| Most of you points are simply blatantly false tho. >- Snowden indiscriminately hovered up so many documents, it was impossible to vet all of them. That's why he gave them to a small group of well respected journalists, so they could use their professional discretion to vet them. >- Snowden indiscriminately hovered up so many documents, it was impossible to vet all of them. I highly doubt that, but even if it that were true those documents aren't the ones being leaked by the journalists, only the ones showing the NSA doing illegal things are. >- Snowden did not attempt to go through internal channels. Yes he did. >- Snowden leaked / whistleblowed these documents in an operation using his secret agent skills. Lol wut. He was just a contractor, not a secret agent. He just copied files, fled to China and shared them with a small group of people, none of which required "secret agent skills" >- Snowden fled to Russia, a currently not-so-cold competitor of the US. So? You can't blame Snowden for that, blame the Justice department. If Snowden could have been even remotely safe anywhere but Russia, he wouldn't be there now. You can't chase after somebody then blame them for hiding somewhere safe. >- Snowden gave the document cache to incompetent journalists. Greenwald send his boyfriend to smuggle documents through British customs. No he didn't, he gave them to perfectly competent journalists. Greenwald is very competent and well respected as a journalists. Doesn't matter how he got the documents in Britain the important thing is that he did without them getting leaked earlier than he wanted. >If Snowden had given only the slides on the NSA spying on American citizens, and cooperating with US companies, that would have been whistleblowing. He tried that and nobody took him seriously. >As it stands, to me, it feels like a Russian operation to inflict PR/diplomacy damage on the US. Considering he only ever entered Russia after he had distributed the documents and none of them ever entered Russia this opinion is based on nothing other than emotion and isn't substantiated by any facts. |
You can not vet encrypted documents. These documents were unencrypted and handled by journalists who could never stand the full attention of the world's intelligence agencies.
Laura Poitras was very qualified. Greenwald... not so much. He had to receive a crash-course on computer safety. He left unidentified USB-sticks in the laptop with the documents. He gave the documents to his non-journalist partner in an attempt to smuggle them through customs. Greenwald is a professional. He just did not get the gravity or technicalities of most of the documents he saw.
> those [standard-operating-procedure] documents aren't the ones being leaked by the journalists
They are not being leaked to the general public (with a few exceptions). But one has to assume they made it to the competitors of the US. And it points to indiscriminate leaking -- maybe Snowden did not even fully realize what he all had, as he took everything he could get his hands on: mailing lists, internal collaborative wiki's, technical details on ongoing missions.
> Snowden did not attempt to go through internal channels.
I do not think Snowden went through the official internal channels. He may have tried to ring the alarm bell with some people internally. If you have anything to challenge this, I'd be interested.
> Lol wut. He was just a contractor, not a secret agent.
He was a former CIA operative. He took his job at BAH with the full intention of leaking everything he could get his hands on. His flight, undercover operation, and handling of the documents, was all very deliberate and possible due to his trade craft.
> [Snowden fled to Russia] So? You can't blame Snowden for that
Why not? Proponents almost make it sound he was chased to Russia, or that Wikileaks kidnapped him and released him there. He ended up in Russia. I think both destinations were chosen very deliberately, to avoid rendition, prosecution (or worse: assassination or torture).
> Doesn't matter how he got the documents in Britain
I think it does. From journalists we can expect them to maybe handle very sensitive documents. The partners of these journalists? Not so much... That is as close to civilian as you can get.
> He tried that and nobody took him seriously.
So he downloaded everything else, filled 4 laptops, and now we do take him seriously? Maybe I have missed something here? Did Snowden try to leak these important documents before he went to Poitras and Greenwald?
> Considering he only ever entered Russia after he had distributed the documents and none of them ever entered Russia this opinion is based on nothing other than emotion and isn't substantiated by any facts.
Sure, Russia and China won't come out and say that:
- we have the documents
- Snowden was one of our own
But to think these documents are not in the possession of every competent intelligence agency in the world may be a bit naive. I'd reckon these intelligence agencies knew of these documents the moment news agencies around the world starting working on them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_Ulfkotte#The_book_.22Bough...
http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird