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Comment by ianhawes | Hacker News Reader

I don't see how Snowden can justify releasing top secret documents that DON'T show the United States spying on it's own citizens.

One of the goals of NSA is to gather foreign intelligence. The UN constitutes foreign intelligence. While it may not be popular opinion here, there is a distinction between NSA spying on United States citizens and NSA spying on foreign and international organizations. The former is illegal; the latter is expected.

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Is it certain that these leaks actually came from Snowden? In light of the Independent's GCHQ story [1][2], it sounds like there may be State actors providing leaks in the name of Snowden that cast him in a negative light. Ideally, these news outlets would be able to confirm it's the real Snowden via GPG fingerprint or something.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-uks-...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-gove...

Ah! Interesting angle. It could certainly be possible, and if it were I definitely wouldn't hold it against Snowden.

In fact, the Der Spiegel article [1] fails to release the source document(s), so I'm fairly dubious about who provided this information.

[1] http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=...

There's an English version of the article now, co-authored by Greenwald/Snowden-related journalist Laura Poitras. Looks like the Snowden connection is solid!

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-nsa-documen...

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