
Interview with Laura Poitras - hotgoldminer
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/01/laura-poitras-on-finding-edward-snowden-obama-s-tainted-legacy-and-oliver-stone-s-snowden-film.html
======
oconnor0
"That’s the stuff that drives me crazy—this response of more violence and more
war to make us all safer actually creates more violence." \- I hope that one
day we realize this is true.

~~~
sigzero
Radical Islam will always hate and try and kill. That is not going to stop
even if everyone realizes that statement is true.

~~~
nitrogen
Religion is indeed a powerful motivator, and interpreted certain ways is very
dangerous. However, we don't do ourselves any favors by pushing sympathetic
moderates towards extremism by waging wars that only serve to open a power
vacuum.

The world would be safer without religions that deny the rights of others to
exist, and would also be safer if violence hadn't been used to encourage more
membership in those religions that promote violence.

~~~
bostik
> _However, we don 't do ourselves any favors by pushing sympathetic moderates
> towards extremism by waging wars that only serve to open a power vacuum._

The law of unintended consequences is a tricky beast. I have pasted this link
before, but it bears repeating. It's thorny by design, and happens to snide at
US - but they are certainly not the only ones who have succesfully created
their own enemies. Usually by supporting and funding earlier allies.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4H_E8b-qmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4H_E8b-qmo)

IIRC Iran was a massive source of counterfeit US dollars in the 1980's and
early 1990's. The reason? The last Shah of Persia was supported by the US and
was even provided with a mint-quality printing press. [0][1] When he fled the
country after the 1979 uprising, the printing press was left behind.

0: [http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/17960/did-usa-
se...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/17960/did-usa-send-federal-
reserve-system-officers-to-iran-to-print-cash-for-iranian-o)

1:
[http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-02/news/mn-1906_1_counte...](http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-02/news/mn-1906_1_counterfeit-
bills)

EDIT: made quote appear in italics

------
slg
Poitras says "the reporting we’ve done has all been filtering what’s in the
public interest versus what’s operational" yet in the same interview reveals
"the communication flow for the drone system all goes through Rammstein, so
it’s part of the nerve center. The controls are elsewhere, but it all runs
through fiber optic cables that go in and out of Rammstein" How is it in the
public interest to know that all drone communication flows through a specific
base especially considering how valuable that fact might be to someone who
would want to ground our drone fleet?

That is my only problem with Snowden and how these things are being reported.
It started out with valid whistle blowing but there are plenty of real
operational national secrets that are being revealed in the process. If
Snowden simply stuck to the NSA's overreach in domestic spying, it would be
much harder for politicians and the like to call him a traitor and marginalize
these issues.

~~~
secfirstmd
"If Snowden simply stuck to the NSA's overreach in domestic spying"

On behalf of the other 6.7 billion people on this spinning green ball,
thankfully he didn't. We have rights too.

~~~
slg
>We have rights too.

Not under the US Constitution which is what governs the NSA. That has been one
of the main features of government throughout history. They put their own
people's rights above the rights of foreigners. EDIT: And doing the opposite
will generally be viewed as treason.

I am honestly not aware of anything that was revealed that would violate any
international treaty the US agreed to, but will definitely listen if you have
examples. I also have a hard time believing that any other country with the
capability to do the type of international spying the US does wouldn't do the
exact same thing (or isn't already).

~~~
danieldk
_I am honestly not aware of anything that was revealed that would violate any
international treaty the US agreed to, but will definitely listen if you have
examples._

If something is not restricted by international treaties, it does not mean
it's ethically ok to do so. I can understand that the US would push the
boundaries when it comes to enemies. But it is utterly painful what it has
done to so-called allies.

Europe has a lot of historical debt to Canada and the US. However, 'betrayal'
is the word that comes up describing what many Europeans feel.

~~~
slg
>If something is not restricted by international treaties, it does not mean
it's ethically ok to do so

This is where I think we get into problems. You seem to be suggesting that
people should be allowed to reveal classified national secrets that are legal
both nationally and internationally if they find them unethical. I think this
is a dangerous precedent to set. Different people will have wildly different
views on what is ethical when it comes to war and espionage. That is why it is
important to codify these things into laws and international treaties.

~~~
danieldk
_You seem to be suggesting that people should be allowed to reveal classified
national secrets that are legal both nationally and internationally if they
find them unethical. [...] Different people will have wildly different views
on what is ethical when it comes to war and espionage._

Definitely.

 _That is why it is important to codify these things into laws and
international treaties._

But treaties (as we have seen in this case) often lag significantly.

In the end it is the judgement and the responsibility of the leaker. In this
case, I think Snowden made a good call. For many reasons: e.g. the world had
the right to know that virtually all internet traffic is tapped or tappable
and that cryptography was intentionally weakened. Even if the US is your
friend, that makes you vulnerable to criminal organizations and states that
are not allies.

