
The Smears Against Edward Snowden Have Begun - nqureshi
http://nabeelqu.com/blog/the-smears-against-edward-snowden-have-begun
======
LandoCalrissian
This is happening in all the news media now. I listen to NPR every day and
it's almost insufferable to listen to when they talk about the NSA leak. Very
little of the debate is about the actual NSA monitoring program itself, most
of of the time they talk about why this leak happened and why Edward Snowden
is a "strange" guy. It's completely unbelievable.

~~~
Homunculiheaded
This reaction is actually scarier to me than the initial surveillance. NPR and
NYT are usually sources of very solid journalism, the fact that they would
drop the real story for some gossip about Snowden implies that someone is able
to successfully exert pressure on these organizations.

The surveillance alone leaves the possibility that one agency has started to
go to far, but this more systematic reaction indicates that the trouble is
deeper and more wide-spread.

~~~
Taylorious
Or NPR, The NYT etc. aren't as good a sources of news as you think, and you
just haven't noticed until they covered a story in your domain that you are
passionate about. I used to listen to NPR everyday. In my opinion they are one
of the better sources of news in America, but they are far far far from
unbiased. They are very good at making it look like they are showing all
sides, but they are in fact presenting things in away that supports their
ideological bent.

~~~
pstuart
I would argue that they try very hard to appear "objective" and sometimes drop
the ball in order to achieve this.

Whenever they mention gun control or cannabis legalization (too very liberal
subjects) there is never any questioning of the craziness of the opponents of
such efforts, just that it is happening.

That said, they are still far from perfect but preferable to most other
sources.

~~~
kbenson
The fact that you imply that there is craziness of the opponents without any
justification makes me think that you may be unable to see any bias they have
because it's in the same direction as yours.

You may be thinking of specific examples with crazy behavior, so this may be
justified reasoning, but from the detail you've given it's hard to know.

~~~
pstuart
Cannabis being illegal is fucking insane, m'kay? Plenty of proof of it being
"safe enough", and plenty of evidence that it's illegality is used as a tool
of oppression. The Drug War is a complete failure that has cost society
dearly.

As for guns (I'm not anti-gun), the fact that the NRA and it's cronies refuse
to consider the discussion _any_ regulation of weapons in today's society is
crazy (pro-gun arguments get quoted verbatim, including the selective citation
of _part_ of the Second Amendment (you know, the part that mentions a "well-
regulated militia").

That is crazy.

~~~
xaviorm
You seem to have selectively omitted "shall not be infringed." from the rest
of your statement.

What part of that is hard to understand. If you don't like the amendment then
get rid of it. If you can't do that stop trying to work around it. The
constitution is not there to be worked around and every time someone does
"work around it" it becomes that much more of a worthless document.

There is away to change the document. Use it or live with it. It is there for
a reason.

~~~
pstuart
> You seem to have selectively omitted "shall not be infringed." from the rest
> of your statement.

You missed the point: gun advocates only quote part of the amendment. Yes, the
_full_ text should be cited (I was being lazy).

Second point you missed: I'm not advocating for "gun control" or necessarily
"anti-gun", just that in talking about "gun control" the omission of key
details is dishonest.

Third point: you are high if you think that the Second Amendment is ever going
to get modified.

> There is away to change the document. Use it or live with it. It is there
> for a reason.

Oh, really, that's how you change the Constitution? Maybe you need to review
the process?

~~~
talmand
First off, it really doesn't look good for you to claim your opponent should
be required to do the thing you admit you were too lazy to do. That's a tad
dishonest on your part.

Your attempt at insults doesn't help your case either.

I also fail to see what was incorrect about his statement about amending the
Constitution. There is indeed a way to change the document, the amendment
process. I think you need to clarify what you mean by your statement for it to
make sense.

By the way, I don't think you understand what well-regulated means in the
context of when it was written.

~~~
pstuart
Agreed, insults ruin the conversation. As do pedantic dismissals that can
trigger such insults.

You are implying that I was dishonest for not quoting the entire amendment.
That's bullshit. My original point was that "liberal" media will quote right-
wing spokespeople and not question their statements but just report them as
"fact".

I think I understand the general notion of what was intended, but then again,
our own Supreme Court can't agree so you'll have to cut me some slack on that.

By the way, I'm now actually kind of in favor of gun control just to mess with
all the stupid gun nuts. Sorry, just petty that way.

~~~
talmand
And continuing with the insults helps, how exactly?

Seems your issue is with the "liberal" media and not the people they are
quoting. But I disagree, it is dishonest for you to claim your right to not
quote the entire statement of the amendment due to laziness but require the
opposing viewpoint to quote in full to prevent being labeled dishonest. In
fact, I'm not even sure what your statement about the media and quoting the
entire amendment have to do with each other.

I'm not sure how the Supreme Court is involved in a statement of how it is
written in the Constitution of what the amendment process is. Have there been
cases before the Supreme Court involving changing the amendment process? I'm
not aware of any so I'm curious.

