| That's the most bizarre part. First, Snowden steals his information from a Microsoft Sharepoint server? What are classified documents doing on a Sharepoint server? What is a Sharepoint server doing inside the network boundary at NSA? Next, they blew the recovery. If they negotiated with Snowden when he was in Hong Kong, they could have had him stand trial in Hawaii and won easily. Or alternatively, they could have done nothing and waited for Snowden to settle down anonymously in some Hong Kong apartment and arranged for an extraordinary rendition, most likely with the tacit blessing of Hong Kong authorities. Instead we've had this wild goose chase across the world, including the surreal scene of Snowden stuck in the Moscow International Airport, with Vladimir Putin claiming that Moscow Airport isn't part of Russia. Now, they're going to harass a journalist? The US press, which normally handles national security issues in close consultation with US authorities, is clearly spooked, with front page stories in both WSJ and NYT. There's an old adage: never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. The general public, which didn't care, is now bombarded by increasingly fantastical news stories with just enough entertainment juice to keep them interesting: super-spies reading your email, a lone hacker with a model for a girlfriend fleeing Hawaii to galavant around the world, and the invincible United States seemingly flummoxed at every turn. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but what the fuck guys? Have we really never considered how to exfil someone from a hostile nation? Is this really the best our intelligence community can do? If so, the real danger is less 1984 and more kindergarten cops. Maybe the story is more complex from the inside, but if not, this is being botched from end to end. |