
Edward Snowden: Permanent Record - peterkelly
https://www.amazon.com/Permanent-Record-Edward-Snowden/dp/1250237238
======
apexalpha
I can't speak for the US but this man has shifted so much of the political
debate in my country and I think also in the EU in general. If you talked
about the massive surveillance from governments people tossed you aside as a
paranoid lunatic. After Snowden no one could ignore you anymore and privacy is
an aspect in any public debate.

~~~
mnm1
That's great to hear. Unfortunately, his actions haven't really done anything
in the US. I wish I could say otherwise, but I haven't seen a single thing
change. Privacy still isn't an issue that's on most people's radar. The
government still does what it did before and likely a lot more. I have a ton
of respect for Snowden, but he severely overestimated how much Americans care
about privacy, spying, surveillance, or anything like that they mostly can't
even understand.

~~~
nyolfen
encryption by default and privacy as an intrinsic good have been pervasive if
subtle shifts in the culture

~~~
tomschlick
Yup. Even the dark fiber back haul networks used by data centers that were
once thought to be private are now being encrypted (Google, Microsoft, etc
have mentioned this).

This is exactly what PRISM was, not taking data from servers, but tapping into
the data networks between them and siphoning off whatever the NSA wanted. And
it just so happens that to mirror a fiber optic line you use a crystal prism.

------
sleepychu
Customers who bought this item also bought

\- ALFA AWUS036NEH Long Range WIRELESS 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi USBAdapter

\- Yubico - YubiKey 5 NFC - Two Factor Authentication USB and NFC Security
Key, Fits USB-A Ports and Works with Supported NFC Mobile Devices

EDIT:formatting

~~~
elbasti
Is it even safe to buy yubikeys on Amazon given the counterfeit problem?

~~~
jolan
You can verify whether you received a genuine key at:

[https://www.yubico.com/genuine/](https://www.yubico.com/genuine/)

~~~
OrgNet
https is not safe against the government....

~~~
OrgNet
... because they can force CAs to give them the keys to decrypt all traffic.

~~~
NobodyNada
That's not true, since CAs don't _have_ "the keys to decrypt all traffic."
They have the ability to sign website operators' public keys, but they do not
have access to the website operators' private keys.

Of course, the CA could also issue a fake certificate with attacker-controlled
keys, but if they tried to do so, they would get caught by Certificate
Transparency.

------
stef25
Before his story broke there was an AMA on Reddit about govt surveillance, I'm
90% this was Snowden. Does anyone else remember this?

The person spoke of these things happening in ways we "couldn't imagine".
People were guessing at what he meant and his responses were mostly "it's much
worse". One redditor posted some highly technical speculations to which the
author responded "you're getting close".

Reddit's search isn't good enough to retrieve this but I would LOVE to find
that post again.

~~~
INTPenis
Funny enough Google has great tools for searching within that time period.
Snowden broke around Q1 2013 right? So I tried searching from Q4 2012 to Q1
2014 and the first thing that came up on government surveillance was actually
this[1].

Which I assume is not what you meant but it's pretty early in the timeline of
Snowden's revelations.

Setting the timeline to 2012-01-01 - 2013-07-03 is just before Greenwald broke
Snowden's story and those results are very different.

Interspersed are results that were likely updated in Google's index after july
3rd so there are some false positives so to speak.

You'd have to browse more of those results. I've only got 3 pages in.[2]

Edit: Actually this IAmA from Cory Doctorow could be it.[3] He's definitely in
the know about what the government is capable of and speaking from that
experience. Which pretty much predicts Snowden's revelations.

Of course I remember when AT&T was implicated in mass surveillance by a former
employee back around 2004, that story just got lost in the ether.

1\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_snowden_laura_poitras_and_glenn/)

2\.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=site:reddit.com+%22IAmA%22+g...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site:reddit.com+%22IAmA%22+government+surveillance&hl=en&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/2012,cd_max:7/4/2013&ei=TyJ5XeX6EICDk74P-JawyAo&start=10&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwil3pjemcnkAhWAwcQBHXgLDKkQ8NMDCJkB&biw=1527&bih=1336)

3\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11bm9i/iam_cory_docto...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11bm9i/iam_cory_doctorow_writer_blogger_and_activist_ama/)

~~~
stef25
It was an anonymous AMA, author specifically stated he was "inside" so not
Doctorow

------
octosphere
I'm going to 'recycle' an older comment of mine, pertaining to the comments
about the book. The original comment can be found here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583363)