If you are in favor of creating laws to mess with a group of people you don't
like, then that's just a sad fact. Because you are legitimizing the very idea
of writing laws to punish people you don't like. If that's the case, then one
day some group that doesn't like you will do the same and you'll have no
credibility to complain about it.

~~~
pstuart
You're calling me dishonest for quickly mentioning a _critical_ omission of a
subject (the "well-regulated militia" bit) without quoting the full amendment?

That is an insult in itself. <insert my muttered response to you here>

I wasn't even taking a stand on the issue of "gun rights", simply that it's
more than what its proponents make it out to be.

The bit about messing with people is because any time I deal with pro-gun
people they are almost invariably sanctimonious assholes who are unwilling to
talk about the issue _as a whole_. People like that don't want dialog, so
insults will have to do.

No, the less laws the better. Let's just make sure they're good ones.

------
jessedhillon
I am so tired of people abusing the phrase _ad hominem_ \-- it is not a
fallacy to bring in personal details which raise legitimate questions about
the credibility of what's being said.

Snowden did have a difficult time in HS and he does not possess a formal
CS/technical education. He was a _sys admin_ , not an engineer. His claims, in
that light, _do_ seem bizarre and uninformed. I mean, ffs he seemed to
insinuate in the Guardian interview that the NSA keeps a list of undercover
assets and _he_ had access to it!? These are the people who created selinux --
if I extend him some credibility, I doubt greatly that he had any real idea
what it is he was looking at.

Elsewhere he talks about every machine being bugged and things like that. And
the tapping he claims to have intimate knowledge of -- that kind of stuff
would be happening inside of some kind of data store, maybe like Apache
Accumulo which the NSA also developed. Let alone the implications of what he's
saying on the security of all crypto systems everywhere -- how many uneducated
sys admins do you know who can inspect a data store and actually understand
what they're looking at, and also understand deeply how consumer encryption
works.

And this all presumes that the NSA's systems are so poorly configured that a
contractor in HI could access all this. My verdict is that all he had was some
slideshow that he turned over to the Guardian, the rest is a bullshit story.

~~~
mindcrime
And how do most of these "personal details" _actually_ have anything to do
with his credibility? Considering that we know almost nothing about how the
NSA/CIA and their ilk actually work internally, the high-school diploma bit
may or may not factor into this at all.

At any rate, we know the basic details of his story are true, as BAH confirmed
that he worked there, and the government has not denied that the PRISM slides
and the FISA court order are real. Given what he has shown us so far seems to
stand up to scrutiny, I'd say his credibility is fine. A few random people on
HN speculating about what the NSA would or wouldn't do, versus now well
confirmed knowledge that he did work for the CIA, and for the NSA as a BAH
contractor? I'll take the latter as having more weight.

And if he didn't have some fairly serious access, how did he get the PRISM
slides and the court order in the first place?

Anyway... not saying _every_ detail of his story _is_ true, but all things
told, I don't see how carping about his high-school education is relevant
here. In fact, I don't see how talking about Snowden much at all is relevant
here. The story isn't Snowden, the story is PRISM, rubber-stamping by the FISA
courts, tech companies possibly in collusion with the NSA to make our
nominally "private" data widely available, etc.

~~~
jessedhillon
You are cleverly trying to shrink the domain of known and relevant information
down to only that set of things which boost Snowden's credibility. We also
know about the NSA's operations from their open source projects like selinux
and Accumulo. And given that context, it absolutely damaged his credibility
when he suggests that there is some list of assets that _he_ could read.

What, like 'cat /home/dirnsa/undercover_agents.txt'?

As for the question of how did he get a slideshow? I don't know, but it's not
difficult to imagine that an attachment on an email is easier to access than a
wiretapping database.

His lack of education is relevant because when you have at least some
understanding of the depth of complex systems, it becomes very hard to imagine
that a self-taught person has enough knowledge to speak competently about
multiple such systems.

EDIT: let me amend this last statement, since so many people seem to want to
focus on an extreme interpretation of it. Yes, very brilliant people do
sometimes have no papers or letters backing up their knowledge. I think you
have to admit, if you've dealt with enough such people, that they are the
exception -- the mean and floor of that population's technical capacity is
lower than of the educated population, in my experience.

Now your argument has to be that Snowden was exceptional -- where is the
evidence for that? His pay? Who honestly believes salary is highly correlated
with ability?

~~~
SeanDav
He was earning 200k right? You think they pay morons that type of money?

His education is completely irrelevant. His body odour (if he has it) is
irrelevant. The size of his nose is irrelevant. if he was an axe murderer is
irrelevant.

What is relevant is are those documents real. Since the government is not
saying they are fake, clearly they are real.

That is what you should be talking about.

~~~
flatline
Having worked in the realm of government contracting, they often hire people
who can _get things done_ but don't necessarily have the appropriate depth of
knowledge to make the kinds of claims that he is in fact making. He may have
plenty of expertise in various areas but that doesn't make him an expert in
the types of things he is leaking. Domain knowledge typically lags behind
technical knowledge in this field - it's one of the hallmarks of IT that you
can work in any specialized domain without knowledge of the specialty itself.
It seems to me that your argument is just as baseless as an argument to the
effect that he was incompetent, which the OP is _not_ making.

While I'm behind whistleblowers in general, and I agree with the linked
article that completely irrelevant information is being used to smear Snowden,
I do find a number of things suspicious. We know practically nothing about
this guy, and it's not so easy to tease out true facts from what's currently
available.

