On a personal level the disclosure was that "little additional push" (a wake up call) that made me abandon use of main Google services (email and voice). I advocated my close friends and associates to do the same and some of them are following the lead.
What struck me about the Snowden leaks, as opposed to previous (much smaller) leaks regarding the NSA is the fine grained insight into the apparatus, the machinery, and the scope of the spying. Whereas previously we only knew of vague scenarios like tapped undersea cables, we now know the specifics, mechanics, and even operational details of the NSA.
I think fine grained insight into what an intelligence service looks like on the inside is enough to compel people to change their behavior. I know for me, I was skeptical of claims the NSA even could do half the things people were purporting they could do, and having confirmation like this was the real game changer.
Aren't email and phone calls monitored anyhow since they're not encrypted (by default)? Why wouldn't the three-letter agency capture all email traffic if it can?
If the three-letter agency would be the only one invading our privacy that would be a lot better already;
Of course this is not the case, many companies are invading our privacy for commercial reasons, they sell our personal data for their own financial profit (Google, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.)
The companies that publish policies and give you control over the "invasion" of privacy, up to and including not interacting with them. The saintly three-letter agencies simply consider all the information their right to take. I have a hard time seeing your point of view in light of that reality.
what i meant was that i agree with what @readhn said;
i think many people (around me) have become more privacy aware because of Snowdens disclosures, which i think is a good development, even though no matter how hard they try they are still not protected, and probably never will be, from three-letter agencies collecting their data...
The most important impact will be difficult to gauge: The US and Five Eyes have built a world-spanning interlocking hierarchy of lords and vassals of surveillance. This means none of the important governments in the world has true autonomy in decision-making, without their decisions being anticipated and influenced by the US and its closest allies.
Security efforts will get serious if state actors decide to try to escape this web.
It would be nice to see how companies like google/twitter/facebook/apple/microsoft/etc got negatively affected by these disclosures. Probably by checking usage drop or some other relevant metrics.
I know a few people (non it related) that dropped gmail.
On a technical front it has influenced their hardware decisions, forcing adoption for example of MACSec, adding some minor capital cost. Mostly though the cost has been in the resulting data sovereignty laws forcing them to set up sovereign clouds in places like Germany, UK, Canada, etc. I can tell you this makes a real mess of things - you can't share your management infrastructure or anything across the infrastructures. In Germany you are using remote hands to do everything because they have to be Germans. Etc.
My understanding based on actual reports from people is that the companies you speak of did not go to MACSEC, but did start doing host-to-host IPSEC, as well as L1 AES256 encryption (not macsec).
Agreed with the balkanization of the clouds/infrastructure.
The reality is even if they pardon him, the guy will never be safe in his home country. Thousands of so called "patriots" believe this man is a traitor. Very sad especially considering what little has changed since the leak.
Thousands believe that Dick Cheney is guilty of war crimes, but as far as I know, no one has tried to kill him yet.
I wouldn't completely rule out the idea that someone might take a shot at Snowden were he to return, but at the same time I doubt that the vast majority of people who label him a "traitor" feel strongly enough about it to personally try to kill him.
> but as far as I know, no one has tried to kill him yet.
I'm not sure that's quite apples-to-apples, given: (1) US political asymmetries; (2) nobody accused him of conspiring with a clear "The Enemy"; (3) Cheney was already a multimillionaire with private security and moving in rarefied social circles.
If Cheney was once hunted by the US government, widely accused of being a communist spy, and he shopped for groceries like a regular person, I imagine the odds of an attempted attack would increase.
The US political asymmetries include that gun advocates, peace officers, and ex-military types that probably dislike Snowden most are statistically the least likely Americans to commit violent crime and have not engaged in any kind of systemic political violence in the modern era. It's the left that plans and starts riots e.g. at Trump rallies as WikiLeaks has documented.
Only crazies and communists and white supremacists have used assassination as a political tool in America in the modern era and that hasn't even happened in forty years.
I expect Snowden would be perfectly safe under a pardon. Until then I'd advise him to avoid long sight lines; America's official enemies have a way of finding themselves exploded at a nice sterile distance.
The problem with that statement is a lot of Americans would be foaming at the mouth if you labelled them a liberal due to a severe misundertanding of the meanings of words like 'liberal', 'progressive', 'communist', 'socialist'.
You sound as if you think this is reason not to pardon him. How about we do what's right and then let him make up his own mind about what the risks are?
If he's pardoned, presumably his passport and the ability to use it would be re-instated.
That would allow Snowden to go mostly anywhere and do as he pleases... instead of being stuck in limbo at an airport or as it currently stands allowed some degree of freedom within Russia. I should point out that pardoning Snowden allows him to LEAVE RUSSIA; which is a thing that I believe anyone should like to allow him to do.
John Hinckley Jr. is currently living at his mother's home. Certainly the man who tried to kill Reagan would be a greater target than some techie, wouldn't you think?
Not really. Snowden now stands as an icon to the tech world. He's a face of resistance who, despite of being "out of the game" still stands as a sort of historic monument or banner of defiance of the three-letter-agency's dominance. They'd love to have that guy eliminated. Who cares about Hinckley Jr. i.e. His actions didn't merit enough historical relevance to be a continued target. (Not to the same degree, imo)
It has not made our data safer - rather it confirmed that our data "is not safe" anymore!!
Snowden confirmed that we have 0 (zero) privacy and that government has unrestricted access to all of your personal data, and if needed that data could be "pulled" and used against you.
Anyone does not agree? If you are a person of interest, Do you think government would not use an opportunity to fabricate evidence against a citizen using collected data?
In my experience they caused people to get slightly more serious about security, but the effect was minimal beyond crypto heads and maybe enterprise users.
UX continues to dominate all other market factors in computing by a huge margin.
Would Whatsapp and Facebook Chat been end-to-end encrypted had it not been for the Snowden leaks? It's hard to say. But personally I believe it wouldn't have happened if the public perception of security had not been altered by his leaks.
Another example that affects billions: after the Snowden leaks, Google scrambled to encrypt their intra-datacenter traffic. Before they did so, those billions of end-users would get the green padlock when visiting Gmail, only to have their data snooped as it travelled over Google-owned dark fiber.
You are right that UX still dominates all other factors. But I think post-Snowden, there have been many significant improvements to security that affect billions of people.
If you dig into security world details, you'll see that Whatsapp's is not even considered as a competitor. They could just claim they're now encrypted without actually doing anything to get the same total effect.
Today's encryption and security are not features, these are marketing tags like these "without chlorine" on salt packs. Thanks to guess who?
> but the effect was minimal beyond crypto heads and maybe enterprise users.
Security/privacy on the Internet is known for being hard, and it used to be, if you wanted privacy you had to withdraw slightly from society, and learn Linux, read about TOR, learn how to harden your web browser, or otherwise attempt to 'go dark' from the prying eyes of governments or sophisticated criminals.
Now it can be said with certainty that many of the things we take for granted, have come along leaps and bounds due to Snowden, and are a lot less complicated to Install and setup.
Now a privacy-conscious teenager can install TOR browser bundle, Signal, uBlock, or any number of things you can find on sites like PrivacyTools[1] with relatively little trouble compared to the Internet pre-Snowden.
> UX continues to dominate all other market factors in computing by a huge margin
It might come at some cost, like reduced UX, as you mention, but that's called a security tradeoff or a privacy tradeoff and it's a well-known hard fact of protecting your communications and traffic.
I think the impact here has been less with individual users getting better about security and more that companies and developers have been spurred to try and do something about it. For example let's encrypt might not exist and that's led to a huge amount of traffic moving to https. Or the rise of more easy to use encrypted messaging apps like ete encryption in WhatsApp.
Yet the article you just commented on lists some concrete ways it affected everyone; like increased TLS usage, FDE and e2e encryption being standard with consumer products and general increase in public awareness around online privacy.
> UX continues to dominate all other market factors
There is an inherent tension between security and UX from the perspective of designing an individual tool. But from the perspective of building good security habits and policies, good UX is essential. The only way to achieve both is to invest the resources into thoughtful system design. What drives people to invest such resources?
The real question is how much of it was because of him. They assume it was him that made these changes but that's ignoring the data leak of over 100,000,000 government employees personal information, plus the University of Maryland hacks, and probably 2 dozen other high profile hacks since then. To credit the changes to him, you would have to shove that those events (individually or collectively) had no effect on privacy concerns. I would venture to guess it was the multitude of hacks that led to increased privacy concerns, since 90% of what he revealed wouldn't be defeated by using current encryption methods or changing your password... I mean what is the count on the FBI "breaking" TOR? 3x in the past year that went public?
Yes, Google added encryption but only because they were afraid of losing a competitive edge. They will still gladly sell all the information they collect (by monitoring emails, texts, phone calls, etc - which their right to monitor was defended in a district court) provided you have enough money. They are first and foremost an advertising agency. All their other services and products just serve to give them more sources of information.
If you say that disclosing surveillance on US citizens was ok, how do you explain these leaks:
* """The Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS), which cooperates with the NSA, has gained access to Russian targets in the Kola Peninsula and other civilian targets. In general, the NIS provides information to the NSA about "Politicians", "Energy" and "Armament"."""
* """In France, the NSA targeted people belonging to the worlds of business, politics or French state administration."""
* """the NSA had been monitoring telephone conversations of 35 world leaders"""
* """In an effort codenamed GENIE, computer specialists can control foreign computer networks using "covert implants," a form of remotely transmitted malware on tens of thousands of devices annually."""
* """According to Edward Snowden, the NSA has established secret intelligence partnerships with many Western governments."""
* """revealed NSA spying on multiple diplomatic missions of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Headquarters in New York."""
How are these matters relevant to the citizens of the United States? Aren't these things exactly what spy agencies are supposed to do? Why should Snowden get a pardon for disrupting normal intelligence work?
Actually, it is. We've had whistleblowers before who tried to censor what they told us and it didn't have half the impact. As long as the leadership of the NSA keeps treasonously lying, all leaks are necessary and thus justified.
Whisleblower protections typically don't have clauses that protect dumping a bunch of juicy, exciting tidbits so that people pay attention. You're informing the public of what they need to know, not making a Jason Bourne movie.
In this case Snowden was legally required to refuse and report illegal orders. He knew the leaders were well aware of their infractions and wouldn't stop, so he couldn't just report the abuse internally.
Unfortunately, dumping juicy tidbits is the only way to get the attention needed to change things. The bad guys are spending our money lying to our politicians about it. Without showing them to be liars again and again (with the release) of these tidbits, they'd simply spin their way out of it.
Except they didn't lie. He said he saw them lie to Congress but that was for the open-door, public session. If you think Congress isn't getting the details in closed-door, classified briefs, then you don't understand the relationship Intelligence Agencies have with Congress.
None of this came as a surprise to any Congressman with interactions with Intel Agencies. Hell, none of this should have come as a surprise if you know anything about security/cybersecurity. As long as there are systems which hide info, there will be backdoors and people trying to break them.
The exact same things are being done by every "first world" government on the planet. And sadly, what they do is FAR less intrusive than what Google does. They make text documents out of your phone calls to try and find new products to sell you... They have copies of every text you ever made on an Android device, every site you have visited, every e-mail you wrote or received on Gmail... All the info the NSA gathered that Snowden was "abhorred" by, was less than 1% of what Google has on you. What's the difference? Google will sell it. The NSA may look through it, but they won't sell it to the highest bidder.
Every device Google makes is just another way to gather info on their users. They are, first and foremost, an advertising company. And they are the best in the world at that because of all the info they have on all their users.
Testifying to congress, on the public open record, is an important way that "We the People" of the US can audit the government that we hired.
It is even more treasonous to lie in such a circumstance. It would be better to refuse to answer the question if you are unable to speak in an open session (though better still is being able to not lie about how you protect the country).
That's a common misconception. The laws on protecting classified information allow you to lie to protect it if other parties aren't all cleared for it. Congress passed and continues to uphold those laws. They also uphold an Espionage Act so strong even leaking evidence of crimes might be considered misusing classified information. Until Congress fixes those laws, they're in a grey area where they're justified in deceiving others to protect those programs.
This is why I've long pushed for people to push for a reform of our classification system. Last I checked, it couldn't be used to hide illegal information as that couldn't be classified in the first place. However, they were operating in a bunch of grey areas related to the Patriot Act, Executive Orders, and the FISC. So, these aren't obviously illegal. Needless to say, I'm for canceling that crap too.
> The laws on protecting classified information allow you to lie
But it wasn't required. It's not like Clapper was being tortured and had to say something. He should have simply shut up and refused to answer. By lying to congress when he didn't have to, he broke the law.
Moreover, by doing/ordering the illegal things we was already a criminal before the investigation. Even if allowed to lie, he's not allowed to violate the constitution. (And such permission could never be granted by anyone chartered by the constitution. Our president can't authorize this, for instance.)
