
About the Reuters article - MikeCapone
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/13/reuters-article-dead-man-s-switch
======
reneherse
Slightly off topic: The article mentions a "dead man's switch" set up by
Snowden prior to making his disclosures. If he is assassinated, apparently all
the documents will be publicly released.

Greenwald also mentioned that the totality of what Snowden controls is "enough
information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than
anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States." Let's assume
that's not an entirely hyperbolic statement.

From the point of view of the Obama Administration, the real threat is not
Snowden's/Greenwald's principled (even patriotic) drip of information, but
that an enemy of the US might kill Snowden, and stage it to look like a US op,
thus tripping the dead man's switch. Snowden has, on his own, made himself a
prime target for any sufficiently ambitious US antagonist.

And so the US wants Snowden back not only to prosecute him, but also to
"protect" him. (Nothing like four years of solitary to keep you safe,
comrade.)

Until and unless he is granted a pardon or some other form of immunity from
prosecution, it seems that Snowden's best interest is to stay in the strongest
and most secure country he can find. A country with a highly developed
security apparatus (to protect him from hostile agents), one that is
adversarial to America (to disallow his rendition or extradition), but not
openly antagonistic (to want to kill him to harm the US).

And that is exactly the country where he finds himself right now.

Obama and Putin have quite the chess match coming up. God bless the man whose
life is in their hands.

[Edited for clarity]

~~~
mikemoka
solitary confinement could trigger it as well probably, it depends on how
things have been set up.

Obama should have handled this in a totally different way, he should have
treated him as a partner for having shed light upon a corrupted practice of
the NSA, and should have asked the people heading the NSA to resign.

This would have been a checkmate against any other US antagonist in my
opinion, but I admit that is definitely too easy to judge things you don't
know in every aspect from the comfort of your own home.

~~~
mtgx
The problem is Obama completely agreed with what the NSA was doing, and most
likely even ordered everything to be done that way (that's why he so viciously
defended the FISA Amendments Act last year, and why he tried to get lawsuits
dismissed).

However, I agree that is what he should do anyway. Clapper and Alexander
should get fired immediately, and so should Holder - but he's been bailing out
Holder so many times, I'm starting to think it's a lost cause that he'd ever
stop protecting him. If there was a video of Holder shooting a man in head,
he'd probably still pardon him.

I disagree with your last part, though, that it would prevent other
whistleblowers from coming out. Why would it? It would prove Snowden did a
good thing, and more would come out later to fix the system (which is
_exactly_ what _should_ happen).

~~~
grandalf
Isn't it silly to fire the officials when the blame lies with the presidents?
In my opinion, it's about as useful as blaming Rumsfeld for Bush's war.
Appointed officials are servants who fall on their swords when needed to
protect the boss. Punishing the underlings just insulates the presidents from
blame.

~~~
tptacek
Rumsfeld's culpability for what happened in Iraq is extensive.

~~~
grandalf
Perhaps, but only to the extent that Bush would remove him... and, if tried,
to the extent that he violated laws. Bush stood behind him, happily letting
him take flak from the media and political opponents for _years_.

The buck has to stop with the president. How depressing for our civilization
that people get worked up blaming a lower level appointee whose job it was to
be operationally in charge of dirty work that was fully supported by the
president.

~~~
tptacek
It's not a zero sum game. Both Bush and Rumsfeld are extensively culpable, as
is Cheney and Addington and Wolfowitz and Feith.

~~~
grandalf
I agree. But considering that underlings are used as chess pieces and must
have their big picture plans approved by the president, it's folly to focus
more than 5% of the attention on them.

In Rumsfeld's case, he was tasked with creating a shitstorm by acting crass
and making controversial remarks. It worked flawlessly and diverted tremendous
criticism and attention from Bush and the larger policy direction. Eventually
when he'd done that effectively for years, his resignation was engineered to
help Bush turn over a new leaf.

