[HN Gopher] Snowden: US asked British spy agency to stop Guardia...
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Snowden: US asked British spy agency to stop Guardian publishing
revelations
Author : echelon_musk
Score : 180 points
Date : 2022-08-31 12:58 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Two things can be true:
|
| - the NSA and/or other three letter agencies are/were out of
| control
|
| - Snowden did enormous damage to US and allies with his
| indiscriminate distribution of classified information
|
| https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/snowden-is-a-traitor-and...
| klabb3 wrote:
| > - Snowden did enormous damage to US and allies with his
| indiscriminate distribution of classified information
|
| That would be something like "telling the police about your
| abusive husband hurts your family". Yes, it did hurt
| intelligence agencies and their beneficiaries. That is not the
| same as "the US". The victims of the indiscriminate
| surveillance were largely American and are much more plentiful
| than the perpetrators.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| No government is my ally.
| cpursley wrote:
| Glad some people get it. Governments are just big
| institutions. And monopolies at that. Ones with the power to
| kill and imprison.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| And Lincoln did a lot of damages to the slave-based economy
| when he championed abolition.
|
| I almost went full Godwin point on this.
| lioeters wrote:
| All I'm hearing is, "Reporting the crime did enormous damage to
| the criminals." It's the world's smallest violin, and it's
| playing just for you.
| jorge-d wrote:
| I opened your link and saw that bio about the author:
|
| "Fred Fleitz served in 2018 as a Deputy Assistant to President
| Donald Trump and Chief of Staff to National Security Adviser
| John Bolton."
|
| That surely seems like a very objective person.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| He was extremely careful in the docs he permitted to be
| released. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying to you.
| cestith wrote:
| He also should have had some help from the news agency in
| them asking him for his opinion and using some of their own
| judgment about which parts of it to publishin case he
| accidentally shared anything in such a large group of
| documents. That probably also happened.
|
| I think it's telling that multiple administrations have
| failed to come forward and promise him a fair trial, let
| alone any sort of deal, commutation, or pardon.
| sealeck wrote:
| > Snowden did enormous damage to US and allies with his
| indiscriminate distribution of classified information
|
| Sure, in the same way that the police do to organised white-
| collar criminals when they arrest them and put them in prison.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| I am not the parent poster, but Snowden revealed far more
| information than was necessary to blow the whistle on
| domestic spying at the NSA.
|
| Just take a look at the list of revelations
|
| https://www.lawfareblog.com/snowden-revelations
|
| Most of the revelations are not at all about domestic spying
| and instead revealed details about doing what the NSA is
| chartered to do: international spying.
|
| You can consider it immoral that the NSA monitored the
| communications of Angela Merkel or the italian ministry of
| defense, but that isn't whistle-blowing. It's the reason that
| the NSA exists.
| sealeck wrote:
| > You can consider it immoral that the NSA monitored the
| communications of Angela Merkel or the italian ministry of
| defense, but that isn't whistle-blowing. It's the reason
| that the NSA exists.
|
| It is definitely whisteblowing to reveal that a country has
| been secretely wiretapping the communications of its
| (supposed) allies - one can blow the whistle on things
| which are "legal" especially when their legality has been
| surreptitiously pushed through the back door.
| 735409264082 wrote:
| The US and its allies did that damage to themselves by doing
| the things detailed in Snowden's leaks. Snowden is not a
| traitor because he swore an oath to protect and defend the
| constitution, and he did just that by leaking. If anyone is a
| traitor, it's the people who gave and followed unconstitutional
| orders.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| I imagine Trump will be joining Snowden in Russia sometime soon.
| redeeman wrote:
| do you honestly believe that?
|
| "comon maaan"
| zahllos wrote:
| It is pretty ironic the other nations in the five eyes were
| outraged at contractors. The UK at least certainly does not have
| a leg to stand on: there are plenty of defence contractors that
| routinely work with and for GCHQ, and big government contractors
| are just as much a part of the UK industry as they are the US.
|
| Pot, meet kettle.
