal away our freedoms while we are not looking.
Let’s face it, would YOU risk everything including not being able to return to the country of your birth or see your family ever again because of what you believed was the right thing to do to protect the very foundations of that country? I think most of us would simply turn our heads and scurry away. Yes, me to I am afraid.
Wars are not always fought with guns on foreign fields, sometime it takes real courage and sacrifice to stand up against the crowd and risk everything.
Did he break the law, sure. but then again so did all those bank executives recently that help screw our economy and not a lot really happened to them for doing something that was based on pure greed and affected far more people than Mr Snowden’s revelations ever will.
This country needs to get it’s house in order. It cannot stand on the world stage spouting freedom of speech while incarcerating people for years without representation or trial (not everyone in gitmo is a threat to world peace) or suppressing the rights of the individual. It’s supposed to be the government of the people, by the people, for the people. That means the government works for ‘us’, not the government suppresses our freedoms as it sees fit.
I cannot condone Mr Snowden’s actions but a the same time, what is done is done and he sure had some balls to out the government. Personally I wish him well and hope that he can find peace of some sort for his actions somewhere in the world.
As for the rest of us. we’d better start being a bit more worried about the direction our government is taking us all in the name of ‘liberty’.
“…We continue to go about our lives like the proverbial frog in a pan of ever warming water until our goose is cooked so to speak…” This is true but it applies to both sides of the argument. Our goose was cooked on 9/11. The issue isn’t whether we should be concerned and respond but what things should we be concerned about most and what is the appropriate response to each concern.
Website Problem Back:
The last article before this one (Englebart) and the 9 earlier articles have a decreasing comment count now vs. previously so it looks like old versions are being displayed in 3 cases(030, 271, and 040):
Now: 030 271 080 008 014 014 040 062 054 092
Previously: 035 276 081 008 014 014 042 062 054 092
Ronc. Not disagreeing about a response but too often the response involves we the people from giving up some aspect of the freedom we expect. Over time it becomes death by a thousand cuts and ultimately the terrorists win because they have disrupted our way of life. I am not against government surveillance when appropriate but the monitoring that Snowden revealed has been going on for a long time with apparently little to no oversight or accountability. We entrust the government to watch over us to some extent but we also trust that that power will not be abused. When we allow that to happen we have no one but ourselves to blame when we turn around one day and find ourselves in a police state. Governments can always justify their actions, only history can tell if that justification was real or fabricated (WMD anyone?) but until then we must be the defenders of what is right. The government, our government cannot hold itself above and beyond those standards in the name of freedom without some sort of accountability. If we allow that then we are simply replacing on form of control (terrorism) for another.
Yes. It’s a matter of balance. It would be nice if everyone observed the 10 commandments so we would have no need for any type of policing at all. It’s my understanding that all the government can do with prism is record everything for a few months so they can look back a little in time should the need arise. Let’s not equate that with 9/11 or the formation of a police state. Personally, I feel just as free as I did in 1950 and with the same fear of communism and terrorism since some “have nots” will always be looking for ways to steal from the “haves”.
I just read about another government program that illustrates the inexorable march towards 1984, the Insider Threat Program. Since 2011 the government has been implementing a policy of ‘encouraging’ government workers to basically spy on each other and report anyone that appears to be behaving in a manner that might lead to a ‘leak’. This encouragement comes in the way of financial and civil penalties (jail time to you and me) to be applied to anyone that observes such behavior and does NOT report it and then that person goes on to cause a leak of sensitive government data.
What’s worse, the whole methodology used to determine such behavior is not proven at all so it’s effectively based on little more than accusations and ‘interpretation.
That’s about one step from being a police state with ‘informers’ everywhere and far to close to Mr Orwell’s vision of the future for my liking and it’s not too far removed from accusations of witchcraft in my view. Something that happened frequently not that many years ago.
Oh, and did you know (as was revealed in a recent story) that the US post office copies the outside cover of EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF MAIL that can then be used retroactively to help trace where a letter originated and where it was going to. They cannot look at the contents any more than the phone tracking activities listen in on phone calls because that needs a court order (or so we are told) but even so, as an activity it is not far removed from the phone tracking activities that Mr Snowden revealed.
1984 came and went and is alive and well with us now, we just have not noticed it yet.
I remember your To a Man With a Hammer article about 911.
Very little money was spent on investigating the 3 building collapses. No investigation was funded until the site was cleaned up. Volunteers from the American Society of Civil Engineers, that had also investigated Oklahoma City, started an investigation after the site was cleaned up. Brigadier general Ben Partin is also man with a hammer and he knows a little about building collapse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rCYIn8QzRjI
“eighth graders at the Pleasanton Middle School in California. The school was abuzz with news from the East Coast, ”
Snowden must have been dropping out high school that day. Those eighth graders were told everything they needed to know by the FOX talking news head Mark Walsh, wearing a Harley shirt.
“but even more abuzz the next day when the kids had been through a full evening of re-run explosion footage and talking news heads”
WTC footage has been dissected more than the Zapruder film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5-xcvv_fRQ&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL02330024F0FA4A22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Am4qdl9PTA
I think you completely missed the Mark Robert.