> operating in a bunch of grey areas
There isn't a grey area.
If you're part of government and your actions are outside of what the constitution enumerates, you're breaking the law. If you're a citizen and your actions are outside those forbidden by law, you're not doing anything illegal. It's very clear.
As a part of government, he is clearly doing things the people don't think the constitution covers and as such, is a traitor. (It doesn't matter that he can spin a justification, it matter that citizens don't accept it.)
I know you aren't arguing that it should be legal, etc. I'm just pointing out that this isn't questionable. It's clearly illegal. Powerful incumbents never get charged for breaking the law but that doesn't make it legal.
"But it wasn't required. It's not like Clapper was being tortured and had to say something. He should have simply shut up and refused to answer. By lying to congress when he didn't have to, he broke the law."
It would help people on your side a lot if you studied how the defense sector & classification rules actually work when trying to get people to work within that in a different way. Clapper's job is to basically do exactly what he was doing since Executive branch and Congress's intelligence committee both authorized it. That's how our system is set up by Congress. There's lots of Americans that were supporting a surveillance state, too. So, he's gotta do the surveillance stuff while keeping it a secret by law.
Now, we get to this interview. Wyden knows about these programs. The Speech and Debate Clause implies he could just tell us himself with probable immunity. Clapper could in theory. Instead of telling us, Wyden asks a guy that legally has to keep it secret from public to deliver classified information to the public on the spot. Clapper's was squirming around trying to figure out how to deal with it. He was obviously lying & didn't want to be there. He simultaneously looks like a piece of shit... which he is that I can tell... with Wyden being the hero despite fact Wyden could've just announced it himself. So, Clapper decided to hide the information.
Now, how to hide the information? You incorrectly determined he should've just stayed silent. That's the right we Americans have. They have additional one if it's a Special Access Program to lie & are expected to in many cases. The reason is saying yes to specific questions then getting silent on others implies that what they're asking is probably true. Clapper's was perfect example because it was worded so a no comment would make them look guilty as hell. Instead, as with other SAP's, he was supposed to have a cover story (probably metadata diversion) to push as their activity while saying no about Wyden's question. That's what Alexander did showing off some great lying skills. It's also what military people did for about every spy plane, middle east strategy, SIGINT advance (esp Ultra)... you name it. Anything considered a major advantage is often in a black program with members required to end an interview immediately so nothing can be inferred or lie with a cover story. The phone numbers and mailing addresses don't even go to the same geographical location.
The real outcome is we need reform of the classification system where they can't mislead Americans like this. Also, to treat both Clapper and Wyden as self-serving liars in this situation. You might also try to consider why it would be risky for Wyden to tell the truth but none for Clapper to be honest. There's definitely risk. Clapper knows Congress might forgive but Executive branch might use Espionage Act in retaliation. Our rules need to change so that people can be honest for huge discrepencies between perception and intelligence work without being nailed to a cross.
"If you're part of government and your actions are outside of what the constitution enumerates, you're breaking the law. If you're a citizen and your actions are outside those forbidden by law, you're not doing anything illegal. It's very clear."
Once again, I recommend some deep study of law in general and regarding national security before talking about what's legal. The Constitution set the baseline. Congress then passes laws which may or may not go with that. Courts with their case law then interpret that in general plus many specific situations. The combination of Constitutional basics, laws Congress passes, and court interpretations (esp Supreme Court) make up the actual law that is enormously more complex & inconsistent than the Constitution. Three of those laws include the National Security Act, Espionage Act, and Patriot Act. They collectively let the intelligence community do about whatever it wants where it even has a special court... Congress outsourced the law to secret judges... to decide what it can do and directors running violations don't get prosecuted. I.C. might even have criminal immunity but I can't remember. Do in practice... Hell, even Congress is not legally allowed to know what they're doing in SAP's where only the Defense-related committees have to be briefed & OK it. In USAP's, it's just the heads of the committees. Congress not only allows this but also puts tens of billions of dollars into such programs annually.
Far as the voters, where's the mass exodus of votes going away from surveillance state supporters toward strong constitutionalists? Didn't happen. They didn't give a shit past another subject to shout about. Right now the majority of them are pushing two candidates that both support surveillance states, have criminal/fraudulent history, and mocked the First Amendment. There was also no push of any significance to arrest all the people on the top involved in this stuff post-Snowden. I think that describes the voter support of this stuff pretty well. They either support it or don't give a shit while putting surveillance & defense supporters in Congress who keep re-authorizing all these Defense laws (esp Patriot & Espionage Acts).