| tootie wrote:
| I don't think that's much of a revelation. Every time national
| security information falls into the hands of a news org, the
| government will ask them not to publish it. Sometimes appealing
| to them on civic grounds that it will weaken security or probably
| threatening legal action. The NY Times famously sat on the
| warrantless wiretapping story for nearly a year because they were
| lead to believe it could compromise ongoing investigations.
| Although it was never proven true, the Washington Times was
| accused of helping Osama bin Laden by revealing that US
| intelligence could track his satellite phone. In the US or UK
| media orgs generally has very little to fear in terms of actual
| punishment, but they do have to make a very real calculus over
| whether they're serving the public interest.
| [deleted]
| VictorPath wrote:
| > national security information
|
| The word national security used to mean protecting a country
| just invaded, then moved to troops on the border looking like
| they'll invade. Now you've stretched it to the government doing
| mass surveillance on its citizens (and storing it forever).
| During COINTELPRO, Hoover and his secret political police in
| the FBI spied on and worked to anonymously disrupt feminist
| groups and other political organizations, and this is just a
| continuation of that - set up in secret incidentally. I don't
| see how some elite trying to set up a police state to exert
| political control has anything to do with national security.
| Luckily the FBI raided Trump recently, so Republican wariness
| may have them go back to that old idea of a Republican
| secretary of state that "gentlemen do not read each others'
| mail".
| nimbius wrote:
| >In the US or UK media orgs generally has very little to fear
| in terms of actual punishment, but they do have to make a very
| real calculus over whether they're serving the public interest.
|
| not true. media organizations that do not report in accordance
| with and to the governments favour may lose preferential access
| to press conferences as retaliation. their parent companies,
| viacom, CBS, and Warner for example, may lose the cooperation
| of the government on their next latest action film which may
| deny them access to state parks or military equipment and bases
| for filming and props. When you publish something the
| government doesnt like, they can also just straight up seize
| your profits from that material as well.
| https://www.businessinsider.com/us-government-can-seize-prof...
|
| television news in the united states is under no objective
| requirement to serve the public interest in the 21st century.
| the news was originally provided as part of a service to the
| mandate from the FCC that license holders contribute to the
| public good, but modern news is partisan, divisive, appeals
| extensively to emotion, and uses manipulative scare tactics to
| drive viewership and ratings with a combination of conjecture
| and talk shows.
| tootie wrote:
| I didn't say "television news" I said "reputable media". And
| no, none of them have any legal obligation whatsoever to do
| anything really (aside from slander/libel). What they do and
| don't publish is weighed against their mission and their
| reputation. If the mission is "spread outrage and generate ad
| revenue" they'll publish whatever sounds sexy. I (full
| disclosure) work for a non-profit newsroom that has a genuine
| mission to serve public interest and if we were ever
| perceived not to be, we'd be abandoned by our donors and
| disappear. But even orgs that have genuine principles guiding
| them can still make mistakes.
| Kranar wrote:
| You never said "reputable media" you said "news
| organizations". Specifically you said that news
| organizations have some kind of real calculus about the
| public interest when deciding whether to publish a story
| and what OP is saying is that said calculus is fairly
| superficial compared to the very real calculus of losing
| out on profits due to lack of access.
| Retric wrote:
| Your link is about contract law. The suit says Snowden had a
| contract to do X, news agencies don't have such contracts.
|
| What the article doesn't make clear is a publishing company
| could keep their profits from the book, the government only
| has a case for Snowden.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There are real cases where this is true and it's the
| responsibility of a news organization to weigh the public good
| against the consequences of sharing information and being very
| selective about what secrets to publish.
|
| You should not want a news organization to err on either
| extreme by publishing literally everything they get their hands
| on (Wikileaks) or acting as a de facto arm of the state (state
| media outlet of choice).
|
| I would argue that neither extreme count as journalists.
|
| >I don't think that's much of a revelation.
|
| Absolutely, they basically wouldn't be doing their job if they
| didn't ask. Asking is a lot different than many other tactics.