~~~
vijucat
(W.r.t. his interview with the Guardian reporter in Hong Kong,) I'd say his
articulateness attests to a level of intelligence that goes WAY beyond the
"people who can get things done but don't necessarily have the appropriate
depth of knowledge" stereotype.

He comes across as a person who asks questions, a person with genuine
curiosity. In fact, I'd say that his lack of high school diploma is actually a
positive attribute in light of the fact that he was able to do his job enough
to get paid $200k, i.e., the skills to perform his job came out of somewhere,
didn't they? Without formal education, it shows that he picked them up
himself. (On the other hand, the most robotic, unquestioning, confirming do-
anything-for-social-glory types are almost always the "well-educated"; they
perceive that they have a lot to lose by asking questions and have excelled at
playing the hierarchical authority structure game, i.e., doing what pleases
parents, teachers, professors, etc; in return for good grades and
appreciation, which ultimately builds up to being the boss' pet in return for
a good bonus).

------
pbharrin
The fact that he didn't have to complete high school, (he does have a GED) to
get a job at Booz paying $200k/year should be speak to his intelligence. I
know people with graduate degrees from Harvard that made less than that at the
same company.

~~~
hga
Booz says it is a much more plausible 122K:
[http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/06/11/contractor-um-
snowden-d...](http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/06/11/contractor-um-snowden-
didnt-make-200000/)

ADDED: or _The Guardian_ could have goofed, 122K in GB Pounds is 190K in US$.

A comment to the item I noted he'd only worked for Booz for 3 months.

~~~
sesteel
There is probably truth on both sides. Intelligence work is well funded by the
government. Most government contracting companies hire at salary, but pay by
the hour. So, if he was working a lot of overtime, he could have expected to
bring in 200K for the coming year.

~~~
hga
In my experience they _really_ hate to pay overtime, instead, you must put
down _exactly_ 40 hours per week. Any less and they can't bill the government
the full normal maximum, any more and they have to pay time and a half or
more, which the government generally doesn't go for.

~~~
sesteel
Actually, they love to pay overtime and the government doesn't care as long as
they have money to spend. Their budgets are mandated by law. A government
contractor can cost upwards of $200 an hour for a senior level engineer.
Typically $140 an hour for level 2 and 3 engineers. Anyway, the company takes
a huge cut off the top and leaves $50 to $70 an hour for the employee, their
benefits, and payroll taxes. So, the more overtime they work, the more money
the company gets to pocket.

------
VonGuard
Just to add some insight as to why the press is doing this. First of all,
there is a legitimate reason to snoop into his personal and past life:
checking for source integrity. Frankly, this should end with "Did he work
where he said he did, is he mentally ill, does he have an axe to grind?"

The media has clearly gone beyond this, though. David Brooks' rather pompous
style could be mistaken for going too far, but instead I think he was stepping
just an inch or two over this line, while other sites and outlets are
mentioning things like his lack of a high school diploma casually and without
any real need or purpose.

At this point in the life of this story, there is little to report on that
doesn't require deep knowledge and GREAT sources. Sources are the lifeblood of
journalism. Right now, there's only one, and most of the media has had no
access to him. It's jealousy, I expect, that leads them to denigrate him now.

The newsroom thinking is like this, and it's not entirely a conscious level
thing: "We did not break this story. We do not have anything to add to this
story. We are too technically inept to comment on this story. There still
exists a possibility that this whistle-blower is wrong, and that's something
we can investigate because we know his name and we have Google/LexisNexis...
Well, shit, we gotta have something to fill the airwaves for 24 hours!"

It's not like they're being directly controlled by the NSA, here. Outside of a
few folks, like Brooks, the media is just being inept and lazy, not viscous
and conspiratorial.

------
jmduke
So, to clarify, it's only called 'smearing someone' if that someone is someone
we're on the same side of, right? Otherwise, its called activism or journalism
or some other, vaguely more pleasant verb?

If you don't think that the fact that Snowden's claims are tempered slightly
by the fact that he doesn't have a formal high school or computer science
education; hell, why not?

I'm not saying that Snowden won't be dragged through the mud, but that's
irrespective of what he did, besides the fact that he did anything at all.
It's 2013, and 24-hour cable news channels need content: they will say and
find anything and everything if it means finding or saying something new.

(Also, Brooks and Toobin are both respected journalists and academics. They've
both spoken _vocally_ against the current administration, against the PATRIOT
Act, and other things.)

~~~
lambda
Why should it matter whether he has a high school diploma?

That type of attack is precisely the definition of an ad-hominem. The truth of
his claims does not depend on whether he has obtained a high school diploma.
It depends on whether or not his claims are true. Someone with no high school
diploma can tell the truth just as well as someone with a PhD.

And it's not like his claims require an advanced education to understand. If
he was claiming to have built a cold fusion reactor, that would be one thing;
it would be pretty hard to believe that someone without formal education and
with no prior results in the area had made such an advance. But all he's
claiming is that the systems he administered had the ability to wiretap any
given American at his whim. That just takes some basic technical knowledge and
being in the right place at the right time.

