
Snowden Calls Russian-Spy Story “Absurd” - nmc
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/snowden-calls-russian-spy-story-absurd.html#entry-2000000002587790
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smoyer
I'm going to end up on some NSA watch list but ...

At some point these elected and unelected idiots in government are going to
have to recognize that most of the american public (referring to US citizens)
is coming to view him as a hero. And Obama, who was supposed to be "for the
people, by the people" has done nothing to dismantle the programs put in place
by previous administrations or to even curtail advances during the six years
of his "kingship".

I love my country, but how can I not be disillusioned with my government?

~~~
forktheif
Honestly, I think the majority American's are apathetic and don't care one way
or the other.

Of those that do care, I've seen just as many saying he should be shot, as
those that say he's a hero.

~~~
eli
According to a Pew survey, a majority of Americans disapprove of both Snowden
and the NSA.

~~~
Shivetya
and the majority disapprove of Congress, how is that working out for us?

Honestly disapproval means nothing as apparently none of the mentioned have
done enough to sufficiently get people off their butts. Well the Republicans
offended a lot of their conservative base to cause a splinter group, but as
whole most Americans are completely satisfied as verbally only expressing
disapproval.

As in, doing whatever requires no effort or the least amount of it.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
What are they supposed to do? A large (in american politics terms) group of
people tried really hard to get 'hope and change' elected and look at what
that did?

By 'get people off their butts' what do you mean exactly? Not patronizing,
just curious what you think a solution would be, other than trying to get
someone you believe in elected (to president in the above case). Are you
suggesting some sort of revolt or more physical action than campaigning and
voting?

It seems that there really isn't much option for change as far as actual
politics go... As South Park noted, you usually get the choice between A Giant
Douche and A Turd Sandwich.

~~~
masmullin
"What are they supposed to do?"

For a starter, watch Lawerence Lessig @google talk
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc)

Get off your butts and vote independent. For those who claim that you're
throwing your vote away reply with "No, you're throwing YOUR vote away."

~~~
ItendToDisagree
That's all well and good, but why do you think that an independent candidate
can make a difference? Particularly in an entrenched 2 party system, that
would likely marginalize them to the extreme, and can barely make progress on
its own? If we could somehow vote to have more than 2 parties, I'd be all
about that, but it seems highly unlikely given the current state of things.

I agree it would be a change but how can you be certain that independent
'party' person will be any better than the previous crop of Rs and Ds?
Especially (and some may call this tin-foil hattery) if there is a massive
surveillance regime in place that is digging up (or can dig up) dirt on any
politician for blackmail?

~~~
masmullin
Most of the people I talk to say things like "I would vote for this
independent candidate because I believe in his ideals and his statements. But
I cant vote for him because it's like throwing my vote away."

IE People in my circles generally vote against democrats or against
republicans (actually Im Canadian so it's more like vote against Liberals vs
against Conservatives... but you get the idea). They dont care about the
person their voting for, they are voting to keep someone out.

My concern is that the two major parties are basically the same, so the
dichotomy isn't rep vs dem; it's voting for what you believe in vs voting for
what you don't believe in. If you vote for what you dont believe in, you are
truly throwing away your vote.

There is no proof that an indy would be better than mainstream, but politics
is never about proof, and always about trust. You have to trust that the
person you're voting for will do whats right for you. If you get your trust
broken, that's a different kettle of fish entirely.

If you truly favour one politician in the mainstream, then by all means vote
for them. But if you're just voting against someone, you are throwing your
vote away.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
Agreed on all points really. :)

I personally believe the 2 party system in general is broken and without major
reform it will continue to be garbage in, garbage out

------
belorn
No one working with computer security or research should take the allegations
seriously. They have no substance, and are as believable as claims that NSA
can break RSA, or that they have built some Quantum computer and can break all
crypto in the world.

