
Edward Snowden in His Own Words: Why I Became a Whistle-Blower - rblion
https://www.wired.com/story/edward-snowden-in-his-own-words-why-i-became-a-whistle-blower/
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BrS96bVxXBLzf5B
I read three quarters of the book over the weekend, and for anyone remotely
interested in anything surrounding Snowden (whether the motivations of a
whistleblower, a dive into three-letter agency corporate structure, or Snowden
himself) it is excellent, and heartily recommended.

There's a point where he talks about metadata, how the NSA is able to justify
their "bulk collection" by not considering data accessed until someone
actively _looks up_ something from their wide capture net, and that metadata
isn't just a byproduct of bulk collection, but the downplayed gem itself. It
was at that point I wished we had that information with Snowden's
understandable and informative writing style, that I could recommend to people
who have no or negative interest in Snowden. I love the book, but regret it's
only going to reach the hands of the choir already preached to.

~~~
Zolt
I am about half way through the book.

Do you feel he revealed additional details in the book that the CIA/NSA does
not appreciate?

IE, location and purpose of buildings?

~~~
Zolt
I am really curious why I got a down-vote or two. I was not being facetious.

Outside the classified materials Ed leaked and we all know about, he shares
details about hotels he stayed at during training and his trips into what
seemed to me as classified information about government building locations.

I was really curious if this is ‘common knowledge’ or if other readers felt he
disclosed additional classified information.

As others have recently said, it seems like this site has changed quite a bit
in the recent years from the site I once knew.

------
Synaesthesia
> I would say sort of the breaking point was seeing the Director of National
> Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie on oath to Congress. There’s no
> saving an intelligence community that believes it can lie to the public and
> the legislators who need to be able to trust it and regulate its actions.

[https://edwardsnowden.com/2014/01/27/video-ard-interview-
wit...](https://edwardsnowden.com/2014/01/27/video-ard-interview-with-edward-
snowden/)

------
ryanthedev
I can't believe we label this guy a traitor.

I never understood how someone who tells the American people/journalist's that
their government is breaking the law is a bad thing.

We need less politicians and more people like him in office.

America needs to stop being solely capatial driven and more democracy driven.

Money buys laws.

~~~
johnfactorial
> I can't believe we label this guy a traitor. I never understood how someone
> who tells the American people/journalist's that their government is breaking
> the law is a bad thing.

I can give a few reasons for those genuinely wondering.

1\. Ends can not justify means.

2\. He fabricated auth keys to gain access to confidential material he didn't
have access to.

3\. He shared the information so-gained as soon as he could.

4\. He shared it with geopolitical foes of the United States.

5\. Many reasonable people recognize Wikileaks' objectives are well-aligned
with Russia's and feel strongly they are collaborators.

6\. My knowledge is limited here, but does Snowden claim he used any of the
actual, legal whistleblower processes before escaping to Julian Assange? My
understanding is that he did not.

In short, he could have been a whistleblower, but instead acted against the
USA's interests, preferring to break into government systems and share the
data with anti-US actors. In so doing he exposed truth it's good for citizens
to know, but did so in a way that has had far-ranging, still-harmful effects
on the USA today.

* [https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-sought-booz-allen-job-gather-evidence-nsa-surveillance) * [https://www.thedailybeast.com/greenwald-snowdens-files-are-o...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/greenwald-snowdens-files-are-out-there-if-anything-happens-to-him?account=thedailybeast&medium=twitter&source=socialflow) * [https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB436/](https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB436/) * [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-ju...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-julian-assange-russia.html) * [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-director-calls-wikileaks-a-...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-director-calls-wikileaks-a-non-state-hostile-intelligence-service/)

~~~
peterburkimsher
Regarding objections 5 and 6, Snowden distributed documents to the Guardian,
Washington Post, and Der Spiegel - not Wikileaks. He did insist that these
newspapers only publish information that is in public interest, and warn the
government according to correct whistleblower protocol [1].

The Wikileaks legal team helped Snowden once he was already in trouble.

He also said that "Even the NSA admits that Russia wasn't my intended
destination." [2] so objection 4 is also moot.