~~~
jmduke
To quote jessedhillon from another comment on this article:

 _Snowden did have a difficult time in HS and he does not possess a formal CS
/technical education. He was a sys admin, not an engineer. His claims, in that
light, do seem bizarre and uninformed. I mean, ffs he seemed to insinuate in
the Guardian interview that the NSA keeps a list of undercover assets and he
had access to it!? These are the people who created selinux -- if I extend him
some credibility, I doubt greatly that he had any real idea what it is he was
looking at. Elsewhere he talks about every machine being bugged and things
like that. And the tapping he claims to have intimate knowledge of -- that
kind of stuff would be happening inside of some kind of data store, maybe like
Apache Accumulo which the NSA also developed. Let alone the implications of
what he's saying on the security of all crypto systems everywhere -- how many
uneducated sys admins do you know who can inspect a data store and actually
understand what they're looking at, and also understand deeply how consumer
encryption works. And this all presumes that the NSA's systems are so poorly
configured that a contractor in HI could access all this. My verdict is that
all he had was some slideshow that he turned over to the Guardian, the rest is
a bullshit story._

Personally, I don't think what he's saying is 'a bullshit story', I just know
the only definitive facts we have right now are the PRISM slides.

~~~
gohrt
Amount of formal CS/technical/college education that is relevant to _accessing
data in a database system_ in which you have priveleges == 0.

"High school dropout" doesn't mean "dumb", it means "not socially compatible
with school". This is not anti-correlated to comfort using computer systems.

I once worked with a sysadmin with all the stereotypical features: weak
credentials, puffed-up self-important attitude of "God of knowledge", constatn
bragging of his hacking skillz, poor root-cause analysis of complex software
failure modes. But did hew know how to install a database and read its
contents? Of course.

------
redcircle
I wouldn't call David Brooks' quotes smears. His whole article, perhaps, but
not the quotes. The quotes are pieces of evidence in his thesis, which is that
Snowden doesn't participate in a community --- Snowden has isolated himself,
and that this leak is behavior consistent with someone that has isolated
himself from a community. Brooks' outlook on the world tends to be built on
models of culture, community, and psychology, and this article is just an
application of those models to the particular topic of Snowden. Someone that
writes columns tends to have some models that they've developed, and produces
new columns by applying those models to current events. In that sense, he is
profiting from Snowden's dilemma, and taking advantage of it --- if what
Brooks says is true, then what Snowden really needs is support.

------
beat
The sub-headline of the dead-tree version of the St Paul Pioneer Press
yesterday bothered to point out that he didn't have a high school diploma.
Sigh.

We must find SOME reason someone would report that America is spying on its
own citizens. Couldn't possibly be patriotism. And there must be SOME reason
that a guy who isn't formally credentialed by the appropriate authority
figures could land a high-paying, important job. Couldn't possibly be talent.

------
znowi
Reading this thread, I see that it works very well :)

People arguing, dividing, burying themselves into the details of exact salary
figures and GED scores.

Spies, they know their craft :)

------
kylelibra
Ad hominem much? This is inevitable, from what I've seen there aren't any
substantial claims being made against him. Conduct in his personal life really
sets him apart from Assange.

------
tropicalmug
I wish he hadn't come forward. There was no real reason for him to release his
name or tell his story yet. This is going to distract us all from the real
issues at hand.

~~~
notatoad
I imagine he did so out of fear for his life. If the government had learned
who he was before he announced it publicly, he would have been disappeared
before anybody heard anything. being a public figure means that whatever
happens to him will also be public.

~~~
Kylekramer
I know people like to accuse the media of having ADHD, but do you really think
that people would just forget that the leak had to come from somewhere?

~~~
ryanmolden
No, but do you imagine they would have discovered his name or have been aware
if a strange accident had befallen him had he not put himself in the
spotlight? To not imagine most of the character assassination occurring is
related directly to the NSA seems odd, that is the kit of clandestine services
worldwide. I saw an article with Booze saying he only made 122k a year, so
basically appearing to try and make him appear to be an exaggerator or liar in
something relatively inconsequential to the whole affair. Nice move, hopefully
he has hard proof contradicting that, since otherwise people start questioning
what else he exaggerated/lied about, which is precisely what they are angling
for with publishing such unrelated bits of trivia.

~~~
bbatchelder
It should be easy enough to corroborate - tax returns, W-2 and/or 1099s,
paystubs, even bank statements showing cash flows if not direct deposits.

------
droopybuns
Thomas Jefferson had an interesting strategy for activating the consciousness
of the nation prior to the revolutionary war. It's important to remember that
divorce from england was a final step- they were british subjects trying to
find justice until it finally became apparent that secession was the only
solution.

 __We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the
lethargy into which they had fallen, as to passing events; and thought that
the appointment of a day of general fasting & prayer would be most likely to
call up and alarm their attention. No example of such a solemnity had existed
since the days of our distress in the war of '55, since which a new generation
had grown up. With the help, therefore, of Rushworth, whom we rummaged over
for the revolutionary precedents and forms of the Puritans of that day,
preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their
phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on which the portbill was to
commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to implore Heaven to
avert us from the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support
of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to moderation
and justice __

I 'd love to see a day of fasting over prism. It might help people move beyond
just posting their opinions on facebook/reddit/twitter/the bar.

------
jeremyjh
Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia.