I would really like to hear tptacek take a scientific approach in a comment
about this. Is it a likely scenario that Russia intelligence could recruit,
contact and provide help to an NSA employee without NSA knowing about it?
Without NSA having any trace what so ever (in contrast to Manning‎ and his
chat conversations)? If Snowden sold information, is it believable that such
trade could happen without NSA finding any incriminating evidence after-the-
fact?

Same goes for credibly shown any harm to persons or national security. Is NSA
so incompetent that a half year later, they can't find a single documented
case of a person dieing, U.S. informers having to flee, or facilities being
broken in to? The number of documents is massive, so surely, if they were
provided to Russia or china, some verifiable damages should have happened by
now?

I ask, which side should a scientific and rational mind side with. I would
pick what ever is the most probable chain of events, and leave conspiracy
theories to be argued by people with political agendas.

~~~
tptacek
_Is it a likely scenario that Russia intelligence could recruit, contact and
provide help to an NSA employee without NSA knowing about it?_

Yes? Very yes? But stop assuming you know what I think about Snowden. I find
the idea that Snowden was literally an FSB mole to be far-fetched. I think he
did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do (I think he
was probably wrong about a lot of what he did, though).

Basically, my problem is with the narrative fallacy. I find that most people's
thinking about stories like these latches immediately to whatever makes the
most sense as a story. "Snowden is a hero who was driven to leak exactly the
right information by a system that was utterly disinterested in abuse reports
and who will now lead the charge to abolish the NSA". Fiction. "Snowden is an
agent of the shadow Soviet government who was charged with infiltrating the US
government so he could help sabotage the world's last remaining superpower."
Fiction.

Reality is almost always messy and incomprehensible. The Snowden situation has
all the hallmarks of _not_ being a clean good-versus-evil narrative.

~~~
belorn
Its nice to see, that once you talk from the point of a Software security
person, you see the fiction from what it is. Fiction.

I do not think you would answer different, but your recent comment at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094408](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094408)
showed an identical speculative narration as in this article. Speculations
that portraits a good-versus-evil narrative.

Reality is indeed messy and incomprehensible, which is why it do not need all
that additional speculations. Talking about Russian intelligence, China agents
stealing documents, and Snowden providing wholesale access to intelligence
services is simply fiction until more details is reveled. Nothing more.

~~~
tptacek
I don't understand what you're saying at all here. "Doesn't need additional
speculations"? Speculation is _all that we have here_.

If you're saying "we should all shut up about Snowden", I'm right there with
you.

~~~
belorn
We should all shut up if there is no concrete information to talk about. I
agree there.

Now, if some authentic documents are leaked, those can and should be discussed
if they are related to the interest of HN readers. They are after all by by
definition, authentic and thus no longer speculations.

------
Sambdala
_“some of the things he did were beyond his technical capabilities. Raises
more questions. How he arranged travel before he left. How he was ready to
go—he had a ‘go bag,’ if you will.”_

A "go bag"? You mean a packed suitcase?

~~~
InclinedPlane
I think someone who willingly hacks the NSA is likely going to be smart enough
to have a go bag and a very firm "get the fuck out of dodge" plan always
sitting on the back burner. What person with an IQ over 100 wouldn't?

~~~
vidarh
It'd say something incredibly bad about NSA hiring practices if they hired
people stupid enough to not be extremely prepared before stealing data from
them... Personally I'd have been planning for situations where I couldn't even
return home if I'd been in Snowden's situation (and who knows, he might have).
Redundancy everywhere..

------
D9u

        Asked today to elaborate on his reasons for alleging that Snowden “had help,” Rogers, through a press aide, declined to comment. 
    

Typical unaccountability from one of our elected public servants. How about
letting your constituents know the truth?

~~~
rtpg
One of the greatest side effects of the internet is that statements like this
never disappear. Maybe it'll help people to cut down on saying silly things.