[1] "the journalists would then in advance of publication, warn the government
about the story they were about to break."
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/edward-snowden-nsa-cbs-this-
mor...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/edward-snowden-nsa-cbs-this-morning-
interview-today-2019-09-16/)

[2] [https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-
ed...](https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-edward-
snowden-about-his-story-a-1286605.html)

~~~
johnfactorial
> Snowden distributed documents to the Guardian, Washington Post, and Der
> Spiegel - not Wikileaks.

That's an important distinction, thank you for making it.

Late May, Snowden fled to China. Days later, documents he stole were first
published. Less than a month later, he and the Wikileaks legal team were
moving him to Russia where he requested political asylum. Many people
reasonably find it hard to believe that Snowden's introduction to Wikileaks
personnel happened in that less-than-one-month timeframe. Like any journalist
will tell you, though, the story is a very complex one.

~~~
peterburkimsher
I wish I could send a message to Ed, to encourage him. If the worst
allegations his enemies can accuse him of are related to other people, that
means his own life choices are blameless.

From Snowden's autobiography, Permanent Record, page 239: "Enter Sarah
Harrison, a journalist and an editor for WikiLeaks. The moment the news broke
that an American had unmasked a global system of mass surveillance, she had
immediately flown to Hong Kong. Through her experience with the website and
particularly with the fate of Assange, she was poised to offer me the world's
best asylum advice. It didn't hurt that she also had family connections with
the legal community in Hong Kong. ... after a sharp disagreement just a month
after our first, text-based conversation, I never communicated with [Assange]
again... Though I never was, and never would be, a source for Assange, my
situation gave him a chance to right a wrong... he seemed, through Sarah,
determined to do everything he could to save me... That said, I was initially
wary of Sarah's involvement. But Laura told me that she was serious,
competent, and, most important, independent: one of the few at WikiLeaks who
dared to openly disagree with Assange."

Details that are so personal, openly admitting his distrust and disagreements
with Wikileaks, while still writing kind words speculating as to why they
would help - this doesn't sound like a long-standing conspiracy and a clever
cover story. It sounds incredibly believable.

------
lettergram
Quite frankly, Edward Snowden is the only person I can think of that is
“beyond reproach”.

He put his life on the line to let other people (us) know about what was
happening. He gave us the option to choose our fate. That’s more than anyone
in the government did for us.

We chose to do very little, but that’s in us.

~~~
cm2187
I am a big Snowden supporter but I wouldn’t go as far as “beyond reproach”. A
whistle blower is seeing wrongdoing, and reporting it. What he did instead is
grab all the files he could get hold of, send them to journalists and tell
them “I know there is wrongdoing there, find it among all this legitimately
secret stuff that should have never left the NSA”. You can see why the NSA
would find the approach more than cavalier.

I think given how it affected the public debate, he should certainly be given
leniency if not pardon. But that is not to say he did nothing wrong.

~~~
otalp
Snowden's trigger was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James
Clapper, lie under oath about mass surveillance to Congress when specifically
asked about blind data collection.

When the head of the organisation commits federal crimes without reproach(he
was not prosecuted after the details were revealed), who are you supposed to
report to except the public?

~~~
cm2187
I am not arguing against reporting wrongdoing, I am arguing against leaking
secret files that have nothing to do with these wrongdoings.

~~~
mmrezaie
The claim is so big that I think without those files he would have looked and
treated as just another conspiracy theorist.

~~~
spindoctor
So laws exist, but people don't always adhere to the law for reasons like
ignorance and malicious intent. There are also laws which are bad laws &
regulation, easily exploitable by clever people, financially lucrative in some
cases.

The intelligence services have a difficult task, they need to be on top of
their game so they need to know everything and try to prevent problems
snowballing unless its not particularly harmful and could be quite educational
for future improvement. You have a blank sheet of paper, what would you do to
maintain or reduce harm to society?

I say this as someone who has met Andrew Parker, Stella Rimmington and
Jonathon Evans and is wise to their ways but not someone who has signed the
official secrets but has arguably an "autistic" interest in secrecy and
quantifying all walks of life.

~~~
danShumway
> but has arguably an "autistic" interest

A) Please don't use autism as a slur, and

B) Please don't imply that if someone cares about privacy, it's because their
brain works differently. Hold yourself to a higher standard of argument.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I don't think he meant this as a slur. As I parse the sentence, I see a high
probability that he meant to use the word "autistic" on himself.