~~~
squozzer
You are unorthodox. Eurasia has always been at war with East Asia.

------
JonFish85
I'd be surprised if the government was even behind any of the "smears". To
some people, he's a hero. To some, he's a traitor. The people at either
extreme have a reason to spread their viewpoint; those who don't care, or who
want to wait for more information to come out, simply don't give a voice of
reason for the most part. On the other hand, maybe the government can simply
call up 5-10 journalists and run the "standard smear campaign".

~~~
foobarqux
Influence on journalists is typically not exerted overtly. Journalists know
what behaviors are rewarded internally by the media organization (which is
itself influenced by the government and corporations), through things like
promotions and good work assignments, and externally by the government and
corporations, though things like access, social connections and being in the
"in" crowd by being invited to exclusive dinners and events.

Moreover journalists at these media organizations are selected and retained
based largely on whether they are going to support the organization, one
aspect of which is being held in a favorable opinion by government leaders.

------
squozzer
Some of Brooks' conclusions should have never been printed. They defy logic.

For instance,

>He betrayed the cause of open government. Every time there >is a leak like
this, the powers that be close the circle of >trust a little tighter. They
limit debate a little more.

Considering the project itself was a secret, I'm not sure how exposing
something that would never have been exposed otherwise could be construed as
damaging to "open government", a position I doubt Mr. Brooks has ever endorsed
without mind-numbing qualification.

>He betrayed the privacy of us all. If federal security >agencies can’t do
vast data sweeps, they will inevitably >revert to the older, more intrusive
eavesdropping methods.

Gee, and I guess if Dr. Oppenheimer hadn't built The Bomb, we'd have to have
used incendiary bombing to win the war.

>He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create >the United States
so that some solitary 29-year-old could >make unilateral decisions about what
should be exposed. >Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited the democratic
>structures of accountability, putting his own preferences >above everything
else.

So what Mr. Brooks says here is that government regulations trump individual
conscience, and that Snowden should have just followed orders. I think they
hanged a few Germans and Japanese for following orders too.

But before someone scorches me for DARING TO COMPARE PRISM WITH THE HOLOCAUST,
to whom did Snowden really have to turn?

The Founders (Hallowed Be Their Names), maybe?

~~~
hughw
Can you imagine the founders approving Ben Franklin's postal service had they
imagined its agents would open every piece of mail? Or even kept records of
senders, recipients, locations, and dates?

------
doki_pen
I suspect that the type of person who is capable of becoming a whistle-blower,
is also a lot less institutionalized. I'm not surprised that he didn't finish
high school, if he is an extremely critical thinker. There are a ton of things
that don't make sense about our education system. It certainly doesn't make
him dumb.

Whistle blowing can be considered an extremely irrational act. It is basically
ruining this guys life. Most people would never accept that sacrifice on the
off chance that their small action might contribute to positive change in the
world, for future generations. It takes a certain type of person to do it.
Someone who is so irrationally devoted to the truth that they can't help but
ruin their own lives in the name of what they perceive as the truth. If he is
sincere in his motivations, then I'm sure this isn't the first time that he
has bucked a system.

------
meritt
And what if quite simply Snowden isn't the leak, he's a character created
specifically for this to occur. Whether you're defending or attacking
"Snowden", the reality is you're not focusing on the bigger issue at hand.

------
cleis
While I completely agree with most of this article, there was one thing I
found utterly repellent. This line - 'People largely stopped talking about
what Wikileaks revealed years ago, & now discussion of Assange is dominated by
the usual cliches about him being arrogant, a rapist, etc.'

Oh yes, those usual boring cliches - arrogance and rape. Repulsive. People
talk about Assange being creepy because he has been accused of rape by two
female (former) supporters, not because of a series of subtle derogatory digs
in the mainstream media. And arguing that these rape cases are a fabrication
to bring Assange to justice for what happened over wikileaks (which I don't
believe at all) isn't an argument in this instance, because the two cases are
so unlike each other it seems ridiculous to make the comparison. I'm not
disagreeing that Edward Snowden is being subjected to unpleasant ad hominem
attacks, he is and it's outrageous, but to compare him to the treatment that
Assange has received is ridiculous.

~~~
marcosdumay
Did you read anything about the accusations? (Like why the police threw them
away, for example.)

Or, at a minimum, you should take note of the fact that Assange was not
formaly accused of rape yet.

------
clarkmoody
Anything remotely political has been transformed by the media into this name-
calling garbage. Elections turn on people's impression of the character of the
candidates, much of the time fueled by irresponsible rumor-reporting by the
media.

It seems that all you have to do to win the public opinion battle is to resort
to schoolyard bully tactics. Maybe it won't work this time...

------
untog
One note I would make:

 _Another whistleblower, Julian Assange, received even more brutal treatment.
Here’s another hit piece on him, again run by the NYT, filled with subtly
negative phrases like “dwindling number of loyalists”, “notoriety”, “erratic
and imperious behavior”, “delusional grandeur” et al._

Those same accusations are leveled against Assange by people who used to work
with him. For example, read James Ball's account:

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/30/exclusive-f...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/30/exclusive-
former-wikileaks-employee-james-ball-describes-working-with-julian-
assange.html)

Many of these 'smears' are essentially irrefutable facts ("Snowden did not
complete high school"), and while I agree that many will try to smear him,
regarding _any_ negative coverage of him as an attack against liberty is not
very productive.