~~~
tptacek
Rumsfeld was the architect of the military strategy that resulted in the Iraqi
civil war, and was one of a few very loud voices in the administration in the
aftermath of 9/11 militating for an invasion in the first place.

~~~
grandalf
You're arguing that Rumsfeld was incompetent? I'd say he's among the most
competent executives ever to deliver to his superiors exactly what they
wanted.

Without hindsight bias, and considering that selling a cheap war was critical
to getting buy-in from congress, Rumsfeld architected a great plan.

I'd argue that Rumsfeld is an incredible intellect and expert tactician who
made zero mistakes.

------
kefs
FTA: _For those who say that they wish there was more attention paid to the
substance of the NSA stories than Snowden: here is the list of the NSA
revelations we 've published over the last month. Feel free to focus on them
any time._

[http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/nsa-revelations-
ov...](http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/nsa-revelations-over-last-
month.html)

------
tptacek
Did Greenwald just say that Snowden has documents that could cause grievous
harm the United States, and that he may have set up a dead man's switch that
would cause them to be published should any harm come to Snowden?

Three possibilities I can see:

(1) Greenwald really can't think even one move ahead and see that he's just
published a reason for any number of US adversaries to kill his source.

(2) Greenwald understands the implications of what he's published but is,
owing to his own incentives, fine with the idea of his source being killed

(3) Greenwald doesn't believe what he's saying and isn't meant to be taken
seriously.

Cards on the table: that guy could be reporting that water is wet and I'd
still have him in bucket (3). Although now you kind of hope the freakshow
government in North Korea is smart enough to bucket him the same way.

~~~
sigil
(5) Greenwald is thinking two moves ahead. Now that US adversaries have a
motive to kill his source, the US finally has a motive to protect his source.

~~~
marshray
Russia is not going to let harm come to Snowden in their airport or on their
airplane. No one's going to stab him with a poisoned umbrella or anything.

Greenwald and co. have been consistent since the beginning that precautions
had been taken with the trove of documents to ensure the reporting would not
be suppressed were something to happen to Snowden. It's recently been
sensationalized as a "dead man's switch", but it's not new info.

So I think you're right.

Look at how reflexive the US has been with all the diplomatic threats and
goofups compared to Snowden's team's patient and careful tactics. The US
hasn't been on the receiving end of effective hardball tactics in a long long
time. It's taking a while to sink in that they need a better strategy than the
standard prosecutorial bullying.

~~~
tptacek
Greenwald _just said_ there was more unpublished material that would be
harmful to the US were it to be published. It's right there in the article.

~~~
marshray
Yes, but he's been saying that since the very first articles and interviews on
Snowden. This is not new information.

~~~
giamgiam
Has he laid out in such stark terms, though? He has been saying the documents
could cause "grievous damage" or something along those lines, but that's a far
cry from "more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else
has ever had in the history of the United States."

~~~
marshray
Yeah he did get a bit less subtle about it in that interview. Anyone's guess
as to whether that was a calculated change or just speaking off-the-cuff.

------
brown9-2
Greenwald was criticized for saying that the USG "should be on it's knees
begging every day", a clearly inflammatory thing to say. To act like the
criticism is the result of some grand government conspiracy is a bit much.

There are plenty of people outraged by the substance of what has been leaked
who also don't like the idea of a) great harm coming to the country or
government or legit intelligence operations, or b) a 30 year old person stuck
in a Russian airport who has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of what is
leakworthy and what is not, what programs are legal and good and which are
illegal and evil.

On another note, the idea of a dead mans switch that harms the government of
Country A is probably an attractive target for other governments that want to
harm Country A.

~~~
gnosis
_" There are plenty of people outraged by the substance of what has been
leaked who also don't like the idea of ... a 30 year old person stuck in a
Russian airport who has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of what is
leakworthy and what is not, what programs are legal and good and which are
illegal and evil."_

Of course such determinations should be left to the professionals, our Supreme
Leader, the oh-so-popular Congress and the stalwart defenders of liberty and
justice: the Courts -- which are all so trustworthy, moral, and competent..
and who would never hide anything under the pretense of "national security" to
cover their own asses, to grab more wealth and power, or keep the public from
knowing of atrocities and crimes they, their buddies or their lackeys have
commited.

~~~
brown9-2
At the very least, deciders chosen by a government elected by the people,
whatever value that has, is of more value than a single self-chosen person who
happened to have the correct level of access and skills to access more
documents than he was supposed to.

~~~
gnosis
Ostensibly elected (or selected, if the election was decided through fraud) in
a system where more than 40% of eligible voters are too disgusted, cynical, or
apathetic to vote.

In a system where elections are so influenced by money that billions are spent
on advertising candidates. Where virtually all the discussion of the
candidates is about their personalities and presentation (such as whether a
candidate wore a flag lapel, or how he golfed) rather than about their
policies and stances on concrete, important issues.

