
The Intercept Shuts Down Access to Snowden Trove - howard941
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-intercept-shuts-down-access-to-snowden-trove
======
jaabe
It often amazes me how little Snowden changed. I mean, surveillance and
targeted misinformation campaigns is worse than our worst dystopian fiction
ever imagined, but no one really cares.

It’s getting worse too with more and more anti-encryption laws and
centralisation.

That being said, since the Snowden information isn’t changing the world, then
I can’t really fault anyone for not wanting to pay for hosting it.

~~~
tru3_power
I totally agree with this. Personally I think the reason for this is because a
lot of people don’t really comprehend what’s going on and can’t visualize the
level of surveillance that’s actually already in place (they don’t see
physical cameras/microphones everywhere).

~~~
e12e
> they don’t see physical cameras/microphones everywhere

Rather, they don't understand that cellphones that all of us provides that,
along with GPS tracking etc.

They _see_ the cameras, but they do not understand the implication...

~~~
markovbot
Except they don't see cameras. I've started pointing out surveillance cameras
to my more normie friends, who are frequently surprised.

~~~
noir_lord
You should see the horror on the faces of co-workers when I explain how data
aggregation works personally against them.

A lot of it is how you explain it in a way that relates to them.

You can get through to none-techies but you have to couch it in a way that
resonates.

People are slowly changing as well, ironically Facebook seems to be the one
that is making more people slowly question whether putting their entire life
out in public is worth it.

------
driverdan
Is anyone else disappointed by what The Intercept turned into?

When it was formed I expected it to be an honest, unbiased journalistic effort
that would expose people of different backgrounds to uncomfortable truths.
Instead it turned into editorials and blogging, with most posts filled with
strong, obvious bias that would never pass the editors at most mainstream
publications. Their biases are so strong and clear I'm sure they scare away at
least half of the political spectrum.

It's too bad because the topics and facts they report on are important and
interesting. There's no need for such strong bias.

~~~
petty_griper
It's clearly agenda-driven reporting, but it's that agenda is also very
clearly rooted in the facts they report.

Ironically, I think you may dislike it because it's exposed you to an
uncomfortable truth, which is that some political agendas are rooted in facts
and others are not.

~~~
driverdan
You're wrong, I agree with most of their opinions. I don't like the way they
present them with appeal to emotion, speculation, and opinion woven into their
reporting. It's unnecessary and a turnoff to those who don't share their
opinions who might be otherwise swayed by the facts.

------
peterkelly
I think that given the lack of reforms among five eyes governments in the
aftermath of the disclosures (and in fact examples of laws making things
worse), an appropriate course of action would be to dump the entire archive,
unredacted, for public consumption.

~~~
mtgx
Not only that, but the 5 Eyes alliance pushed through laws that would legalize
much of what was uncovered before anyone got any "bright ideas" to start
prosecuting the spies, or before the public started asking for such actions.

Now, they can lay back and say "look, it's all legal now" (even if much may
still be unconstitutional).

------
wtmt
From Glenn Greenwald’s tweet [1], which is quoted in this article:

> “Both Laura & I have full copies of the archives, as do others. The
> Intercept has given full access to multiple media orgs, reporters &
> researchers. I've been looking for the right partner - an academic
> institution or research facility - that has the funds to robustly publish.”

Now this news doesn’t sound all too bad. We probably need more people to host
it and/or make it available as torrent downloads. Even if interest has
reduced, there could still be more knowledge to gain from it.

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1106015482598043648](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1106015482598043648)

~~~
dsr_
There's really very little funding requirement, unless what Greenwald is
looking for is a salary for himself. I bet the Internet Archive would be happy
to publish it immediately.

~~~
Shank
So, I think a real issue is that it's not made clear how this archive exists.
In Citizenfour, it was made clear that Snowden specifically gave the documents
to journalists for the purposes of responsible disclosure and reporting. There
was the suggestion of publishing the archive in public with all data, but that
was shot down as it was too risky in Snowden's eyes.

So the archive is mostly a huge collection of documents that have to undergo
editing for opsec reasons, so as to not endanger actual people or reveal
enough that it might go from "journalism" to "espionage" that warrants a
greater release.

I don't believe the full archive was ever public. Instead, it was privately
held and being maintained by people for research and publication. The
Intercept winding this down signifies they no longer care to sift through or
maintain the documents. That means that the editing part is gone, and they
won't devote further resources internally to it. The decision to host the
documents isn't the issue -- moreso the maintenance, reporting, and sourcing.