I was annoyed that someone called Ed Snowden a 'Traitor'. Hopefully it gets a
bit more recognition in this thread

__________________________________

For me he made the Great Game of Privacy a lot fairer. You should read the
excellent entry on Wikipedia about the aftermath of the leaks[0]. If the leaks
meant that privacy-loving folk went 'dark' in light of the leaks, then this is
a net plus. Snowden's actions possibly hindered NSA in catching undesirables,
but it's a small price to pay for a bolstered Internet and privacy-respecting
comms. And who's to say that the apparatus even worked that well in foiling
the efforts of plotters? Bill Binney[1] consistently drives his message home
that the NSA's surveillance apparatus is very inefficient at foiling plots,
and I agree with him.

Even if it stopped one plot in all the time of its existence, it's still an
enormous effort and an enormous amount of money spent just to foil one plot.
Old fashioned police work is better at foiling plots because it doesn't have
to rely on big data algorithms sifting through the noise of Internet traffic
(most of which is innocuous). Old fashioned methods work because they employ
simple detective work - it doesn't need the NSA at every choke point and
decrypting countless crypto.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_Effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_Effect)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelligence_official%29)

~~~
tomatotomato37
Wow, I thought Binney was just some random analysist news shows brought on to
discredit the 2016 hacking thing. Didn't realize he was the key catalyst for
the Snowden leak after the government shafted him when he tried to reveal the
same NSA overreach using the "proper" channels.

~~~
ev0lv
Bill Binney is an American patriot and a hero.

------
AtlasBarfed
This made me realize I have heard ZERO news on Assange after his arrest, and
the likelihood of him being tortured and rendered and railroaded of course
means our nation (US) of laws and rights is a sham.

Don't tell me it's boring, this should be a sideshow for the media like OJ.
Rape trial? Russian meddling? Little guy vs the government? International
intrigue?

Crickets.

A truly independent media would be tracking his case to make sure due process
is followed, but we all know what media is in the age of corporate
conglomeration and oligarchy.

~~~
nabla9
He is sitting his 50 week sentence in HM Prison Belmarsh in UK and has access
to lawyers. Media is tracking his case. There is nothing to report.

There are people who spew up conspiracy theories on the spot when they have
not heard anything, from pure ignorance, yet they speak ill of mainstream
media.

~~~
IronWolve
Hes also sitting in the medical ward due to multiple issues, including mental
issues. I dont think the news wants to report on his declining health.

~~~
AlexCoventry
How did you learn that?

------
hsavit1
Any links posted to amazon.com from HN should be to smile.amazon.com -> .5% of
your purchase will be donated to a clarity of your choice.

~~~
irq11
Better yet, don’t buy the book, and donate the money you would have spent to
charity.

~~~
Zelphyr
Can't we do both?

~~~
irq11
Nope. Because then you could donate the price of two books, and not buy one!

------
matt_morgan
Or how about from a library.

[https://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=edward...](https://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=edward+snowden+permanent+record)

~~~
microcolonel
Given that there are like... seven copies in U.S. libraries, I think that's
probably terrible advice.

~~~
jrochkind1
Since Amazon says it's not available until September 17th and you can only
pre-order it now, I think probably even those 7 are records inaccurately
registered before the book is actually there, and there are probably 0! Or did
some libraries get the book earlier than Amazon can? Possible, but my guess is
not.

~~~
microcolonel
Fair enough! I was thrown off the fact that it hasn't been released by the
Worldcat page saying that there were three editions. I assumed that it was not
possible to have data quality issues of that magnitude.

~~~
jrochkind1
Oh, Worldcat data quality is definitely very problematic.

At it's best, it definitely doesn't represent _every_ library copy.

It requires libraries to register their copies with the central database. All
of these libraries are different organizations with different software, at
varying stages of 'legacy', trying to interoperate with each other, usually
without very well-resourced IT teams. Then WorldCat has got to figure out when
copies at different libraries are copies of the "same" thing, and what "same"
means.

The worldcat database is very useful, but it certainly has data quality
problems.

Amazon also says "4 formats and editions": hardcover, paperback, kindle,
audiobook. Technically I'd say these are "formats" not "editions" \-- the text
is the same in each, although you might consider the audiobook a separate
"edition" maybe, as it's not text at all, it's a whole different sort of
thing. (And the Amazon UI hides it behind a 'more' link, although still just
referring to the whole list as "4 formats and editions").

