
Snowden: Why I Decided Not To Delete My Old Internet Posts - LVB
https://theintercept.com/2019/09/21/edward-snowden-permanent-record-book
======
stallmanite
It’s crazy to me how much weight the intelligence agencies seem to put on
polygraph tests. Some enterprising huckster should sell them on some high-
dollar phrenology gear.

~~~
teddyh
Polygraph tests “work” because those being tested _believe_ that they work.
But people don’t believe in phrenology, so it wouldn’t work.

~~~
ChrisSD
The fact that that polygraph tests don't work was well known certainly by the
90's (if not much much earlier). I struggle to believe anyone at all
interested in the field wouldn't have some awareness of that, especially if
they knew in advance they were going to be tested.

And I'd dispute that they "work" even if the subject is unaware of the flaws.
Studies have shown innocent people regularly react to assertions of
criminality. It's basically left up to the individual tester to "interpret"
whether or not they find the person to be lying.

Sure sometimes it may inspire someone to admit to something they otherwise
wouldn't. But these people are more likely to be largely honest people who
made a mistake then hardened criminals or people actively working against the
state.

~~~
traderjane
How is this different from a clinician who has to diagnose autism without even
such a handy instrument.

~~~
MiddleEndian
Colloquial view: Presumably someone going to see a psychiatrist about autism
in interested in an accurate outcome as well as the doctor.

------
GhettoMaestro
I got a TS/SCI when I was 21. Filling out that SF-86 and hearing from _tons_
of people I hadn't talked in 10+ years was eye opening.

FWIW, if you are honest, they really don't hold much against you. This is
someone who had legal run-ins in my younger years.

------
user982
You can read some of these posts and chat logs yourself:
[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/exclusive-
in-200...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/exclusive-in-2009-ed-
snowden-said-leakers-should-be-shot-then-he-became-one/)

It's difficult to reconcile the image of Snowden the idealistic whistleblower
with Snowden the right-wing Islamophobic security-state cheerleader who wanted
leakers to be shot in the balls, from just a couple of years earlier.

At least one of these is a manufactured persona, and I don't know which.

~~~
whatshisface
> _At least one of these is a manufactured persona_

Why? Can't a person who is naturally prone to fervent dedication change from
one ideology to another? I mean, for reference, look at a billion examples of
religious converts, or for perhaps a better analogy to Snowden, look at
/r/atheism.

~~~
dTal
I don't think it's even a particularly large shift. Both "personas"
demonstrate a large degree of in-group loyalty and a desire to hold "traitors"
accountable, to the American state and the American people respectively. It's
not hard to see how a realization that the state was "betraying" the people
could have provoked his change in perception of "in-group".

------
unnouinceput
Quote: "Their most effective features were combined by a young Mark Zuckerberg
into a site called FaceMash, which later became Facebook".

Except this is not quite true. Zucky did FaceMash as a joke in campus. And he
took quite the heat from Uni headmaster for it. And while later when he made
"The Facebook" (yeah it had "the" in early days) probably took some lessons
into it from FaceMash, it definitely did not evolved from it.

------
no_opinions
I don't share the sympathies of him being a hero. I'd wait until seeing all
the information before making a judgment:

There's conflicting stories on Edward Snowden's history. There's accusations
acted out in the workplace and possibly embellished information about himself
[1]

There are things in the report that made it look like he planned out taking
the data. That's the most damning information against him. If that didn't
exist though, or was refuted, the story could be more sympathetic.

There'd still be _allegations_ in this summary he may expect to confront
eventually, fibbing about his legs, cheating on an entrance exam, him
misrepresenting his job positions as if he was more senior than he was, based
on the report, he appears to self-aggrandize out of habit.

In his upbringing he probably had events with parent/authority figures where
he learned to lie to cover up his mistakes as a survival tactic. It's
progressed to more than hiding, if he cheated on an entrance exam, some people
may see that as fraudulent.

He would allegedly break chain of command and email managers too high up when
localized stuff happened, his story feels more like someone who was under a
lot of pressure and needed more experience defusing issues in a professional
environment.

The leaks themselves:

He didn't suggest improvement to the laws or regulations. He divulged the
methods themselves, which other governments were probably doing anyway. Those
other countries won't stop doing it, and they'd be happy if adversaries
stopped.

