
New CIA director thinks Snowden should be killed - timthelion
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/lawmaker-traitor-snowden-deserves-death-penalty/article/2583023
======
kafkaesq
Meaning, for Snowden, that his best bet, clearly, is to stay in Russia (or
whatever country will take him)† for at least the duration of the coming
shitstorm that will be the next administration.† Instead of coming back to the
U.S. to face the consequences of his actions (which nearly every reasonable-
minded person -- including Snowden himself -- strongly prefers).

Kind of sucks for Snowden, but more to the point, an incredibly stupid
position for the U.S. to take.

† EDIT: Given that while his chances in Russia may not be best, for much
longer -- his prospects for asylum in many other countries, especially in
Europe, will rise quite substantially if he is explicitly threatened with a
death sentence.

~~~
downandout
Even under Obama, he was looking at life in prison, which is effectively a
living death sentence. Personally, I'd rather get the death penalty than spend
my remaining years in a federal supermax prison (especially given that Snowden
is fairly young).

Putin will give him up in a heartbeat if it curries any favor at all with
Trump. Most European governments do not look favorably on what he did either,
and wouldn't harbor him anyway - both out of fear of reprisal from the US and
fear of encouraging their own Snowden-type incidents. The end of Snowden's
freedom is likely near, whether he gets the death penalty or not. It's not the
end that many of us would like the see for him, but he did know the penalties
well before he did what he did.

~~~
bb88
> It's not the end that many of us would like the see for him, but he did know
> the penalties well before he did what he did.

One can justify all kinds of whistle blower revenge this way. Just remember
that Snowden didn't violate the constitution.

Which is worse exactly: Violating the constitution or violating laws to expose
those that are doing it?

To me it seems like the NSA was acting more traitorous than Snowden ever did.

~~~
downandout
Well, I'd like to see him pardoned. I just know it will never happen, and he
had to know that as well when he did it. No government can afford to be seen
as tolerant of this kind of action from within its own ranks. Perhaps as a
result of Snowden there will be better ways for government employees to vent
their concerns, but that likely won't help him out.

------
Johnny555
Why is there absolutely zero focus on the lack of basic security measures that
would prevent a large scale breach like this?

The government still doesn't know exactly what data he walked off with. And
while you'd think they'd have stepped up security since then, now Harold T.
Martin has again walked off with terabytes of secret data. In both cases,
these secrets were stolen by _contractors_ , not even full employees.

I have full admin rights to every server at work, but I can't gain access to
customer data without tripping access alarms that notify our security team.
How is it possible that the NSA has no similar controls? I realize that such
controls can be expensive (in direct costs and ongoing operations), but "with
great data comes great responsibility", and if there's any database in the
country that needs exceptional controls, it's the NSA's database that is much
more valuable than any other corporate database.

How many foreign powers have walked off with even more data undetected because
they aren't going to publicize it -- they are likely siphoning off data right
now, and the NSA has no idea.

~~~
module0000
If you have full root access - then you don't go at the customer data
directly, that's amateur hour.

Think about how the data is stored... is it within LVM of some sort(this is
likely)? If so, create a new LV mirrored from the volumes containing customer
data. Since you're root, make sure this new block device is absent from tools
like 'lsblk' or walking through /dev/mapper.

That's just one (poor) suggestion. Never think about bee-lining right towards
the valuable data though, that's precisely what every IDS is "best" at
detecting. Come at it sideways, so to speak :)

~~~
module0000
Replying just to add another idea that came to me after hitting submit. Use
the network-namespaces feature of linux(assuming this data resides on linux).
Then you can create the equivalent of a hidden span-port, letting you inspect
all the IP traffic at your leisure - including the traffic that contains
customer data.