| guywithahat wrote:
| wnevets wrote:
| aaaddaaaaa1112 wrote:
| jjulius wrote:
| Citation needed.
| wnevets wrote:
| His twitter account prior to February 24, 2022
| jjulius wrote:
| There's a tweet from him on February 11th that says the
| media's gross for pushing for a war. Beyond that, all he
| does is suggest we should be demanding more evidence for
| claims of an impending war that Biden and the intelligence
| community were pushing. He's even talked about the invasion
| as recently in June in a way that suggests he doesn't think
| it's invented[1] by media.
|
| Do you actually have a _specific example_ of Snowden saying
| that "the Russian Invasion of Ukraine was invented by the
| American media"?
|
| [1]https://www.coindesk.com/video/recent-videos/edward-
| snowden-...
| wnevets wrote:
| That is because he deleted a lot of his tweets. For
| example
|
| > Now that the promised invasion has failed to
| materialize, maybe we could take another look at the
| story that was breaking when the White House was suddenly
| overcome with a mysterious and inexplicable desire to
| change the news cycle: [1]
|
| > So... if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden
| scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3AM, I'm not saying
| your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as
| part of one of those disinformation campaigns you like to
| write about, but you should at least consider the
| possibility. [2]
|
| edit: browsing archive.org for deleted tweets isn't a
| great experience, anyone know of a an easier way?
|
| [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220216175036/https://tw
| itter.c...
|
| [2]
| https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1493641714363478016
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You realize that he has to lick his master's boot and any
| pro-Russia statements he makes are automatically suspect.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| I wish we could have a honest discussions about the pro and cons
| of the panopticon the internet has become. Not just the usual
| "Might makes right" glue moral flaws to the person putting
| questions to power oppossed by fierce "liberty at all cost aka
| anarchism".
|
| It seems pretty obvious that the individual can not be trusted
| with the power modern technology hands to it, but then again, i
| find the three letter agencies to be entrusted with surveilance
| of the masses, to be the most useless and untrustworthy stewart
| of the public imagineable.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| It seems pretty obvious that the ~~individual~~ government can
| not be trusted with the power modern technology hands to it.
| drewcoo wrote:
| As an anarchist, I wish we could have conversations on any
| topic about something other than two contrived polar opposite
| positions. Life is not neat dichotomies. People are just
| trained to take a simpleton's view of things.
| 735409264082 wrote:
| No group of individuals can be trusted more than the
| individual. Groups of individuals who claim the right to
| enforce their will on other individuals by means of violence
| (e.g. governments) can be trusted least of all.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > No group of individuals can be trusted more than the
| individual.
|
| That's going to depend heavily on _which_ individual.
| kradeelav wrote:
| Unfortunately with the various moral panics going on, folks who
| lean towards the middle / nuanced balanced thoughts are more
| afraid and reluctant to put their thoughts out there. It just
| isn't worth the brain-width or having potential people yell at
| you for toeing various party lines. The death of questioning is
| imo one of the more disheartening things in the last 5-10
| years.
|
| To your last point, I personally skew towards being deeply
| suspicious of institutional power being able to have more tools
| to further leverage the tilt against the individual, but you're
| also not wrong with individuals being deeply flawed beings too.
| KindAndFriendly wrote:
| > ... i find the three letter agencies to be entrusted with
| surveilance of the masses, to be the most useless and
| untrustworthy stewart of the public imagineable
|
| What makes you think so? For example, the German government
| prevented a number of terror attacks by monitoring electronic
| chat and mail exchange.
| atoav wrote:
| The problem is that every democratic government is ultimately
| based on the idea to give some people enough power so they
| can govern, but not so much that they cannot be removed from
| power again.
|
| That balance is not something that would remain uninfluenced
| by giving the executive the power to surveil the population
| that brings a government into power.
| carapace wrote:
| I think the panopticon is unavoidable (I'll expand below) so
| the question is how to harness it to get a _humane_ techno-
| totalitarian system?