~~~
dsr_
That was nearly six years ago. Secrets should have lifespans, and governments
are notoriously bad at ever deciding that a secret should be released.

------
908087
I think we would have had a much better chance of seeing Snowden make a
difference had he "happened" during a republican presidency. Many sports team
style democrats I knew who were flipping out about surveillance during the
last Bush administration quickly switched over to "having nothing to hide" and
calling Snowden a traitor because "their team" was in office at the time.

People rarely seem to have any actual principles they're willing to stand by
when tribalism comes into play.

------
lern_too_spel
Now The Intercept is for hosting Greenwald's petty feud with MSNBC talking
heads.

[https://theintercept.com/2018/07/08/msnbc-does-not-merely-
pe...](https://theintercept.com/2018/07/08/msnbc-does-not-merely-permit-
fabrications-against-democratic-party-critics-it-encourages-and-rewards-them/)

[https://theintercept.com/2019/03/03/msnbc-yet-again-
broadcas...](https://theintercept.com/2019/03/03/msnbc-yet-again-broadcasts-
blatant-lies-this-time-about-bernie-sanders-opening-speech-and-refuses-to-
correct-them/)

[https://theintercept.com/2019/01/07/nbc-and-msnbc-blamed-
rus...](https://theintercept.com/2019/01/07/nbc-and-msnbc-blamed-russia-for-
using-sophisticated-microwaves-to-cause-brain-injuries-in-u-s-diplomats-in-
cuba-the-culprits-were-likely-crickets/)

Etc., etc., etc.

~~~
insickness
Greenwald is one of the last remaining journalists out there who sincerely
criticize both the left and the right. While I disagree with a lot of what he
writes, I give him a huge amount of credit for it.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Greenwald is a political activist.

~~~
acct1771
Good journalists have to be, it seems.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
No. This is the sign of our times. And I might follow you, I might join your
club if you're an activist, but I will not read your news site and pay for it
if I want news. Activist opinions are free today.

------
antihero
Is there a raw archive available?

~~~
ColanR
Quick google search: [https://www.eff.org/nsa-
spying/nsadocs](https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/nsadocs)

~~~
Shank
This isn't the raw archive. It's just a collection of all of the released
documents from the archive and links to associated news articles that source
the archive or release documents from it. As far as I'm aware, you cannot
download a tarball or equivalent of the _entire raw archive_.

~~~
ColanR
Fair enough. What about this?

[https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/12034365/Ultimate_NSA_File_...](https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/12034365/Ultimate_NSA_File_archive_\(RAW_Docs___Fully_Snowden_Docs___NSA_D)

------
pcvarmint
[http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-
tally.htm](http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-tally.htm)

------
gigama
[https://ipfs.io](https://ipfs.io)

~~~
hombre_fatal
That's only cheaper if anyone decides to host it on their nodes, too. Might as
well just seed it with bittorrent.

------
rfugger
I feel like the advent of Trump has taken some of the urgency out of tearing
down the worst parts of the national security infrastructure, and probably
removed that as a possibility while he's around, since he seems to only want
to destroy what is good and functional. It's like not being able to worry
about chronic back pain because you're bleeding to death.

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
If you're talking about what the media perceives as a threat, yes.

They run negative coverage 24/7 on a single person, even for positive events,
instead of real journalism about things that are actually destroying our
democracy, like increased surveillance.