If I thought America would act, I'd say Clapper should've told them the truth after asking for immunity under Speech and Debate Clause. These days I'm thinking he should've lied given what America has done with others' sacrifices. They're just not worth it. I try to avoid getting in such situations so I can do right thing on principle but I doubt I'd help them if they're legally enabling villains all the time or putting all their activist activity into warning about the dangers of clown attacks.
> It would help people on your side a lot if you studied how the defense sector & classification rules actually work when trying to get people to work within that in a different way. Clapper's job is to basically do exactly what he was doing since Executive branch and Congress's intelligence committee both authorized it.
Yes. But they don't have the authority because the actions taken greatly exceeded the authority granted to the government as a whole.
> So, he's gotta do the surveillance stuff while keeping it a secret by law.
Well, no. As Snowden showed, he didn't have to do that. Treason is just the easy choice.
> Wyden asks a guy that legally has to keep it secret from public to deliver classified information to the public on the spot. Clapper's was squirming around trying to figure out how to deal with it. He was obviously lying & didn't want to be there.
And he could have kept his mouth shut. You say he'd risk looking like a liar and giving away the secret, but he did anyways.
> So, Clapper decided to hide the information.
Right, and if I'd committed capital crimes I'd have "decided to hide the information" too. Makes perfect sense, for a criminal to do that...
> Now, how to hide the information? You incorrectly determined he should've just stayed silent.
No, I correctly determined that he could have. He had a legal alternative so he's a criminal for not taking it.
You might be right that he'd be screwed either way, but that's doesn't work as an excuse for anyone else.
> The reason is saying yes to specific questions then getting silent on others implies that what they're asking is probably true.
Right. As does getting caught in his stupid lies. By opening his mouth he enabled the newspapers to selectively publish refutations of everything he said.
He could have kept his mouth shut and looked guilty, instead he opened it and proved the guilt.
> Our rules need to change so that people can be honest for huge discrepencies between perception and intelligence work without being nailed to a cross.
Right, we need to bring Snowden home to a hero's welcome. Just before we throw the traitors in jail for the rest of their lives. He didn't perform "intelligence work", he spied on his own country for political advancement. J Edgar Hoover all over again.
> Once again, I recommend some deep study of law in general and regarding national security before talking about what's legal. The Constitution set the baseline.
Right, and anything under that baseline is granted and anything over is not. Any law that goes beyond the powers granted to the government is, by definition, unconstitutional.
> The combination of Constitutional basics, laws Congress passes, and court interpretations (esp Supreme Court) make up the actual law
Sure, but their powers flow from the constitution and thus are always subservient to it. If they go beyond, it's in error (well, intentional error, but...)
> Congress not only allows this but [...]
If I allow you to rob a bank it's still illegal because I don't have the authority the dictate that. Congress was given some authority to do some things, but not unlimited authority, and not to commit treason.
> Far as the voters, where's the mass exodus of votes going away from surveillance state supporters toward strong constitutionalists?
Right, because the government lied to them. With the veil of authority and no conscience you could make people believe some pretty fucked up things.
> There was also no push of any significance to arrest all the people on the top involved in this stuff post-Snowden.
Having used political connections to hide the facts, threaten witnesses and judges, and make a fair trial impossible means that they're innocent! John Gotti for president!
> I think that describes the voter support of this stuff pretty well.
> Right now the majority of them are pushing two candidates
Yeah, because the first-past-the-post system is almost mathematically guaranteed to converge towards two nearly identical parties who think they're polar opposites.
But I've never heard people praising the system. They're always cynically trying to have as much say as possible when their only real choice is Kang or Kodos. Don't waste your vote or the wrong lizard may win!
I've never understood patriotism, what is that make you identify with a piece of the earth's surface which has due to haphazard historical events fallen under a particular governance.
I understand what you mean, but not everyone's nationality is an accident. Some of us moved to a now-home by choice as adults. We chose a governance and society, and work to maintain it.
Also, in a democracy, the current state is based on the decisions of the local ancestors. I identify with those decisions more in some places than others.
Wanting the country you live in to be safer and stronger against outside threats is not patriotism. It's just basic self-interest. Even the least patriotic people generally prefer not to be murdered by terrorists.