~~~
Mikeb85
Nah. People will just continue repeating falsehoods until they become the de
facto 'truth'...

~~~
squintychino
You mean Bill Gates won't give me $5000 if I hit share on this post? If
everyone is saying it, it has to be the truth. -mindset of the majority

------
graeme-lion
You know, it could be both, right?

He could be acting in the best interests of the FSB, with friends slightly
pushed by the FSB, and still think he's working alone.

Not all spies know they are spies. Not all assets are 100% willing assets who
signed on a piece of paper "I am aiding and abetting the Russians." Some of
the best assets that have ever existed in intelligence thought they were
working on their own and were working in their own interests.. those interests
just happened to line up with the controller's interests too.

------
iambateman
When the president says these leaks "shed more heat than light", he's been not
being specific.

If a single person had died as a result of Snowden's actions, the US
Government would trumpet the loss as the most tragic breach of national
security and call Snowden a murderer.

But they haven't. Because they can't.

~~~
josefresco
Why on earth would the US reveal to the world that Snowden's actions have hurt
the country, or an American in some way? Not the sort of thing you announce to
your potential adversaries if you want to be taken seriously or be _feared_ in
any way. It's also the same reason why we don't hear of the effectiveness of
the NSA's _spying_ efforts, it's just something they're not going to ever
publicly talk about as it relates directly to national security.

~~~
dreamfactory2
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/nsa-attacks-
thwarte...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/nsa-attacks-
thwarted_n_4148811.html)

 _Two weeks after Edward Snowden 's first revelations about sweeping
government surveillance, President Obama shot back. "We know of at least 50
threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the
United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany," Obama said during
a visit to Berlin in June. "So lives have been saved."

In the months since, intelligence officials, media outlets, and members of
Congress from both parties all repeated versions of the claim that NSA
surveillance has stopped more than 50 terrorist attacks. The figure has become
a key talking point in the debate around the spying programs.

Fifty-four times this and the other program stopped and thwarted terrorist
attacks both here and in Europe — saving real lives," Rep. Mike Rogers, a
Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said on the
House floor in July, referring to programs authorized by a pair of post-9/11
laws. "This isn't a game. This is real."

...

Earlier this month, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pressed Alexander on the issue
at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

"Would you agree that the 54 cases that keep getting cited by the
administration were not all plots, and of the 54, only 13 had some nexus to
the U.S.?" Leahy said at the hearing. "Would you agree with that, yes or no?"

"Yes," Alexander replied, without elaborating. _

I believe this has subsequently been revised to zero...

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pdkl95
It's pretty hilarious watching various shills deliver this "Snowden gave
Russia our secrets" propaganda. To believe that, you'd have to also believe
that Russia's FSB is totally incompetent and failed to notice all the changes
in the world of spying over the last couple decades.

There is simply no way the FSB - successors to the KGB - is that inept.

/bonus: if we are in bizzaro-world and the FSB somehow missed what their main
adversaries were up to over the last decade, then must not be much of a threat
and we can scale back all our expensive spy programs.

~~~
tdfx
FSB is actually the domestic successor to the KGB. The KGB's foreign
intelligence responsibilities were passed to an agency known as SVR [0].

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Service_(R...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Service_\(Russia\))

------
easy_rider
> He added, “It won’t stick…. Because it’s clearly false, and the American
> people are smarter than politicians think they are.”

He's wrong, it will stick. What makes it stick is not which story is told
first, its the one that's being told the most. In the end the media will just
be beating this story to absolute pulp and most Americans will probably
respond with absolute apathy towards the whole thing.

In EU we're just getting a good kick out of a classic spy story, and hope the
protagonist wins.

In the U.S. people are constantly drawn between two strongman caliber opinions
of what it means to be a true patriot. The "traitor" thing usually ticks off a
lot folks, and imho will just more quickly draws them towards that side of the
argument, just to be save.

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mtgx
Live Q&A in 5 hours:

[http://www.freesnowden.is/asksnowden/](http://www.freesnowden.is/asksnowden/)

~~~
masmullin
Akbar says, "It's a trap!"

------
leterter
Martians MAY have helped Snowden too!

