
Leaked documents that were not attributed to Snowden - aburan28
http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2015/12/leaked-documents-that-were-not.html
======
sandworm101
>>> "without having been attributed to Snowden"

1) Non-attribution does not mean a different source per se. Some documents can
be verified without any discussion of their source. (ie the NSA acknowledges
their authenticity by demanding their takedown as "classified"). Powers are
building cases against Snowden. Those releasing documents don't want to help
that process.

2) Attribution to Snowden does is no guarantee that he is the source. Snowden
is not the author, just the delivery means. And he doesn't know personally
exactly which documents he handed over. There were just too many for that to
be true. So to protect another source they may falsely attribute something to
Snowden, with or without his permission. Not good journalism, but very
possible.

There are so many documents in these agencies that leaks are inevitable. With
tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand people in positions to read
them, documents have appeared constantly. Snowden was simply a massive uptick
in an ongoing stream, not the first and no doubt not the last.

My disappointment is that with all of these leaks I have to give up the
childhood hope that aliens have visited us. Such secrets could never be kept
by these agencies.

~~~
MawNicker
Our government's apparent ineptitude is largely a function of their graduated
secrecy protocols. Isolating leaks is more important than serving their
functions. Snowden knew this and attempted to demonstrate it directly. That's
why he released things slowly at first. He tricked significant authorities
into contradicting themselves several times as they attempted to firewall his
revelations. If anything, my interest in radical conspiracy theories has only
increased. That being said I heavily doubt we've been visited by aliens.

Lets look at a radical but more likely proposition: NTBMs [1]. If an
international private security organization had these things they could
construct LARGE underground installations. They could conduct psychological
experiments akin to mk-ultra [2] on isolated _populations_. The under-people
would experience this reality as simply: how things were. They would have
always been underground. It would be all they knew. The explanatory pseudo-
religion necessary to alleviate their condition wouldn't be that complicated.
An agency could use these under-people to perfect it's propaganda methods. The
power vectors granted by controlling large hidden facilities are pretty
interesting; A significantly advanced and private awareness of causation would
allow the manufacture of nearly certain events shrouded by ostensible
ignorance. This would be much more effective, over time, if it were coupled
with a massive and private surveillance network to close the feedback loop.

1:
[http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3885832.pdf](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3885832.pdf)

2:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra)

~~~
robbiep
I'm not quite sure how paragraph 2 follows from your first paragraph?

coild you describe your point more clearly?

~~~
MawNicker
The existence of whistleblowers doesn't invalidate every possible conspiracy
theory. We can't assume comprehensive awareness by proposing: If that were
true then it would have been leaked. Every _known_ government secret is
eventually revealed. That's a tautology. Generalizing it to every imaginable
secret is a failure to understand the limits of inductive reasoning. The
people who know how much Snowden knew regularly indicate that they still have
more to hide. I'm suggesting that our awareness is limited to a variety of
"lesser" secrets. These secrets are callously and ineptly executed by design.
They inspire whistleblowers to act before they become aware of "greater"
secrets. Their revelation also, apparently, lulls the public into complacency.
Exposure to "greater" secrets is gradual and divergent. We will never be fully
aware of what mk-ultra involved. Most of the documentation has been destroyed.
It was actually kept secret despite being far more sinister. It's the greatest
(known) example of this fallacy. The documents with "tens of thousands,
perhaps a hundred thousand people in positions to read them" weren't leaked
intentionally. They were discovered because they had been improperly filed
and, for that reason alone, survived destruction. Alien visitation is
extremely unlikely for numerous reasons. We don't have to go nearly that far
to support a potentially actual conspiracy. We need only assume that the
perpetrators are motivated by power and/or have advanced technology. They were
able to hide a mind control program utilizing torturous methods 40 years ago.
My point was that its worth conjecturing about what they may be doing now.
They have apparent motives and we can extrapolate realisticly advanced
technology. My second paragraph was just an example I threw together in the
spirit of that activity.

TL;DR: Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get me.

~~~
robbiep
thanks

------
DyslexicAtheist
not to forget some of the sh*t that leaked into archive.org without any
whistleblower involvement.

[0] [http://blog.valbonne-
consulting.com/2015/05/20/misconfigurat...](http://blog.valbonne-
consulting.com/2015/05/20/misconfiguration-of-state-gov-website-exposes-pdf-
files/)

------
nickpsecurity
This analysis seems OK. Be careful with this blog, though, as the author has
shown selective, pro-NSA reporting on Schneier's blog where both he and other
leakers frequent. His title is P/K. We've called him out repeatedly for
ignoring the bad on one side in the leaks while criticizing Snowden. Blog bias
was clear in original content which was just pictures of government,
classified gear with fanboy comments.

Again, though, this is an exceptional one that seems more reliable. Probably
because existence of extra leakers is important to both sides for different
reasons.

~~~
raverbashing
What do you mean by P/K?

~~~
nickpsecurity
That was name of person who always linked back to it with their name and IIRC
indicated it was their posts. Could be wrong there. That started when Schneier
was posting Snowden leaks on capabilities and overreach. Several people showed
up trying to refute it by selectively quoting or ignoring as much data as
possible to paint NSA in a positive light. Refuted them constantly with govt's
own docs but they were persistent.

Called out the blog as NSA fanboy to max then content seemed to change with
stuff like this. Given comments, I felt it was to look more objective when
seeding disinformation rather than person doing a 180.

------
widforss
Can someone confirm that the US Government is actually running a Tumblr
account to publish declassified content? This seem absurd to me.

~~~
rgbrenner
it's real:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/14/intelligence-
co...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/14/intelligence-community-on-
the-record-james-clapper-nsa)

[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/08/21/us-launches-ic-
on-t...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/08/21/us-launches-ic-on-the-
record-tumblr-site-to-help-promote-transparency-in-surveillance-activities/)

 _In recent years, the IC has made major strides toward enhancing
transparency. These include establishing the Office of Director of National
Intelligence (ODNI) IC on the Record, a repository for declassified documents,
official statements, speeches and testimony on the Tumblr blogging platform.
To date, more than 5,000 pages of officially released documents have been
published on IC on the Record._

[http://www.doncio.navy.mil/CHIPS/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=7210](http://www.doncio.navy.mil/CHIPS/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=7210)

------
xanderstrike
If I was an NSA employee and the Snowden leaks came out, I'd consider it my
opportunity to leak information on the projects that had been making my skin
crawl too. You could release the documents without attribution and most would
assume it's just more Snowden.

~~~
kazagistar
Would the NSA assume its just more Snowden? As a leaker, it does not matter
much to you who the public thinks did it, but if you get caught.