~~~
foobarqux
Ball's credibility is questionable. At a high level it seems that he was
trying to advance his career and leveraged his Wikileaks access to do so. Part
of that appeared to be feeding information and possibly documents to David
Leigh who he later wrote a book with and helped him secure a job at the
Guardian.

[http://justice4assange.com/IMG/html/gibney-
transcript.html#4...](http://justice4assange.com/IMG/html/gibney-
transcript.html#4004)

As a counterpoint to the Shamir story:
[http://wlcentral.org/node/1412](http://wlcentral.org/node/1412)
[http://wlcentral.org/node/1186](http://wlcentral.org/node/1186)

------
malandrew
High school diploma or no high school diploma. It doesn't matter because that
was 11 years ago and the things he has done in those intervening years were
sufficiently impressive that both the NSA and Booz Allen, after reviewing what
he's done since high school considered him capable of doing the work they
asked of him by hiring him. Not only did they hire him, but they kept him on
for several years, implying that his work was satisfactory to them.

I know someone who ended up freebasing meth freshman year of college, cleaning
himself up, going to another university, improving his grades, transferring to
a better university, doing research that eventually got him a full-ride offer
for a masters or PhD in biomedical engineering at Harvard. People can and do
change and they can change so much in 10 years to have practically nothing in
common with the person they were 10 years ago.

------
Mikeb85
The US is about as Democratic as Iran or Russia. Let's face it, in the US, no
matter who is 'officially' in power, it's still the same institutions, the
same people in charge.

Dissent is censored by a creating a consensus in society, which itself is a
product of indoctrination and propaganda. Examples would be the communist and
Muslim scares.

The American population is not only powerless to stand up to their
institutions, they have convinced themselves that the very institutions that
oppress them are necessary. The 2 party system, and various security agencies
are examples.

Now the 'average law-abiding citizen' is going to convince themselves that the
NSA is preventing 'terrorism' and that Snowden is a 'traitor', and eventually,
by demonizing the anti-surveillance elements of society, the US will become
even more oppressive, with the full support of the population...

------
dylangs1030
A few points:

1\. I don't like that this is being said about Edward Snowden, but Occam's
Razor implies it's not necessarily a conspiracy (yet). I'm sure it will be, at
some point, but as a software engineer who made it without a college degree, I
can personally attest that it's _not unnatural for people to bring up and
question a lack of education._ People love to do this - before I was making
any real progress in engineering, and even after I succeeded, people thought
it was unusual and strange that I didn't pursue a degree. The only people
exempt from this are people like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, David Karp, et
al.

2\. On citing use of the "fallacy" _ad hominem_ \- just stop. You're not doing
it properly. Yes, the literal definition means bringing in personal qualities,
but personal qualities and background can be relevant. Just as the appeal to
authority is not a fallacy if you cite a legitimate expert with established
research, it is OK and legitimate to question a high school dropout's ability
to understand what he leaked. This should be self-evident - the person is
being questioned because they don't have an obvious legitimatization of their
expertise. That said, I don't agree with the fact being explored more than the
leaked information itself. I'd also like to note that you don't sound any more
convincing to people because you just say "ad hominem" \- it makes people
defensive, causes an audience to think you're pompous (sometimes) and
conditions you to try and rebut an entire argument by citing a fallacy and
ignoring the _substance_ \- which is a method that tends to fail utterly. For
more on this, see [1].

3\. Finally, it is sad they're talking about his neighbors and school life so
much. They have nothing else to go on and they're grasping at straws. It
sounds arrogant to say, but that's what most people do. They react to a big
crisis and their fear of the unknown causes them to grasp ar _any_
conversation points they can, legitimate or otherwise.

The community of people who recognize this (i.e. Hacker News for one) would
benefit from being in a position to correct this mentality and steer the
conversation towards the _hard issues_ \- the things that really matter. Dump
all that shit about his high school diploma, let's start talking about the
NSA.

[1]:
[http://plover.net/~bonds/bdksucks.html](http://plover.net/~bonds/bdksucks.html)

~~~
sillysaurus
_it is OK and legitimate to question a high school dropout 's ability to
understand what he leaked._

This is mistaken. A CS graduate isn't necessarily any more competent than a
given highschool dropout working in engineering is necessarily incompetent.

~~~
dylangs1030
Yes, I know, we've all read Jeff Atwood's article on it.