I'd guess Worldcat knows 3 of those 4 -- maybe all except kindle. Worldcat,
like Amazon, is not really capable of distinguishing "editions" from
"formats".

I'm not sure I'd consider the "3 editions" a "data quality" error exactly, in
this case. It does point to some of the complexities of figuring out what's
out there in the bibliographic universe, and how to model it in a consistent
way that makes sense to users. (What _is_ an edition vs a format anyway?).
Amazon gets data and corrections from people trying to sell books there
providing some data entry/correction labor for free. And Amazon's website and
data are _core_ to their business. As well as from other DBs like ISBN.
Worldcat has to try to piece things together from a bunch of disorganized
under-funded non-IT-expert nonprofits, who may consider "getting good data to
WorldCat" not the highest among competing priorities, along with other DBs
like ISBN.

Neither WorldCat nor Amazon are _great_ at determining "what separate
editions/formats exist of this thing, and how do they relate to each other" in
the general case. Cause it's a hard problem. Amazon does well enough to sell
books apparently. They each have strengths and weaknesses. For things
published decades before Amazon existed and/or no longer in print, WorldCat
will do better in some ways.

~~~
microcolonel
Maybe the long term solution is to put together an open source library
database package that serves the needs of 90% of libraries without
modification, and make it convenient to make high quality data available.

~~~
dredmorbius
Worldcat / OCLC is pretty close to this. It's not fully open source, but it's
widely used and pretty open.

(The fact that the API isn't publicly accessible without registration and
payment is a major annoyance.)

~~~
jrochkind1
Yeah, at one point OCLC was actually being kind of litigious with trying to
make sure their db was _not_ open. I think they got over that, at about when
they realized nobody actually really wanted it so much anymore. But it's
debatable whether it's "pretty open" at present.

LibraryThing was sort of another attempt, that sort of still exists.

It's just a really hard thing to do, that takes a lot of resources to do well,
and nobody's managed to figure out a funding model.

I don't think "Just create an open access database anyone can edit, like
wikipedia but data, and books" will work (and actually,
[that's]([https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Books](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Books))
been tried too), but you can try to start another project if you want.

There are a handful of projects with various business models and degrees of
openness of data that have tried or are still trying to do this. For whatever
reasons (and we can debate em), they haven't really taken off or been
succesful. shrug.

------
eeZah7Ux
We were called "paranoid lunatics" even when we started speaking about ECHELON
in the '90ies.

Same with the clipper chip. Same with TPM/DRM/ME. Same with Internet
centralization.

It's worth asking why the general public keeps trusting authorities and
distrusts techies, even those among us with a career in security.

~~~
qroshan
I'll trust techies the day they actually are in the job of protecting people
and have to deal with real danger of bad actors continuously trying to blow up
Western democracies.

It's funny the tech/security/sysadmin guys complain that their work is
appreciated only when things go wrong, but fail to give the same benefit of
the doubt for US law and order.

~~~
Forbo
You mean this "US law and order"?:

Myron W. Orfield, Jr., Deterrence, Perjury, and the Heater Factor, supra note
13, at 83:

> Respondents, including prosecutors, estimate that police commit perjury
> between 20% and 50% of the time they testify on Fourth Amendment issues.

It should also be noted that many of these respondents did not consider lying
at a suppression hearing perjury, infra text accompanying note 47, which would
have the effect of deflating these percentages.

------
Noxmiles
Does anyone know how much money he gets from every book / ebook? I think
buying it is, at least for some people, very much a support Snowden thought.

~~~
roasm
The publisher Metropolitan Books looks like it's part of Macmillan so they're
likely a traditional publisher, which suggests he got a pretty healthy advance
on the book because of his fame.

I would also guess that even if he sold enough books to earn out the advance,
his take on each incremental book is really small as the publisher took most
of the financial risk with the advance itself.

~~~
madkangas
(Macmillan employee)

Confirming, it is a Macmillan title. Metropolitan Books is a Macmillan
imprint.

[https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250237231](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250237231)

------
robmiller
Seems odd that every picture of Edward Snowden shows one of the nose pads on
his glasses missing.

~~~
saalweachter
That does bug me now, having just looked at a lot of pictures, but it does
appear you can find pictures where this is not the case, eg,
[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/national-security-
age...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/national-security-agency-
contractor-edward-snowden-release-memoir-1228550)

~~~
robmiller
I did a photo search too and decided to use "every" anyway. But hey, I got you
to investigate it yourself and you'd have to agree on "most."