------
konradb
I found it odd when she said

> I was destroying the physical media, because you can’t encrypt SD cards.

Does she mean they don't come with built-in encryption? I'm curious as to why
you couldn't just save an encrypted file or encrypted container to an SD card.

edit: aaah, camera. I got the wrong end of the stick. Thanks!

~~~
vidarh
She is talking about the SD cards in her camera, presumably. I don't know if
you can get cameras that supports encrypting the images as they're written,
but it's not unreasonable that she wouldn't have one, and not unreasonable
that she'd be reluctant to trust whether or not formatting/overwriting the SD
card would be sufficient to prevent recovery.

~~~
dublinben
This sounds like a great unmet opportunity to create a camera for journalists
that encrypts every picture to a public key that only your editor (presumably
in a safe location) has the private key to decrypt.

~~~
marcosdumay
And instantly uploads it (or at least, as soon as the camera is plugged to a
phone).

~~~
vidarh
That part you can handle with a Transcend or Eyefi wifi-enabled SD-card. The
Transcend cards have also been thoroughly hacked so they can be fairly easily
customized.

------
ikm3451
Most of the geopolitical analysis usually ignores the imminent public global
preeminence of the astonishing economical power achieved by the Saudi guys +
close allies in the close future. Not to mention how that economical power
could look like in 100 years from now.

It is almost certain that this power it is currently already shaping many
geopolitical events from the backstage.

Many think these new awesome amounts of money will just vanish after all the
oil is gone, but that's not true. The money, most of it, it's already invested
in many economical infrastructures around the world, the Saudí sphere of
influence has probably similar chances to vanish in the next couple of hundred
years as any of the current superpowers (US, Russia, China, etc.).

So many current superpower certainly need to comply with requests from those
"new" kids on the block. Like it or not.

And many should look there for reasons to send troops where nobody wants to
send them, or for to start wars without any public reasonable cause.

------
cryoshon
Mediocre interview, I think. Nothing really groundbreaking asked or answered
with depth.

That said, I agree with her when she says that these two decades of war and
terror we've inflicted on the world will be seen as dark times.

I say two decades because we've already been through 13 years, and only now
are starting to show the faintest hints of slowing down the rampage abroad and
the totalitarianism at home.

~~~
happyscrappy
The fascist West is no better than Russia or China. All Europeans, Americans,
Canadians etc should be ashamed.

~~~
cryoshon
I wouldn't go nearly that far.

Russia doesn't even maintain the slightest veneer of democracy or civic
empowerment, and China doesn't really have the capacity to enforce complete
compliance from its massive population yet.

~~~
DasIch
That actually makes the position of the US far worse. The US claims to be good
in some way, to care about freedom and human rights while at the same time
they couldn't care less.

China, Russia, Iran and other such countries - no matter what you may think
about their policies - can at least be said to be honest.

That doesn't make them good but it does show that the US isn't better, in fact
they are quite a bit worse.

~~~
happyscrappy
The entire West is working together on intel. You can argure that Europe,
Canada etc. are incompetent and weak but you can't argue that they are
innocent. They are deeply complicit. But that narrative doesn't work very
well.

------
abandonliberty
Does Snowden's legal fund actually have under 9000$?
[https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/6mzUd](https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/6mzUd)

Seems legitimate, but that's crazy to me. Maybe they don't count everything?

~~~
csandreasen
Why does he need a legal fund if he has no intention of returning to the US
and facing trial? What does that money actually go to?

~~~
mschuster91
> Why does he need a legal fund if he has no intention of returning to the US
> and facing trial?

Because stuff like dealing with Russian immigration law and maybe also
negotiating with the USA _does_ require a lawyer?

And for the question why it's only $9k, the Wau Holland Foundation also
accepts bank transfers which won't show up there.

~~~
csandreasen
If he's using it for Russian immigration, it shouldn't be advertised as a
legal defense fund.

------
jordigh
Can we fix the URL without the Google redirect? It should go to:

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/01/laura-
poitr...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/01/laura-poitras-on-
finding-edward-snowden-obama-s-tainted-legacy-and-oliver-stone-s-snowden-
film.html)

~~~
pfortuny
Yes, I thought it was some kind of google research.

~~~
hotgoldminer
My b. Won't let me edit the link. Suppose I could delete and repost, but might
compromise the comments section. Unless there's a riot, I say keep it as is?

~~~
jordigh
It's really a request for the mods. I believe they can amend urls.

------
nihaody
"You can't encrypt SD cards."

Right there she throws any accountability that she has any idea what she's
talking about regarding encryption out the window.

~~~
baddox
I assumed that she just meant that consumer cameras cannot write encrypted
data directly onto SD cards. It's not precise technical phrasing, to be sure,
but I wouldn't conclude anything so broad from just that sentence.