That's not my point. I get what you're saying, but we have informed opinions.
To the public, with no technical background, it is _very reasonable_ to
question someone's opinion in a domain they have no certifiable expertise or
experience in.

EDIT: I can't reply @sillysaurus, "I'm submitting too fast", so here's my
reply in the meantime.

I know...you're missing my point. It doesn't matter if a college degree or a
high school degree gives you the experience I need. I can attest that you
don't need one to have expertise in your domain.

What I _am_ saying is that the public associates a college degree (and awards,
other prestige, etc.) with credibility. To a great extent, this is true in
_most industries_ \- this is why it's reasonable for non-technical people,
people who don't know better, to apply this sort of safeguard to all "experts"
they see. It doesn't diminish his actual standing, it's just a cursory glance
that tells them if they need to find alternative routes to check his
credibility.

I'm sorry if I'm not being clear, I'm not trying to say you're regurgitating
anything, I was showing you that I'm well aware many CS grads can't code for
shit. That's true. But it's not part of what I'm arguing. I'm talking about
credibility and public perception, not actual ability or skillset.

~~~
randomdata
_To the public, with no technical background, it is very reasonable to
question someone 's opinion in a domain they have no certifiable expertise or
experience in._

He worked for the NSA. If that does not count as certifiable experience, I'm
not sure what does?

Additionally, if the public really believes he is incapable of the job because
of his lack of formal education, why is there not more questioning going on as
to why the NSA hired him in the first place? Why were they were paying him so
much money (reports from $120-200K per year) for a job that he is not even
able to do?

------
MarkHarmon
Can we conclude from this that it is better to leak anonymously? On one hand,
anonymous leaks might be more immune to character assassination attempts. On
the other, having a real live person stand behind the information adds some
credibility and possibly deeper understanding of surrounding conditions.

------
spikels
Jefferey Toobin calls Snowden "reckless", "irresponsible", "grandiose
narcissist". Jeffery would know since he is very familiar with all of these
character flaws.

According to news reports after he got his long-term mistress pregnant he
tried to bribe her to get an abortion. When she refused he abandoned her until
a court forced him to take a DNA test and acknowledge his son. Only agreeing
to contribute to his support after being threatened with having his wages
garnished at CNN. You can't make this stuff up.

[http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/baby-
drama-c...](http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/baby-drama-cnn-
star-jeffrey-toobin-offered-casey-greenfield-money-abortion-sources-
article-1.446944)

------
w_t_payne
Indeed .. although if this is the best that they can come up with, they had
better start making stuff up.

------
hughw
I just heard this weird moment on "The World" radio program [1]. Discussing
Russia's offer of asylum to Snowden, at 25:02 the announcer says, "But last
year Julian Assange was given his own show on the state TV channel, propaganda
channel, Russia Today..."

RT surely is a propaganda channel, but if you listen to the clip, the
announcer forgot to say "propaganda channel" at first, then hastily corrected
himself. It sounded forced, and odd for them.

This, from a show co-produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation, a
famous propaganda organ, and PRI, a not as famous one.

[1] [http://www.theworld.org/2013/06/the-
world-06-11-2013/](http://www.theworld.org/2013/06/the-world-06-11-2013/)

(edit: grammar)

------
KenL
Many of the comments here debate whether the news media should be reporting
about his lack of degree or other facts about him.

Consider the corollary, though. Should the media be omitting parts of his life
or credentials? We have a man who took a significant unilateral action and as
we debate that action and the proper response to it, issues like his
motivations and qualifications need to be reported, not hidden.

Given the magnitude of the revelations, Snowden himself shouldn't be the
media's primary focus, but information on cell phone data grabs and PRISM for
everyone except his leakees is very hard to come by.

We're at the early stages of this debate and we're just scratching the
surface.

------
michaelfeathers
Everyone seems to think that it is a coordinated smear campaign. I think it is
basic human psychology at work. People tend to group other people into "us"
and "them" categories.

When there is too much cognitive dissonance in relation to what people want to
think about their country or institutions, the easiest way to appease the
psychological tension is to move the promulgator into the category of "them."

The smears as are attempt by people to humanize Snowden.. make him less scary,
and simultaneously one of "the other."

------
ChikkaChiChi
Congratulations! We've done it!

1\. Government being attacked releases information about alleged enemy of the
state.

2\. The forth estate does its duty and publishes the information. In order to
draw in eyes, the information is sensationalized.

3\. Someone totally against the piece writes an article as a counterpoint,
adding plenty of backlinks and precious relevance to an article nobody wants
to see gain traction.

4\. Social aggregates like HN pick up the story, giving relevance to the
article that gives relevance to an article we all disagree with.

Ads are viewed, money is made, and an agenda is fulfilled.

------
JonnieCache
So what's the link here? Are these reporters actually agents? Are they in the
pay of the security services? Are they being blackmailed by the security
services? Are they doing it voluntarily, but in partnership with the
intelligence services, out of an IC-cultivated sense of patriotic duty? Or is
it all just coincidence and these reporters all genuinely think like this of
their own volition?

I mean, obviously the answer is "all of the above," like it always is, but I'd
like to hear some informed speculation.