~~~
Johnny555
If someone can snoop traffic and see confidential data, you're not very
serious about security - no confidential data is sent off-server without being
encrypted. (SSL mostly, with point to point VPN tunnels for a few apps that
don't support encryption natively)

~~~
module0000
That's very true - if data is leaving unencrypted then they have made a
mistake. This is an easy mistake to make though if you bank on your LAN being
truly private. However, on the other side of the coin...lots of traffic is
unencrypted by design(NFS 1x,2x,3x, and 4x unless you use krb5p, and iscsi).

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AlexCoventry
Trump doesn't seem to treat what he says in tweets as firm commitments, but he
did say this back in June:

"All I can say is that if I were President, Snowden would have already been
returned to the U.S. (by their fastest jet) and with an apology!"

[https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/34699823677664051...](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/346998236776640513)

~~~
peeters
> back in June*

*of 2013

~~~
AlexCoventry
Oops. Thanks for catching that.

------
TYPE_FASTER
> "I can assure you, that information was a lot more secure in the hands of
> the secure system that the government has spent hundreds of hundreds of
> millions of dollars setting up, rather than on a private server in the home
> of Hillary Clinton," he said. "It's not a close call. There's a reason we
> have it set up that way."

Well...apparently not, right? I mean, wouldn't that be the lesson here? We
gave BAH "hundreds of millions of dollars" to setup a server, and the
information on that server still was made public. By multiple people. Without
hacking required.

------
glenndebacker
I find this strange for a group of people that may also have benefited from
certain leaks to get in power. I would expect that they would put
whistleblowers on a pedestal.

I must say that I don't envy my American friends with this future
administration. They seem to change a lot of tunes and there seem to be a lot
of contradictions.

~~~
Senji
You don't enshrine traitors who've helped you to take over. You execute them
because they have proven they are ready to betray their masters and they'll do
it to you when opportune.

~~~
vkou
Is that why the founding fathers and their pawns are so revered?

~~~
ItsDeathball
The founding fathers yes, their pawns not so much.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion)

------
baccheion
Firstly, the government's systems are wide open, and are hacked/breached all
the time. They just cover it up so no one knows. This is mainly as a result of
fear of competence and a deference to the lowest bidder (out of habit,
stupidity, or legal mandate). That is, the lowest bidder usually builds crap,
half-assed products, and there's a lot of that floating around in the almighty
Gov't.

Secondly: hey idiot CIA director, did you not notice what was revealed by
Snowden's leaks? Isn't there some law or unspoken rule about sitting idly by
while the system becomes more corrupted? If it had been accidentally revealed
this mass surveillance was happening and the media grabbed onto it, then
wouldn't anyone near it occurring, whether innocent or not, be left ass out to
take the blame? Wouldn't the idiots at large be saying something like, "and
you knew, and sat by doing nothing; you're just as guilty."

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pashabitz
"Due Process" \- I don't think that word means what you think it means

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rm_-rf_slash
IANAL but if Obama gave Snowden a last minute pardon before he left office,
wouldn't that legally shield him from the Trump Administration?

~~~
1024core
IANALE, but I think you can only be pardoned if you've been convicted of
something. If you've not even been officially charged (let alone, convicted),
what will Obama pardon him for?

~~~
ltnately
IANALE-either but from my understanding the Pardon is so wide (only
restriction being preventing from stopping an impeachment) that the President
can and has Pardoned people preemptively. There are some other limits on it as
well for practical uses.

Most notably, President Ford pardoned President Nixon for basically anything
he might have done as opposed to specific charges.

Slate Article on the Subject:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/07/preemptive_presidential_pardons.html)

~~~
_up
Obama just gave an interview in Germany where he argued that he can't pardon
Snowden.

Interview: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-
interview-...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-
with-us-president-barack-obama-a-1122008.html)

~~~
dllthomas
That's baffling. It's happened before multiple times, and Obama really should
know that. Anyone have a conjecture as to what's going on there? Does he in
fact not know? Is he somehow confused? Is he just lying? Were the previous
examples secretly invalid? Is there a meaningful distinction between this case
and those?