Patriotism and self-interest aren't mutually exclusive.
I'd also like to add that wanting the country you live in to be safer and stronger against inside threats is also patriotism and self-interest. In my experience people also generally prefer to be secure in their person, property and privacy against those that would exploit them.
Of course how we each value and prioritise these things will skew our definition of patriotism and our perception of actors like Snowden.
> Wanting the country you live in to be safer and stronger against outside threats is not patriotism. It's just basic self-interest.
Wanting the country you live in to be safer and stronger is certainly not basic self-interest: that would be wanting oneself to be safer and stronger, without regard for anyone else. It is certainly nationalism, if not quite patriotism.
The parent responded to "made the US safer" and "made the US weaker". The point is that there is a bigger picture than the question of the USA's safety or strength: the effect that the Snowden's revelations have had on all humans when taken together.
> Even the least patriotic people generally prefer not to be murdered by terrorists
You seem to be saying that the desire not to be killed by terrorists is a good reason for the citizens of one nation to be want it to be safer and stronger than another nation. Perhaps the desire not to be murdered by terrorists is a good reason for all nations to be, together, safer and stronger.
When a mobster is busted we lay all their papers out in courts and we ruin all aspects of their life as part of the punishment for their primary crimes. We can expect no less when we let our public officials be criminal.
If we want our primary security apparatus to not be diagnosed on TV we should make sure it's legal and legit.
Snowden literally had no legal choice. He is required by his oaths (as we all are morally) to reveal ongoing criminal activity, especially institutional crimes. If you ever get there, I hope you realize that the treasonous path is to keep your mouth closed.
The US is only weaker if you think a global political monoculture isn't brittle and dangerous. Having the power to maintain the status quo is not the same as strength or safety. Nor is it even optimal for the economy.
That's not really a valid reason to not prosecute people though. If I run a red light and no one happened to be going through the intersection besides me, should I still not be ticketed?
Agreed, though as a counter point to OP I would propose that if Snowden only revealed information about our international operations then he should have been prosecuted. However, his act was twofold. Arguably 50% heroic and 50% of betrayal. There is no good to your running of a red light. This is not a proper comparison.
That's not your, or Snowden's worry. The law doesn't say you have to reveal criminal activity - only IF you feel it's a benefit overall.
If the organization had real internal controls, or was under the control of government at all, Snowden could have used those channels and could have been expected to. But as soon as he fears they won't work he must do whatever he can.
The obligation to blow the whistle doesn't end when it's hard, or when your friends get hurt.
It is a good reason to deemphasize such prosecutions. Federal prosecutions are expensive and take resources away from cases where material damage is involved. It's not like writing a traffic ticket.
The journalists decided what to publish, not Snowden. It seems there isn't any case that resulted from that. The US would until now try to get Greenwald if they thought they had a case against him.
I don't think that Snowden releasing documents directly made anyone's data safer, but indirectly it did. Now that people are aware that we are being spied on at a massive scale, many are more cautious about which services they choose to use, what information to put on the internet, and are more considerate of encryption. There's a few anecdotal comments in this thread saying so, and I certainly have made different choices now because of the revelations of Snowden. So maybe Snowden didn't make our data safer, but we are because of what he showed us.
Whilst the efforts of the NSA were known for some time, the Snowden leaks were very aggressive and a lot more information could be gleaned from them. It's not enough to casually mention Echelon and then dismiss these revelations as trivial. There is an enormous trove of details in the Snowden Archive that describes the apparatus and machinery used to spy, not just some vague reference to "Tapped Undersea Cables" which is an oft-used scene people use to describe the NSA. I just wish the leaks had more detail, like code samples, or even pictures of the facilities used to spy. (You'd be surprised how much can be gleaned from just one picture or a line of code).
Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much? The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew existed decades before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON). I'll grant he sure raised awareness but does that make him a hero? ...and the recent increased attention to security seems to be heavily influenced by commercial hacking concerns rather than a response to government surveillance? Also... does anyone seriously think the government can't decrypt your data? Do we want every soldier, employee and contractor working in our government to use giant data dumps as a legit way to lodge their objections? Convince me why this guy shouldn't be in prison?
> Do we want every soldier, employee and contractor working in our government to use giant data dumps as a legit way to lodge their objections?
Yes, that is exactly what we want them to do when faced with criminal activity within their organizations and a non-functioning whistleblower program.
> Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much?
Given that he risked death or life imprisonment to expose criminal activity in the organization he (indirectly) worked for, then no, the "hero" stuff is not a bit much.
If someone is a hero for risking their lives on a battlefield on the other side of the planet to "protect our freedoms", someone should also be considered a hero for putting their life at risk to protect the freedom of the American people from tyranny.
Now, if you disagree, you could say that his life or freedom was never at risk (it was), or that the government programs weren't unconstitutional (they were unconstitutional), or that the whistleblower program was a working alternative (it wasn't). But as long as you accept the basic facts of the situation, you really should consider him a hero.
As your responses say, you can't have it both ways. If you tell us the material was all well known then it doesn't deserve to be called classified, and it isn't a crime to leak. If the information is classified and contains evidence of ongoing crimes, then it must be leaked if the crimes can't be stopped in another way.
> he didn't tweet out the wikipedia link
Obviously you don't know how classified data works. The Wikipedia pages in question were written based partly on earlier leaks, meaning that they count as classified for this purpose. Had Snowden sent you the WP page on the NSA and said "Read paragraph 3" it would have been an illegal disclosure, but it wouldn't have had any impact.
> The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew existed
Without proof that knowledge was essentially a conspiracy theory. I knew of ECHELON but there's no way I could prove it to anyone else. Snowden gave us data we could use to prove it.
> Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much?
No, heroism is essentially concern for others / concern for self. He put himself in much risk, for no personal gain, so he's pretty clearly a hero.
"You said it yourself, "The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew existed decades before.""
I preempted a lot of the Snowden and TAO leaks in my writing on Schneier's blog. I also studied the NSA far back as Puzzle Palace and declassified documents that existed before. The Snowden revelations were not all stuff you'd find studying NSA.
Originally, NSA revelations showed they did what they could to keep Americans out of the collection process. Echelon, for instance, mainly targeted international calls with most of the SIGINT setup outside of the U.S.. Post-9/11, the government's position on NSA and Patriot Act was NSA was getting metadata with FBI targeting individual suspects with NSL's and warrants for "people." Far as foreign spying, Americans figured it was mostly on enemies with allied stuff just keeping fair playing field. Tice leaks showed they were vacuuming up data on all Americans. The Tice and AT&T room leaks indicated they were vacuuming up lots of data which NSA tried to downplay. Drake revealed bad management and oversight at the NSA plus showed what would happen to internal whistleblowers. Binney then told courts and media around 2012 that NSA intercepted all kinds of communications including American emails. That they were collecting everything instead of targeting people.
Now, in 2012, Americans are starting to get the big picture but still claims of 2 or 3 people NSA tried to prosecute as traitors. Then Snowden, claiming inspiration from them, leaks all the specific methods they're using which changes everything. They can no longer deny what they were doing at this point because their own files contradict their lies. That's from domestic all the way through disasters like Belgian networking getting taken down that go way past just keeping tabs. We also find the FISA warrants were targeting criteria applied to whole population's communications instead of warrants for specific accounts or people. Although effective INFOSEC didn't really change, there was a widespread adoption of encryption following the leaks that reduced bulk surveillance a bit plus lots of legal responses that needed information specific to Snowden leaks.
So, there was a huge difference before and after Snowden despite him not being first to tell us they were vacuuming up everything domestic. None of this was obvious for most Americans or easy to prove before Snowden. I guessed most of the attack vectors but even I wasn't sure what they were hitting. It was more "they could do it so we should probably close the hole anyway."
I've posed a question because I'm interested in a thoughtful answer. You can change my mind... I want to know why I should be thankful for this guy's actions.
Were you already familiar with what was disclosed in the leaked documents and accompanying reporting?
Would you agree that the programs revealed in them go far beyond the programs previous whistle-blowers revealed?
Did you know beforehand that completely innocent citizens of the world may be targeted for surveillance or their systems compromised because of the company they work for or because they use encryption and live in a particular country?
Do you realise that the details of many of your digital interactions are collected and recorded and could at any time be collated into dossier that would inform its readers of many details of your private life?
Maybe you were, wouldn't, did and do; maybe you personally don't have any reason to be thankful for this guy's actions, but many of us didn't have any idea of the extent to which our data is being collected or the ways in which it can be used against us.
Some of us are rightly thankful for being told what our governments should have had the decency to tell us.