~~~
saalweachter
It also made me stumble across his interview from a couple years back talking
about the "why" but I didn't dig enough to find out of the unbroken glasses
are purely a time-series thing, or if he finally got tired of it and got his
glasses fixed / got new glasses.

------
empath75
I think the administration badly, badly mishandled Snowden and Assange, and
allowed Russia to coopt them by isolating and threatening them. If they had
treated them as whistleblowers and journalists (even if they had nefarious
motivations), they could have kept them in "the west" instead of driving them
into the arms of Russia. I don't believe that Assange was a Russian agent at
the beginning but he was surely one by the time of the 2016 election.

There's a reason we have laws around a free speech and a free press-- they
make the country stronger, even if they make it harder to govern.

~~~
slg
I think you do Snowden a disservice when you lump him in with Assange. Snowden
you can easily argue is a whisleblower. You can't argue that with Assange
since he doesn't have first hand knowledge of what he is leaking and instead
actively recruits people to feed him information to leak. He also seemingly
encourages people to commit crimes to get more information for him. Snowden
did that all himself. In addition, Assange does not have the high bar that
information must meet in order to warrant a leak. He instead leaks everything
that he has that fits his political goals. A whistleblower needs to be more
precise and targeted with what they disclose. Snowden gave his documents to
journalists to sift through, judge, redact, and publish. Assange just throws
everything up on his website. Lastly, like multiple people in these comments
mentioned, there is the question of their relationship to Russia. Knowingly or
not, Assange has clearly been used as a tool of Russian Intelligence. Snowden
being compromised is more of a conspiracy theory at this point with little
(but some) real world evidence.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> _I think you do Snowden a disservice when you lump him in with Assange._

Correct. Snowden is a Whistle-blower. Assange is a journalist, though perhaps
not the kind Snowden would have trusted his stolen data with.

~~~
bdhess
I think calling Assange a journalist is very debatable. He certainly doesn’t
comply with the ethical norms of the profession.

~~~
Synaesthesia
People say this on this basis of hearsay, like he “selectively released
documents” for which there is no evidence.

~~~
slg
One huge ethical red flag for Assange and Wikileaks is their view on redacting
documents. They published numerous details that a traditional journalistic
outlet would never make public include the names of informants. This almost
certainly resulted in people being killed.

~~~
BeetleB
> They published numerous details that a traditional journalistic outlet would
> never make public include the names of informants.

Valerie Plame would like to have a word with you.

If we keep going down this road we'd end up with No True Scotsman. The reality
is "traditional" journalists have done this - Assange is not an outlier in
this regard. If we tolerate the "worst" of the traditional (which US society
clearly does), then we can't use this as an argument against Assange.

~~~
slg
>Valerie Plame would like to have a word with you.

I probably shouldn't have used the word "never", but the fact that the
Valieria Plame reveal was such a big deal is basically the exception that
proves the rule that it is highly unusual for a journalist to reveal this
information.

Assange is certainly an outlier in the number of people who he exposed and the
reason for exposing them. He reportedly said on the issue that "they're
informants. So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They
deserve it." [1] Maybe you think that is a No True Scotsman argument, but I
really can't imagine a well respected journalist showing such a complete lack
of concern for human life. A traditional journalist would generally required
some reason of tremendous value to justify putting those people's lives at
risk. Assange's reasoning instead appears to be "They deserve it."

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak#Info...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak#Informants_named)

~~~
BeetleB
> but the fact that the Valieria Plame reveal was such a big deal is basically
> the exception that proves the rule that it is highly unusual for a
> journalist to reveal this information.

It was a big deal because people wanted to score political points, not because
of a breach in standards. The more relevant point is the standing the
journalist still had in society - he did not lose his job for it, let alone be
prosecuted for it.

The quote you provide is taken out of context - at least from the Wiki page it
is _not_ clear if he is referring to the names that were leaked, as opposed to
the ones that they ultimately decided to redact. I suspect the latter because
it says "initially refused".

> but I really can't imagine a well respected journalist showing such a
> complete lack of concern for human life.

When you add the "well respected journalist", we really are in No True
Scotsman territory. If all you mean to say is "He is a lousy journalist," then
we have no disagreements. Without that qualifier, have you thought about
extreme views held by existing, famous journalists? How much of an outlier is
Assange compared to other "extreme" but established journalists?

------
pdm55
Another new book just published on data privacy: Tools and Weapons: The
Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age Hardcover – September 10, 2019 by
Brad Smith (Author), Carol Ann Browne (Author), Bill Gates (Foreword)
[https://www.amazon.com/Tools-Weapons-Promise-Peril-
Digital/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Tools-Weapons-Promise-Peril-
Digital/dp/1984877712)

~~~
dredmorbius
The contrast between Brad Smith's title, and Gates's _The Road Ahead_ (1996),
speaks worlds.