~~~
SolarUpNote
Would the NYTimes hire someone who would stick up for Snowden?

------
MrQuincle
This is not entirely on-topic, but there are a lot of comments on how
journalism should be actually performed. It is advocacy journalism, but
western journalists might use it as an example Anas Aremeyaw Anas:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/anas_aremeyaw_anas_how_i_named_sham...](http://www.ted.com/talks/anas_aremeyaw_anas_how_i_named_shamed_and_jailed.html).
Sorry, just trying to turn this topic into something positive.

------
lignuist
Oh, he is a unfriendly neighbor and sort of undereducated. Probably he even
killed a cat when he was a child! Well, in this case I have no problem with
being spied on.

------
lsiebert
When quoted, he sounds fairly intelligent and thoughtful. I think the only
mistake he made is not going directly to Sweden, but HK was closer, and it's
not like there is a "whistle blowing for dummies" book. If you want to assess
him personally, go read his words.

Ultimately he provided documentation to support his assertions. If another
whistle blower steps up, we can reassess.

------
perlpimp
I see how these articles don't have comments sections. FWIF they are not
having the conversation - but telling what to think.

I wonder if there is some sort of way to punish these large publishing houses
in terms of destroyed credibility etc. To produce news is a right and when you
have large audience you have responsiblity and when you behave like an bumhat
you make it worse for everyone.

my 2c.

------
timothyh2ster
Terrorism's premise is that those in our culture were so self-absorbed in
their private world, that they would be unable to suspend some of their
privacy to achieve a collective good, i.e. safety from the terrorists.
Luckily, most Americans are able to see the complexity of the issue, and have
chosen safety. Not so Snowden. He is a criminal, period.

------
bhauer
Sometimes I wish whomever downvotes/moderates submissions (not comments) would
post a note about why they are doing so. This submission has a 20.86 score
presently but it's in position 11 on the home page. The article seems a decent
piece that links to some interesting sources. No better or worse than the
average submission in my estimation.

------
lowmagnet
That was the first thing I noticed. I guess we should all look a little closer
at the news commentary and ask "Cui bono?"

------
vijucat
The way he spoke in the video from Hong Kong, his articulateness, the
vocabulary used, and demeanour, attests to his honesty, integrity and
character. It is saddening to see so many journalist-stooges come out of the
woodwork and attack him.

Shame on these "journalists". Julian Assange is a journalist, not these
pathetic talking heads.

------
psimondo
I am very glad that people like Elsberg, Assange, Manning and Snowden exist in
the world. They are exactly the type of people that stand between the
imperfect and unfair world we live in, and absolute tyranny. I don't give a
shit what they are like over a beer or if they are overbearing narcissist
assholes.

------
jroseattle
I don't care about his education, his salary, his friends, or his demeanor.
What I care about are the documents he showed the Guardian and/or the
Washington Post.

Anyone can shoot the messenger, but as history has shown, it just doesn't kill
the message as intended.

------
jfoutz
How long till we get to the articles about the articles about the smears
against Edward Snowden?

~~~
tlrobinson
Well, that's essentially what these comments are.

------
noamsml
I care exactly zero about who Edward Snowden is. As far as I'm concerned, he
could be a dick who loves kicking puppies and taking candy from children. What
I do care about is, you know, the NSA spying on my phone calls and emails.

------
yeellow
It's very funny when they say he is not educated enough, etc and it was not a
problem when he was hired and got access to top level secrets. The more he is
defamed, the more

------
sixQuarks
Look at the fact that we had to rely on a British newspaper to break the NSA
scandal. A foreign newspaper is doing the job that our news organizations are
supposed to be doing.

Pathetic!

------
ChrisAntaki
Great article. They've begun and they'll continue. Intelligent people will see
propaganda for what it is.

------
ryguytilidie
I've had one friend tweet about how he was a traitor and a coward. I'll let
you guess who they work for...

...DARPA.

Seems legit.

------
meshko
But do I take someone with a link called "You should follow me on Twitter"
seriously?

------
vbo
That's fine, irrelevant, and expected. At least free speech is still around.

------
systematical
If you threaten the system then you're tarred and feathered.

------
hullo
It takes Assange-level arrogance to believe that the only reason someone would
think that Assange is arrogant is that he's been the victim of a media smear
campaign.

~~~
g8oz
And you have to be some kind of mindless sheep to be distracted by his
character at the expense of his work.

~~~
hullo
Well, reasonable people will have to agree to disagree about whether the
concept of arrogance is relevant or not to to the wikileaks project. I'd say
it's far from a distraction, and in fact it's the key problem with the whole
endeavor.

~~~
jbooth
You're right, we shouldn't talk about the contents of those leaks when we can
bicker about whether or not someone is _arrogant_. We'll put 2 guys on TV, one
will take the 'arrogant' side, the other will take the 'non-arrogant' side,
and any fair-minded listener can conclude that they're both half-right, the
dude is sort of arrogant (or whichever insult), and we'll all just forget
about the contents of those cables or the fact that we're being monitored.

Brave New World was indeed scarier than 1984. But hey, why not have both?