|
| People have pointed out that "humane totalitarian" is an
| oxymoron, and I agree, but I think it's the challenge we face.
|
| It seems to me that we can and should ensure that the people in
| power are themselves subject to the panopticon. Literally
| politicians should be 24/7 live streaming their lives. (This is
| in the context where we are all live-streaming 24/7 whether we
| want to or not, which is pretty much the case today at least in
| high-tech nations.) Police badges should be integrated with
| cameras, the badge IS the camera, the camera IS the badge, and
| if the camera is off the officer is off-duty.
|
| Thoughts?
|
| - - - -
|
| I think the panopticon is unavoidable due to technological and
| economic considerations. The technology is only getting
| smaller, cheaper, lower-power, etc. and it's already
| ubiquitous. (See "sensing for WiFi if you really want to freak
| out!) Our phones already monitor and report our location in
| near realtime. Smart cars and traffic systems are a de facto
| surveillance system even for people who don't carry phones. The
| economic benefits are inarguable, and only going to get better.
|
| And really, if you could trade your privacy for an end to
| almost all crime, isn't that worth it? Considering that you
| wouldn't be alone, that everyone else's privacy is gone too,
| it's not so bad?
| sillystuff wrote:
| Police are, in theory, already subject to the same physical
| tracking by automatic license plate readers as the rest of
| the population. But, police are able to get a pass from other
| cops when they employ counter-measures to defeat the
| tracking, so the reality is that the tracking does not apply
| to them. E.g., cops foiling automatic license plate
| readers[1] using methods that would cause non-police to be
| ticketed.
|
| And, if somehow you manage to prevent abuse like the above,
| laws will be passed that grant exceptions for the powerful
| and their enforcers[2][3]. Many of the existing laws in this
| category recognize that privacy is essential for personal
| security and safety-- but only grant that security and safety
| to the privileged few.
|
| We need to enshrine a strong right to privacy in law--
| attacking surveillance head on (in the US, this means a
| constitutional amendment, or it will be [more] vulnerable to
| laws/courts granting exceptions). While sympathetic, I don't
| think that trying to reign in surveillance through making it
| equitable (on paper), are going to succeed.
|
| [1] https://www.insideedition.com/21559-investigation-finds-
| poli...
|
| [2] https://www.ocregister.com/2009/11/12/special-license-
| plates...
|
| [3] https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/press/menendez-
| book...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| None of that requires identification.
| ArboriaInstitut wrote:
| > _It seems to me that we can and should ensure that the
| people in power are themselves subject to the panopticon.
| Literally politicians should be 24 /7 live streaming their
| lives._
|
| This all sounds equally as feasible as simply rolling back
| the surveillance in the first place. The whole point of these
| systems is to subject the hoi polloi to constant and
| intrusive surveillance as a counterinsurgency tactic. Why in
| the world would they agree to do that to themselves as well?
| causi wrote:
| _It seems pretty obvious that the individual can not be trusted
| with the power modern technology hands to it_
|
| Hard disagree. Modern technology is mishandled most intensely
| by large organizations. When it's misused by individuals it's
| usually based on information freely given. An individual might
| send your employer an insensitive tweet you made ten years ago
| but an organization can do anything from unmasking an anonymous
| product review for the purpose of suing you to operating a
| massive surveillance state to fuel a "social credit" system.
| sul_tasto wrote:
| I think this is a false choice.
| ChumpTheMasses wrote:
| would you expand upon that
| sul_tasto wrote:
| I'm not sure individuals -or- organizations can be fully
| trusted. It's one reason for the 4th amendment, or the
| requirements for auditing of companies by independent
| accounting firms, or all sorts of laws restricting
| individuals, organizations and even governments in one
| way or another.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Modern technology is mishandled most intensely by large
| organizations
|
| Of course. There are more individuals in larger organizations
| :)
| bigfudge wrote:
| I think you are just making a joke, which is fine, but I
| would reassert the point I think the OP was making that
| there is a qualitative difference in the nature of the
| abuses committed by individuals and firms.
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