------
jokoon
What Snowden made me realize, is that how all countries in the world are
fighting for a buck, and their own interest. It's difficult to understand what
is at stake because there is a duality between the peacefulness of civilized
life, and the distrust between countries, even when they're allies, which we
call diplomacy. Civilian life is structured by law, but there are no courts to
sue countries when they harm each other.

Snowden highlighted a trivial fact, which is that intelligence agencies will
spy. Countries will fight for their self-interest. It's important to remember
that countries can do whatever they want if the citizen see that it's in their
interest.

Snowden just reminded us to always keep Machiavel in mind. That's how nations
operate, and I don't think the UN will change this. It goes for terrorism,
oil, climate change, standard of living, electronics, trade. If something is
not in the interest of a country, it will probably be dismissed.

~~~
jacobush
I nodded at first, but something rubs me the wrong way.

I don't know if you intended it, but I read this a little defeatist. I also
agree countries will forever jostle their power against each other, because
there is no higher court to take complaints.

But there is no unwritten law which says we must let our spy orgs spy
completely unfettered on their own citizens. If we let them do that, we might
just as well give them the keys to the kingdom. Democracy will die, the
feedback loop between corrupt leaders and the three letter orgs will
eventually be to strong and everything will be a charade until there is no
need for even the pretense of rule of law.

This is the danger we are fighting. (With mixed success I think.)

------
smhost
DoJ is suing ed snowden for all proceeds from this book.

[https://archive.is/M0L8j](https://archive.is/M0L8j)

~~~
mirimir
Somehow I doubt that he cares much about that. Or at least, not about the
money, _per se_.

~~~
einpoklum
Remember he is now rather difficult to employ; and needs to avoid the
appearance of inappropriate alegiances. So - making money off of a book should
be kind of a big deal for him. Also, it takes a whole lot of time and effort
to write a book (which could theoretically have gone towards supporting
himself otherwise).

------
kerkeslager
While it's certainly interesting, I don't think this excerpt from his book
explains at all why he became a whistleblower.

~~~
knodi123
Sure it does.

> Over the course of my career, it became increasingly difficult for me to ask
> these questions about the technologies I was responsible for and not about
> my country. And it became increasingly frustrating to me that I was able to
> repair the former but not the latter.

He was trying to repair our government by judicious application of sunshine.

~~~
jacobush
Imagine how many tried moonshine before that.

~~~
arminiusreturns
There is a reason alcoholism was/is rampant in many three letters, but is
quietly ignored.

------
atomi
The more this guys is persecuted the more of a martyr he becomes - like the
Romans nailing a certain someone to a cross. I don't think that worked out as
well as the Romans hoped. Fundamentally this isn't about the 'man' it's about
freedom and that idea will transcend no matter what the government suits do or
what becomes of Snowden.

~~~
dfsegoat
I would tend to agree.

When Snowden first 'came out', I was 100% onboard that he was a treasonous,
self-aggrandizing traitor. Even though we sort of knew what NSA was doing to
an extent - there were rumors about NSA or AT&T monitoring all internet
traffic in San Francisco since the 90s [1][2] - I would not give the argument
that what he did was patriotic even a moment of consideration.

Now that things have settled a bit, and perhaps having gained some more
perspective, I do feel that what he did was justifiable, perhaps even
patriotic.

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

2 - [https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-
hub...](https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hubs/)

------
HeWhoLurksLate
This little bit _seriously_ has me questioning myself.

Wow.

------
whytaka
I have nothing to comment specifically other than to reiterate my profound
respect for Edward Snowden.

------
peterkelly
The wired.com link is showing up as a 404 for me.

Here's a mirror: [http://archive.is/CmYkJ](http://archive.is/CmYkJ)

~~~
codychan
I can open that link. Try VPN?

But I cannot open the archive.is link, not even with VPN.

~~~
peterkelly
It turned out to be an issue with cookies. I deleted all my cookies for
wired.com and then it worked. Strange, because the front page of the site
showed but not the article.

There's some DNS issues with archive.is that you may run into e.g. if using
Cloudflare's resolver:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702)

------
paulcole
I’ve been reading the book this article is excerpted from. So far my key
takeaway is that just because you did something interesting doesn’t mean that
your life is interesting or that you have anything interesting to say.

