Russian
Chinese or
joint Sino-Russian operation
I’d be interested in what Gary Aldrich might think.
I hadn’t thought necessarily that he was working for a foreign power (not discounting it) but never believed he was a “whistleblower” since he had been in contact with the reporters before he was hired! It wasn’t like this guy was working for the NSA and became disillusioned by what he saw. He was on,y there about three months, if I am recalling correctly (need a primary source on that one). He sought employment for the sole purpose of exposing secrets. The security company that gave him clearance is guilty of gross negligence, or outright malfeasance.
Links to WSJ but you have to be a subscriber to read further ...? pish
Regardless of his motivation, or who he was working for, a lot of the NSA’s operations on all American citizens needed to be made known to the U.S. public.
1) Why did such a low level and relatively new employee have unfettered access to such a vast amount of highly classivied and sensitive information, and
2) Why wasn't the access of such a vast amount of data by a low level and relatively new employee ever detected and investigated?
I'll guarantee you that in almost every other business where a vast amount of sensitive information is available to employees, each database query and file transfer is logged, and excessive data transfer is flagged.
Life imitating art?
Snowden gives military secrets to Ivan.
Russian spy planes discovered off California coast.
“U2 plane at 60,000” feet causes LAX computers to crash, shuts down airport and all traffic on the west coast.
New “24” has hacker take over military drones and attack American soldiers in Afghanistan.
question:
Who crashed the LAX computer system, Gary Powers or Ivan?
This also means that there is no way to tell whether the info Snowden claims he got from the NSA really came from the NSA or came from the FSB or was just made up.
One of the major points of the operation was to help split Germany from the US-- if Russia can boot the US out of Europe then they can dominate everything from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
I’m not convinced he began as a foreign agent. All that nation-hopping at the beginning wouldn’t make sense. More likely he took the military information as insurance or leverage. It’s also possible that he just was grabbing whatever he could get his hands — en masse — before fleeing, and that’s what wound up in his data-stash.
This is simply NSA supporters trying to smear Snowden.
Do these “reporters” need to keep asking questions in their headlines? Or should they just go and do their damned jobs and answer them.
On a related note the Snowden incident shows just how out of control the NSA really is. Stealing confidential data willy nilly while letting the barn door wide open should be enough conviction to shut them down permanently. Who cares what Snowden “did” or “didn’t do”. What’s more important is that working for the NSA is a dream job...if you want everyone else to know what the NSA knows about everyone.
Without the Snowden revelations where might we have been regarding personal freedoms here in the USA? Just asking.
If you recall, Putin stated Snowden did not tell them anything they did not know.
It’s funny how many people are split on Snowden—about half seem to consider him a hero, the other half a traitor.
I’m old school—you don’t divulge classified information, ever. If Snowden is ever given a pardon, it will open the flood gates to whole bunch of people who will emulate him. They will look at disclosing classified as a way to instantly become a “rock star”.
Wrong conversation, as usual. I want to know what is being done to dismantle the domestic spying program. Has anyone been held accountable? Snowden and his role is irrelevant at this point, especially considering little to nothing has been done to tear this program down.
If Snowden was a professional he’s still be at NSA and his handlers would have the data and we would have never heard about it.
Later he told an implausible story about CIA personnel getting a Swiss banker drunk, allowing him to be arrested by police, then rescuing him in exchange for confidential information. He said this alleged incident disillusioned him. According to Wikipedia: “Eric Schmitt of The New York Times stated that two senior American officials told him that, prior to the end of Snowden’s term, Snowden’s supervisor wrote a negative report that stated suspicions of Snowden attempting to obtain classified information not authorized to him.”
It's possible Snowden was recruited by Russian intelligence operatives in 2007 while in Switzerland and then directed to seek a position with an NSA contractor back in the states. Once Snowden obtained a large haul of NSA data at his NSA job he was directed to Hong Kong where he made his disclosure about NSA’s data collections programs.
Snowden’s announcement came a few days before Obama was scheduled to meet with Chinese leadership and complain about Chinese hacking of U.S. high-tech science. The entire Snowden drama in 2013 may have been orchestrated by Vla Putin to embarrass Obama. In fact Putin may now be in possession of NSA files that could deeply embarrass the White House (if that's possible) or even prove criminal wrongdoings. If Putin is blackmailing Obama it would explain the president's peculiar approach to foreign policy and Obama insistence on suppressing U.S. oil and gas domestic production.
Edward Snowden’s Secret (Agent) Admirer: Spy Anna Chapman
The establishment can try to smear it any way they want. Foreign governments would not want Snowden’s information public. The blackmail factor alone outweighs the public embarrassment of an incompetent government.
Let’s call him a whistle blower of the first order. I only hope he keeps dumping stuff. Bad on our country to think the government is more important than their citizen masters.