(Gates writes a foreward to Smith's book. I've not yet seen it.)

------
mengibar10
I wonder what if he would mention anything about 5G in the book. As far as I
understand, all the fuss US making against Huawei is actually due to its
(future) crippling of its eavesdropping capability. Not that 5G is a panacea
for that but Huawei is augmenting their equipments against such attacks, and
they will be the main supplier.

~~~
cwkoss
This is interesting. Does anyone have further reading to recommend about this?

~~~
mengibar10
[https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/09/article/huawei-calls-
the-u...](https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/09/article/huawei-calls-the-us-intel-
communitys-bluff/)

------
einpoklum
A bit ironic that it's suggested to us to buy the book through Amazon, a cloud
services provider for the CIA (and otherwise shady mega-corporation)

See:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-d...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-
details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/)

~~~
autoexec
Amazon controls so much of the internet that it's increasingly hard for anyone
to avoid them. The deal they struck is far more involved than your typical
company using AWS, but I wouldn't look to Amazon's customers to make any
assumptions about Amazon's motivations beyond their lust for more money.

The reality is that this book doesn't pose any meaningful threat to the US
government's mass surveillance programs and having impotent critiques of the
US Government openly available as opposed to outright banned gives us a false
sense of security in our freedoms.

------
jjtheblunt
I genuinely don't understand why Snowden is treated as more shocking than
things published in the open by James Bamford years earlier.

[https://www.amazon.com/James-
Bamford/e/B000APPIUM/ref=dp_byl...](https://www.amazon.com/James-
Bamford/e/B000APPIUM/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1)

------
dblohm7
Are his broken glasses just a prop at this point? Dude, you can buy new frames
in Russia!

------
OrgNet
"I’m going to refrain from publishing how exactly I went about my own
writing—my own copying and encryption—so that the NSA will still be standing
tomorrow." Ed being sarcastic?

------
Clubber
Just in case you read this, thanks, Edward Snowden. You left it all on the
line to help us. The fact that we're still talking about it 6+ years later
shows it's importance.

------
YeahSureWhyNot
Snowden is being prosecuted for being first to reveal things that everyone
knows now

------
terrycody
the 1st humanity king, we should remember!

------
OrgNet
anyway to avoid the middle man ?

~~~
simsla
Email him? He might send it to you for free. Or just pay the middleman, and
he'll get paid too.

------
ordinaryperson
Unpopular opinion destined to attract downvotes but: IMHO the NSA spying
program was outrageous...for the colossal waste of money and time it was.

First, if you're really worried about privacy, why is it not a DEFCON 1
outrage that state DMVs are selling your info to private investigators? [1] Or
if you're really worried about your personal liberty, isn't your local police
force a greater threat then NSA eavesdroppers?

Back in 2013 the NSA claimed it was spying on 29 petabytes of internet data
(out of 1826) a day [2], or 1.6%. That's both a trivial amount of overall
traffic and an insanely large dataset at the same time (since it accumulates
every day).

Isn't a big chunk of that traffic encrypted? Even if it's not, how do you find
terrorists in that data? Do they self-identify? Even if they use a trivial
substitution cipher ('cupcakes' instead of 'bombs') it would evade these
billion-dollar supercomputers.

To me the NSA's spying program was security theater akin to airport security:
expensive machines that don't even catch terrorists. They fail their own
internal tests 95% of the time! [3]. I personally would like to know what
algorithms the NSA was using to successfully identify terrorist data in
exobytes of (possibly encrypted) datasets. Sounds like billions spent on
airport scanners to me.

Finally, on a political level, Snowden seems like a massive hypocrite to me
for hiding in China, which harvests the organs of political prisoners [4] and
Russia, which routinely assassinates political opponents and journalists [5].
But he's mad that what, the US was reading his Gmail?

I realize he's super popular among the HN crowd and the libertarians for whom
all gov't surveillance is evil but I, for one, am not a Snowden admirer.
Downvote away.