In a system where the majority of those who do vote are embarrasingly ignorant
of politics, history, and the candidates and parties for whom they're voting
(largely thanks to the horrendous media coverage mentioned above, and the
atrocious education system in the United States).

In a system where the elected candidates can do the opposite of what he
campaigned on virtually without consequence or most of their constituents
noticing (thanks to the media, yet again).

In a system where gerrymandering has effectively guaranteed the seats of most
members of Congress, no matter how poorly they perform. (Given the record low
approval ratings of Congress, virtually all of them should been thrown out
ages ago, but that's not going to happen any time soon.)

In a system where there are only two parties who agree on most issues, and
collude to keep third parties and serious alternative from ever being viable.

In a system where the people appointed by the elected/selected politicians get
to make decisions outside the (incredibly flawed) legal process, in secret,
and with virtually no oversight or accountability to the public.

In a system that tortures prisoners, violates human rights, starts unprovoked
wars that kill millions of people.

I'm sorry, but I just don't place much trust in such a system. And I applaud
whistleblowers who risk their lives to expose wrongdoings.

~~~
brown9-2
Elections have plenty of problems. Do you have a better solution?

~~~
apk17
Fix the known bugs: Gerrymandering, campaign financing.

------
mikemoka
"the tactic of the US government has been to attack and demonize
whistleblowers as a means of distracting attention from their own exposed
wrongdoing and destroying the credibility of the messenger so that everyone
tunes out the message. That attempt will undoubtedly be made here."

looking back at all the articles recently published on HN about it, this has
undoubtedly happened here as well in a sense.

My feeling is that people are already starting to somehow forget about the
revelations by replacing them in their mind with the engaging story of a
whistleblower on the run.

------
mtgx
I thought Reuters had an "angle" almost immediately, since I saw the words
fugitive and spy next to Snowden's name in the summary at the top.

~~~
tzs
They said former spy contractor, which is accurate. Fugitive is accurate. So,
how exactly do you infer an angle from this?

~~~
Amadou
It is all about word choice. It would be just as true to say asylum seeking
exiled whistle-blower. Both descriptions are totally accurate, neither
description is neutral.

~~~
czr80
He hasn't been exiled.

------
oleganza
Every mainstream newspaper, tv and radio channel has to have a state-issued
license to operate. This means that state can always find a reason to dismiss
the license and make business shut down. This fact creates a great bias
towards discussing something safer in the eye of the state. Talking about
Snowden character is so much safer than speaking openly about how NSA spies on
everyone by forcing companies to give them access to communication channels
and hardware and then forces them to lie to their customers about privacy.

"Free speech" exists only when there is no license to get and no armed SWAT
team that will come if you don't have one.

~~~
brown9-2
A license to operate a newspaper? This sounds far fetched as there are no
limited resources like airwaves being occupied.

~~~
nitrogen
There are business licenses, code inspections, and changing zoning
requirements. Not quite the same as a spectrum license, but there are still
many ways for a government to exert pressure on a newspaper.

~~~
maxerickson
Surely there is some crank website documenting all the newspapers that have
been driven out of business by federal pressure.

The major newspapers play silly access games, but just throwing out
speculation that they are getting pressured is pointless.

~~~
nitrogen
Right, I'm not playing conspiracy theory or saying there _is_ coercion, just
responding to the comment that newspapers don't require any licensing. What
with the IRS targeting political groups, you can't be too careful these days
;-).

------
ics
Does anyone have a mirror of this article? I can see the Reuters one fine but
this isn't loading at all for me.

~~~
greenyoda
[http://pastebin.com/WPBdUy36](http://pastebin.com/WPBdUy36)

------
weinzierl

        then by bullying small countries out of letting him land 
        for re-fueling.
    
    

As far as I know Cuba was the country were a stop for re-fueling was planned
on the way to South America.

I have read about pressure on Ecuador, but not Cuba. Does that sentence mean
that Greenwald (and probably Snowden and Wikileaks) have information that a
stop in Cuba is not save?

~~~
acqq
_a stop in Cuba is not safe_

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/06/25...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/06/25/why-
cuba-might-not-be-safe-for-snowden/)

In order to get a better idea, do read the whole article, here I just give one
small sample: "Cuba agreed in 2006 to stop its practice of harboring American
fugitives."

~~~
k-mcgrady
I wonder if that means people the US _considers_ fugitives. As he is regarded
by most of the world as an asylum seeker Cuba might decide they can let him in
and they are still honouring that agreement.

