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?
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! :)
>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.
So your critique of Snowden being a patsy is: I (the person saying it) am like a robot from some cartoon that sees everything conspiratorially just to win arguments, is that right?
Doesn't it sound like you're being too negative? It does seem more like you're trying to 'win arguments' by calling anything besides an official take a conspiracy theory, and disparaging anyone who says such, so nothing else can be said, right?
No, I didn't call anything besides the official take a conspiracy theory, I only called your take a conspiracy theory because it seemed like hard to believe fantasy written for a show, and your only argument to support it was "it's well designed, so it's supposed to be hard to believe", which is just more fantasy designed to shut up any and all arguments against it, just like your last comment I'm currently replying to.
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?