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Comment by Nrsolis | Hacker News Reader

Where I have a hard time with the "Snowden as hero" storyline is my nagging suspicion that he make very clear and deliberate attempts to place himself in a position to have access to these materials for the express purpose of stealing them.

He was essentially fired from the employ of the CIA only to find another position at NSA. Apparently the CIA got wise to his attempts and shut him off. The NSA wasn't so lucky.

None of this detracts from the disclosures of NSA overreach. But we would be foolish to discount the possibility that all of this is a huge smokescreen for a concerted and consistent attempt to weaken or expose US intelligence operations. The fact that an impingement of our sources and methods helps our adversaries cannot be understated.

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>He was essentially fired from the employ of the CIA

No, he was not:

"The C.I.A did not file any report on Snowden indicating that it suspected he was trying to break into classified computer files to which he did not have authorized access while he was employed at the C.I.A., nor was he returned home from an overseas assignment because of such concerns," Todd Ebitz, an agency spokesman, said in the statement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/us/cia-disputes-early-susp...

Did you read that article? I did when it was first published.

Are we really at the point where we take the word of an "agency spokesman" and not the sourcing of the journalists who quoted two unnamed sources to verify the story?

Yes, I did read the article. Here is Snowden's account:

>Mr. Snowden said that in 2008 and 2009, he was working in Geneva as a telecommunications information systems officer [...] He began pushing for a promotion, but got into what he termed a “petty e-mail spat” in which he questioned a senior manager’s judgment.

>Several months later, he was writing his annual self-evaluation when he discovered flaws in the software of the C.I.A.’s personnel Web applications. He warned his supervisor, but his boss advised him to drop the matter. After a technical team also brushed him off, his boss finally agreed to allow him to test the system to prove that it was flawed.

>He did so by adding some code and text “in a nonmalicious manner” to his evaluation document that showed that the vulnerability existed, he said. His immediate supervisor signed off on it and sent it through the system, but a more senior manager — the man Mr. Snowden had challenged earlier — was furious and filed a critical comment in Mr. Snowden’s personnel file.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/world/snowden-says-he-took...

Riiiiight.

So the local IT guy goes looking for vulnerabilities, finds them, SAYS he tried to alert people, then runs an EXPLOIT, and he's mad because he got a ding in his personnel file?

He did know that he was working for an intelligence agency, right? In what world is it acceptable to run an exploit on your company machines if it's not your job to find those exploits? A little Occams's Razor goes a long way.

I'm not going to get into a discussion about whether he should've rocked the boat or not.

My only point was that your assertions earlier in the thread were shaky, at best, especially considering Snowden's corroboration.

Or is there any other evidence besides the two unnamed sources who contradict the official CIA account?

And my point is that you can't take Snowden's assertions at face value. His behavior doesn't comport with someone who was a patriot and found himself facing a difficult decision to disclose.

It's far closer to that of a "mole".

>And my point is that you can't take Snowden's assertions at face value.

Good thing we aren't taking them at face value, seeing as the CIA spokesman lightly corroborates his account rather than your assertion that he was fired for attempting to access and steal classified materials at the CIA.

And while we're on the subject of "moles," neither the internal NSA investigation nor the FBI investigation has found anything supporting your conspiracy theory to date.

What conspiracy theory? Do you really think that if there was real evidence that a foreign power was involved that the administration would be up-front with that information? What if the whole purpose of the action is to make them guess if the Russians and/or Chinese have copies of the documents?

Not knowing for sure what the exposure is fuels the nightmares of the whole NSA. What if the Russians and Chinese know EVERYTHING?

>>doesn't comport with someone who was a patriot

I hope you understand that this is only your opinion. In my view (and others who support Snowden's efforts) his actions are exactly the kind I would take to save my country from itself.

Really?

Please make careful note of what I'm actually saying here:

The fact that the NSA was guilty of overreach doesn't mean that Snowden's actions to reveal that overreach WEREN'T assisted or prompted by a foreign power with everything to gain from seeing our security apparatus reined in.

His actions would have had FAR more impact and been FAR beyond reproach if he had made his disclosures and stayed right here in the USA to face the punishment the government sought to impose. IMHO (and my opinion is the one that matters to me), you cannot categorically deny with any assurance that this whole episode isn't connected in any way to a foreign intelligence operation.

Remember, we had Ames and we had Hanssen. Both of those guys stayed hidden for a LONG while. If Snowden hadn't been tipped off to the NSA investigation of his activities, would he still be working for Booz-Allen?

Think about it.

If you wish to accuse a spy agency of spying on its own citizens, you must have proof. To obtain proof you must make very clear and deliberate attempts to steal them so that you may present them as evidence.

I seem to recall not too long ago anyone claiming that the NSA had massive spying programs aimed at American citizens would be laughed off as tinfoil paranoid conspiracy theorists because our government would never do such a thing. Without his proof that you point out he stole, would anyone have taken him seriously?

There's several examples of people doing the very same thing that were later held up as heroes, except in their cases they stole documents from a corporation that were guilty of illegal abuses. Why should Snowden be any different? Because he stole government documents?

Yes. Since it probably needs to be said: several (not all) of the Snowden disclosures were important, valuable, and necessary: the Verizon metadata, BULLRUN.

It's all very important and necessary. Only the sheep-like are ok with a government that operates in secret against its own citizens. They have pitted themselves in an information war against their own citizenry. Like corporations amass patents, our only weapon to defend ourselves is as much information as we can gather about them.

No, that's not necessarily true. For instance, the "spymall catalog" contained no revelations about NSA abuses against Americans, only details of intelligence tradecraft.

That's only true if we are truly far past the days of COINTELPRO.

Indeed, it's also only true if NSA isn't concealing the existence of the Groom Lake aliens who have taken over the USG.

You really think that COINTELPRO-type ops are are likely as space aliens? Or is that just gratuitous condecension?

>Apparently the CIA got wise to his attempts and shut him off.

Maybe the CIA sent him. It happened in the USSR (that intelligence services NKVD, KGB, GRU, etc, competed fiercely with each other).

>The NSA wasn't so lucky.

Good.

>But we would be foolish to discount the possibility that all of this is a huge smokescreen for a concerted and consistent attempt to weaken or expose US intelligence operations.

I agree. You make a good case for having a clearly defined separation of intelligence services, and lots of checks.

>The fact that an impingement of our sources and methods helps our adversaries cannot be understated.

It can be overstated, and it has been. Also, what adversaries?

> this is a huge smokescreen for a concerted and consistent attempt to weaken or expose US intelligence operations. The fact that an impingement of our sources and methods helps our adversaries cannot be understated.

How so? And which adversaries?

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