In his videos / posts, he never talks about how information could be used to
prevent a terrorist attack, surveilling / interrupting a spy cell, gathering
other valuable information for his country to better understand things. It's
as if he had his wish, he'd throw away the whole system.

It's like he can't discern consumer privacy (which is minimal in US), from
protecting data from criminals (which is improving with TLS, 2FA, etc), from
his own job. I wouldn't look to him as a role model for national security,
civil liberties, or even basic ethics.

[1] [https://republicans-
intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hps...](https://republicans-
intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_snowden_review_declassified.pdf)

~~~
jigglesniggle
Instead of attacking the content of the leaks or his claimed motives you are
mainly attacking his character.

It should be obvious that he planned to take the data. Taking it without a
plan would be a good way for him to fail to accomplish anything. The main
detraction I can see is that he leaked without regard to content, even
considering he may not have had time to look over what he had taken (e.g.
there is some top level stuff about drones that probably could have been
redacted with a quick scan of the documents).

He likely avoided commenting on improvements to remain apolitical; if he had
not, it would be more ammunition for character assassination. Other countries
may be doing roughly the same but most people's issue is not with the fact
spying was occurring but that it was largely turned inward.[1] You do not know
he would throw away the whole system. As previously mentioned, he likely had
no time to figure out what documents were what and the impact of their release
would be.

In any case, he was acting as if he expected his own government to completely
ignore the protections it had built in to defend its citizens. That some of
the domestic programs he exposed were since cancelled due to public outrage is
telling.

\---

[1]: Besides the unconstitutionality of inwards-facing spying it is also a red
herring. We repeatedly see little in the way of domestic terrorism but because
inward spying is so much easier to do it seems to make up a disproportionate
amount of the information generated; information that is likely not
representative of real threats.

~~~
no_opinions
Well, he defected. Please understand I'm trying to understand him better
myself, because his actions don't match the high-minded platitudes he claims
to espouse: he didn't file a lawsuit, write criticism of his bosses, policies,
etc, run for congress or started lobbying to improve the system. He bypassed
all those mechanisms and dumped programs. We can't have the public oversee
every method to gather information, or it wouldn't be very effective.

And judging by the posts/comments I read on here and news sites, I'm not sure
people understand the difference between information gathering, criminal
investigations, and consumer / medical / etc. privacy. Don't you think it'd be
better to agree on a common ground that these are different purposes before
engaging in a dialectic on it?

I bring up him having workplace / life stress, because he's human. He fits a
model very similar to traitors who worked for their gov that spied for other
countries, except he replaced his handler was a journalist. What he says here
is spooky:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9yK1QndJSM&t=70](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9yK1QndJSM&t=70)

Put is this way: Why should I get my safety as a US person put at risk so
someone can publicize their story that someone leaked something again? In that
video at 1:00. He's trying to make it so classification basically no longer
has meaning, if they defect to a journalist.

> Besides the unconstitutionality of inwards-facing spying it is also a red
> herring.

I'd think a normal person would expect that: if you're a national, your
government should be protecting you, not targeting you with those tools.
Unless it's your intent to destroy it somehow.

For the sake of encouraging understanding: I think constitution is used as a
way to imply subjectivity of what _feels_ right. Unless you have court
decisions to mention. The constitution hasn't been updated much and the case
law is porous. Example: Unopened email after a certain time is treated as
abandoned.

Don't you think the policies around the use of the data gathering tool /
method is more important than the tool existing or not? Based on how Snowden
evangelization goes: if we took its philosophy to its logical end, people will
just leak every source / method, the system will never improve, and it
wouldn't be very safe for us!

~~~
extra88
> Well, he defected.

No he didn’t. He was passing through Russia when the U.S. cancelled his
passport and they pressured other countries to deny him asylum.

~~~
no_opinions
That's not what I'm saying, the leaking to a journalist is the defection.

The leaker is on the best behavior to impress their new handler. They're
suckers and getting played.

An analogy to what Snowden did: How would you feel if you had a significant
other that promised themselves to you, but behind your back, connected with
someone else, some jester/stranger/charlatan. Hurtfully, you find they were
eager to move mountains for _them_ , and all the while criticizing your mere
existence as a person. It'd be safe to say they've broke their vow, even
though they haven't officially acknowledged yet.

