[codetrotter]

That’s ok. If you don’t want your kids to be spies in the future, just say some stuff online that the agencies will dislike but which is not illegal to say.

Hopefully that will discourage them from recruiting your children in the future. After all, who would want to hire the sons and daughters of a person who raised them with views that run so obviously counter to the opinions of the agencies.

Edward Snowden is a humanitarian hero, and I will raise my kids to know that that is true :)

[woodpanel]

A world in which organizations like these are looked upon with the utmost contempt is the better one. When judging another nation's civilizational status (ie. is it a banana republic), in the future we should include how regulatorily contained these agencies are.

Checks note: Just about every western news outlet, privately and publicly funded, is quoting "NGOs" like Bellingcat, Freedom House, Transparency International or the "Atlantic Concil's Digital Forensics labs" as if they weren't the CIA cutouts that they are.

I think we're good!

[keepamovin]

If you discovered that Snowden was actually the patsy for a limited hangout operation designed to protect the sector from declining regulatory and congressional will in a post-911 market...still a hero?

[harry8]

Interesting how hypothetical we have to be for snowden to not be a hero and equally hypothetical in degree for the CIA,NSA,FBI to be "actually no longer the bad guys we know they were despite zero accountability for it"

Each of those things isn't impossible, right? It'd be nice if the latter could be made true because accountability actually existed for brazen criminality.

[keepamovin]

I don't think it's a huge "hypothetical" distance to cover for an intelligence organization, perceiving itself to be existentially threatened, to resort to the types of operations it is known for in order to protect itself.

Your second point tho I don't understand, 'hypothetical in degree for the CIA,NSA,FBI to be "actually no longer the bad guys we know they were despite zero accountability for it" Each of those things isn't impossible, right? It'd be nice if the latter could be made true because accountability actually existed for brazen criminality.'

Can you explain more? How are CIA, FBI related to this? Also, it seems you mean it could have been a factional thing: some faction wanted to shake things up because they weren't happy with the criminality (except the criminality was not the spying on the public type, but much worse), and this was their lever?

I think if it was factional, a more banal reason is more likely, e.g: General A didn't like that General B's division was going to get funding for Project Y instead of General A's Project X, so A organized this leak to make General B's division look like klutzes, and ensure General A would get the funds for her project.

But it just seems a bit over the top for people in the shadows to blow their whole modus operandi with a public expose for some factional thing. I think it's more likely it was very much sanctioned from the top and "whole of agency" in essence.

But maybe that's not what you mean! :)

[harry8]

It's a huge hypothetical when you imagine the possibility of something that has zero evidence and in truth seems pretty unlikely.

Snowdon not a hero. Whatever your prior, it has been updated with a lot of data none yet pointing that direction.

CIA,NSA,FBI the good guys now. Left as an exercise as to what should be necessary to update a view based on the clear evidence we actually have about those institutions, however long it took to come out.

[keepamovin]

I’m sorry, I can’t understand your English. Would it be a terrible idea if you really spelled it out for me what you’re saying or used your native language and I’ll Google Translate it. Thanks! :)

[harry8]

I think it's your english that is at issue here today. Try a little harder. :)

[thelittleone]

Dear citizen. Your children are hereby rejected for all future CIA job applications. With regards CIA x

[keepamovin]

Hahah. That ship's sailed man

[IIAOPSW]

Are you saying the Snowden Leaks were an inside job.

I mean, an inside and upstairs job?

I mean, screw it you know what I mean.

[FormerBandmate]

Russia and China are getting them more funding

[keepamovin]

I agree the 'whole of agency' funding thing doesn't really make sense.

Look at all the budgets, they dip, slightly, around that time then continue their upward or stable trends, as least publicly. Maybe the NSA really did get a budget win in the years post 2013.

Regardless, it was just too good to be true, tho, as a leak. Don't you think?

I think the most likely scenario is, it was a "false flag" "own goal"/self-inflicted wound, that then necessitated useful and remunerative healing and mending by restructuring and getting congress back on their side. Probably hastily executed in response to some looming threat: like they were going to merge NSA with some other agency, aggressively restructure, etc.

So, from one point of view, yes, Snowden is a patriot and a hero for playing the role of patsy in a scheme to save the US intelligence community from muddleheaded regulators, or whomever. But from another point of view, the conventional "public" one, if that's true, he's not.

But, the way it was designed is very clever: everybody wins! Public gets happy that they are now more safe and private. IT sector gets happy with a new shiny product "privacy". Defence and intelligence gets happy because they have to be "saved" by congress from the damage done by the leaks to vital national security.

Who knows maybe there was even an aspect of long game preparation to raise public awareness about privacy to prevent the eroding away of US internet company customer base by Chinese competitors thrown into the mix?

[pests]

I really don't believe this at all. If it were true what motive would Snowden have to continue engaging publically well after the fact like he has?

[keepamovin]

Well obviously they would pick someone who had the right ego-bias / personality to act as this savior figure. Someone who wouldn't just do their duty but love it and go beyond it. The selection of the right patsy would be half the problem!

Even under the weaker assumption he wasn't like that to begin with, a savvy and ambitious person would ride such a wave of opportunity and "grow into the role" so to speak.

But yea, it's well designed, so it's supposed to be "hard to believe". The public is supposed to believe the simple fable that Snowden is a hero exposing privacy violations, and that it's about privacy. This is no denigration of the public really, it's just the sophistication of the storytellers! :)

[FirmwareBurner]

>But yea, it's well designed, so it's supposed to be "hard to believe".

It's so "well designed" that it makes no sense :) Reminds me of Rick and Morty's heist plot developed by that robot. At the end of the day you can come up with endless conspiracy theories and plots if your imagination is good enough and you watched all the Mission Impossible movies, and then then when people question it you just tell them "it's so well thought out that it's hard to believe" and you win every argument.

Why is it so hard to accept that Snowden really walked out with confidential info and sent it to the press out of his own accord over his own worries of privacy violations he was in charge of? The simplest expatiation is usually the right one, no need to come up with false flag spy plots.

FFS, some teenager working for the Airforce leaked military intelligence on the war in Ukraine on some Discord server just to win an online argument. Do you think that was some false-flag op too? Intelligence blunders happen all the time, it's a wonder we don't get even more leaks.

[Der_Einzige]

Doing that is a great way to get you on a list, and not necessarily the good ones.

[codetrotter]

https://xkcd.com/838/