[1] [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kxzq/dmvs-selling-
data-...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kxzq/dmvs-selling-data-private-
investigators-making-millions-of-dollars)

[2] [https://www.zdnet.com/article/nsa-hunger-
demands-29-petabyte...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/nsa-hunger-
demands-29-petabytes-of-data-a-day/)

[3] [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-
breaches-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-us-
airports-allowed-weapons-through-n367851)

[4] [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-
harvests...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-
organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646)

[5] [https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-shows-us-what-
happens-t...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-shows-us-what-happens-to-
enemies-of-the-people-bloodied-heads-murdered-reporters-poisoned-dissidents)

------
apercu
<RANT>US expatriates are the only expats in the world that have to file annual
taxes (and report foreign bank accounts). It's ridiculous for most of us (99%
are not tax exiles or tax evaders, we just left the USA for our own reasons).
</RANT>

I wonder if Snowden files taxes?

~~~
teddyuk
Can you give up your american passport and then stop or do you have to do it
for the rest of your life?

~~~
ummwhat
It costs over a grand to quit the club known as "citizenship" you're going to
want citizenship in wherever you reside first when you give up US citizenship
(you could choose to be stateless, but that makes more problems than it
solves). Doing this does not absolve you of existing debts in the eyes of the
IRS. And finally, you'll be interviewed at the consulate and if your stated
reason for giving up citizenship is "the overseas tax thing", you'll be denied
a visa if you ever want to visit the US again.

~~~
Intermernet
Apparently, you can run for any government office in a foreign state and it
immediately nullifies your US citizenship. I have only heard this as rumour,
and I don't have time to confirm / deny this, but it may be worth looking
into.

~~~
justforyou
>> I don't have time to confirm / deny this, but it may be worth looking into.

Then why take the time to post it?

~~~
mlrtime
Because it is a interesting avenue to investigate if someone wants to know
more.

~~~
dymk
Well you’re wrong so there’s that. You can’t give up your citizenship as a
result of running for a foreign office.

~~~
justforyou
>> Because it is a interesting avenue to investigate if someone wants to know
more.

Seems like an assumption about the value of other people's time vs. your own.

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fasinfranco
Customers who bought this item also bought: YubiKey

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onetimemanytime
IRS is counting your book sales Edward, CIA and FBI might be the least of your
worries ;)

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fb03
I don't think he's ever going to come back to the US. He would be arrested on
the spot.

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wannabcodr
Anyone have a link to steal and read the book for free? I don’t support his
cause but wouldn’t mind reading the book. Yes I’m admitting to intent to
pirating Ed Snowden’s book. It’s not like I’d be stealing sensitive military
secrets and selling them to Omidyar for a pledge up to $250MM. How many
Russian speaking people were in his orbit in Hawaii from 2011-2013? How many
of them had the operational capacity to pull off a conspiracy to guide Ed to
Mother Russia undetected?

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Synaesthesia
How about you answer some of your own questions.

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wannabcodr
1) I don’t have a clean link to the book

2) Yes Russian speaking folks are in our IC, military, private sector etc. and
are certain to have been in his orbit

3) someone could ask mr Omidyar

Given his connections to Booz and his level of intelligence (punahou grad
along with Obama etc) He could be a total patriot at heart and it would be
difficult to know the difference. Shit, maybe Pierre is a triple agent, a
regular Bond good guy. But I’ll tell ya when I heard he bought up the secrets
I was sure at that moment that he is either a total patriot or is part of a
conspiracy. Probably just an opportunist though. Kind of like the geniuses who
foresaw bitcoin’s rise.

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Synaesthesia
So, all speculation? I mean based on what he has released he's an american
patriot. I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary.

Of course the US govt will try smear him and cover up after he exposed their
actions.

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wannabcodr
It’s impossible to tell without access to the full trove. He could be
releasing things in a way that either minimizes or maximizes damage (or
anywhere in between) to the US.

Yes, we can only speculate. I’m not in the intelligence community and those
who are aren’t likely to voice things publicly.

The whole situation seems odd. A calculating genius spends months planning
what is ostensibly a haphazard plan to wind up in Russia supposedly not by
choice? Then Omidyar also in Hawaii and connected to Booz buys up the secrets.
Seems odd to me.

If Mr. Omidyar were patriotic maybe he would have bought up the secrets and
kept 100% of them private, thus extending the oath of secrecy that military
officers all take. Mr. Omidyar has come forward as an agent of the free press,
not as a sworn patriotic military officer. Difficult to tell his motivations
from the outside yet worthy of speculation.