The reason why circumstances are different for Snowden is? Obama is Washington Post’s and NYT’s patron. He is their guy. You could / should NEVER expect any support from them. They are an organ of the government. I don’t need to explain why they were against Nixon. Too obvious.
Snowden is vastly more classy. Because he’s not an insider doing the bidding of the ruling elite masters that run the country. He’s an outsider. He has none of their support. That is why he had to run. When this goes to court I do not expect any of the relevant material to be released as it was during Nixon’s reign. Not going to happen. They’ll claim nashnul securtee and we’ll not hear a thing.
That is to say Ellsberg had the support of his paymasters because he was trying to take down Nixon. Had it really been about illegal activity on the part of the president and his men….well that whole thing would have turned out vastly differently under say a Dear Leader Obamao. You would have heard nothing.
To answer Gerald Shields’ question, the US Government’s venerable “General Schedule” for salaries cannot accommodate the combination of numbers of IT personnel needed and prevailing salaries in that business. The Government would find itself topheavy with an overabundance of GS-14s & GS-15s, which would never fly. Since the beginning of the “information revolution” (or whatever you want to call it) most IT staffs in most agencies have been outsourced.
To answer the question many have asked, here and elsewhere, about why a young sysadmin would have access to sensitive documents, I believe Snowden represents the rule rather than the rare exceptions. For fine-grained document access control there are expensive hardware/software solutions offered by some vendors that are rarely implemented, based on my experience in the intelligence community; alternatively, there are crude solutions like Microsoft Office’s document encryption feature. The latter is probably OK for most purposes, and I frankly don’t know if sysadmins can readily bypass this feature.
After 9/11 we (USA) had the moral support of most of the world. Now, we are on the edge of being pariahs. It all comes down to a few idiots in DC. When will we learn?
I’m quite conflicted about this whole thing. On the one hand, my inner libertarian is deeply opposed to the government gathering data about its citizens, as the NSA is doing with the collection of cell phone metadata, except for individuals under criminal investigation and under the auspices of a search warrant.
But I am deeply concerned about the Snowden and Manning leaks. These young, poorly educated, scornful (at least in the case of Manning) men who have taken it upon themselves to decide what classified national security and diplomatic information is fit to share with the friends and enemies.
These guys aren’t mythic whistleblower heroes. They are morons. No wonder Ellsberg wants to distance himself from these clowns.
The consequence of their actions undermines our foreign policy, national security, and has the potential to put the lives of American service men and women at risk. Our nation simply cannot survive in this dangerous world when we constantly show our enemies how they can defeat us.
So I am left trying to reconcile my desires get Big Brother out of my life and wanting these traitors (Ellsberg included) tried and executed for treason.
“…taken it upon themselves to decide what classified national security and diplomatic information is fit to share with the friends and enemies.” Clearly it is wrong to release classified information. But what Snoden did was reveal that this type of recording was going on. The fact that so many Americans and the rest of the world were so surprised and upset indicates that something was mishandled by our government in the first place. The constitutionality should have been addressed long ago. The government shouldn’t be able to classify everything it does as “top secret” since that would be a way to “cover up” any and all wrong doing.
Yes, Snowden (so far as I am aware) did not release any actual information, just that the collecting was going on.
“No matter what happens with Edward Snowden…”
Wow! Bob… You are disappointing me.
“but why not — like Ellsberg — just dump it all at once?”
1- Ellsberg’d pentagon papers were not highly classified,national secrets – By the early70’s,everyone with long hair new that the government lied.
2- Snowden was ex-CIA,and conducted some harm minimization. Glenn Greenwald explains:
“When he gave us the documents he provided, he repeatedly insisted that we exercise rigorous journalistic judgment in deciding which documents should be published in the public interest and which ones should be concealed on the ground that the harm of publication outweighs the public value.”
https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/13/reuters-article-dead-man-s-switch
It looks like Intel/NSA is embedding backdoors in hardware,firmware, and software:
http://cryptome.org/2013/07/intel-bed-nsa.htm
Why not, like Bradley Manning, subject your self to mental and physical torture, not to mention silence, in order to stay in this country?
Mr. Cringely, I would appreciate it if we could spend a little more time talking about why this country (and yes, this president) authorizes and executes the torture of political dissidents rather than what methods Snowden chose to avoid prolonged mental and physical agony at the hands of his countrymen.
To me this reads as a bitter and self-centered Cringely telling us he’s already told us so (which I’m sure is true), and a knock against Snowden’s efforts as if they’ve had minimal impact.
With regard to impact, perhaps no changes will result, but at least now the NSA’s and other organizations’ activities have been driven home to millions, if not over a billion, people around the world, something which Cringely and others were not able to accomplish despite their efforts, however remarkable.
And the best Cringley can do for Snowden’s (not self-centered, by the way) complex and risky efforts is say no-biggie and no-hero?
I’m not a regular when it comes to reading Cringely, but based on his writings years ago I thought his take on Snowden would be worth Googling.
I was wrong.