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vuanotino
>"Having put friends of mine, friends of yours who serve in the military today
an enormous risk because of the information he stole and then released to
foreign powers," Pompeo added.

I would like to see a good rebuttal to this which is not "the end justifies
the means".

~~~
exabrial
I still don't understand why Obama isn't held accountable for this? Certainly
this started under the Bush administration, but I find it hard to believe he
was not complacent in the continuance of spy programs that spied on Americans
without warrants.

~~~
frenchy
Because very few Americans actually care.

They tortured prisoners of war during Bush's administration and no one was
held accountable for that.

------
mason240
.

~~~
orik
Has been officially announced.

[https://www.greatagain.gov/news/president-elect-donald-j-
tru...](https://www.greatagain.gov/news/president-elect-donald-j-trump-
selects-us-senator-jeff-sessions-attorney-general-lt-gen-michael.html)

------
flycaliguy
I guess this is a conspiracy theory...

But I've actually come around to the belief that Snowden has always worked for
the CIA. This was a turf war job by the CIA against the NSA that had the bonus
effect of striking fear into the world's internet users.

Ed worked for the CIA before NSA and there are some interesting ties between
Glen Greenwald and US's sponsored propaganda services.

If you are interested in diving into this pool of mystery, Dave Emory's radio
program, this episode for example, is a good start.
[http://spitfirelist.com/for-the-
record/ftr-924-technocratic-...](http://spitfirelist.com/for-the-
record/ftr-924-technocratic-fascism-the-high-profile-hacks-and-the-obverse-
oswald-update-on-the-adventures-of-eddie-the-friendly-spook/)

~~~
dogma1138
So in your mind the CIA would implant a mole that would literally steal the
NSA's playbook and 100,000's of documents, set of to China, then find and
asylum in Russia and keep the most damning documents under a kill switch?

The NSA is already bigger than the CIA, it kinda always was, regardless of
what the CIA thinks about it they would not cause irreversible damage to US
national security and potentially hand Russia enough material to push their
SIGINT and Cyber capabilities forward by at least a decade.

By all accounts Snowden has a considerably higher chance of being a Russian
mole than a CIA agent.

~~~
flycaliguy
Thanks for the reply. I'm new to spy stuff and I'm perhaps to open to kooky
theories.

I guess my thinking is that the CIA has generations of international
manipulation under it's belt and the NSA has become a rising star in the
internet era. It seems to me that the NSA would start stumbling into some
pretty shady CIA business, stuff that the CIA would rather keep to itself.

~~~
dogma1138
Intelligence agencies might be "shady" but they still tend to work for the
interests of the country.

Regardless on what ego trip you think they are on they aren't going to
jeopardise US national security to settle a score with an organization which
is 10-20 times their size just because the cold war is over.

It's like saying that the CIA doesn't like the fact that most VISINT is now
run by the NRO so they'll blow up satellite launches this is pretty absurd.

The funny part is that the CIA has a cyber program also, and it's pretty
advanced by all accounts the kinetic payload for Stuxnet and a few other cyber
attacks in which the US took part off or lead on it's own came from the CIA
not the NSA.

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Overtonwindow
I don't think Snowden should be killed, but I do agree he should be prosecuted
and jailed for life. He committed treason. The reason is moot. I know many
will disagree, but he should answer for his actions. Let a court - non-
military that is - decide.

~~~
nickbauman
For it to be treason evidence would have to show that Snowden acted on behalf
of a foreign power. Espionage requires that Snowden acted as a spy and gave or
sold secrets to another party (presumably not a foreign power or adversary).
Snowden gave his vetted information to an American journalist and a British
journalist. You would have a hard time making either charge actually stick.
But I'm certain the US government would ruin his life thoroughly regardless.

~~~
meowface
You're providing the definition for espionage, not treason. Snowden is
undoubtedly guilty of treason. I think he should be pardoned or given only a
light sentence, but it's definitely treason.

