Snowdon is a dummy

Well, you can say a lot in subjunctive ...

American intelligence and law enforcement investigators have concluded that they may never know the entirety of what the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden extracted from classified government computers before leaving the United States, according to senior government officials.

Investigators remain in the dark about the extent of the data breach partly because the N.S.A. facility in Hawaii where Mr. Snowden worked — unlike other N.S.A. facilities — was not equipped with up-to-date software that allows the spy agency to monitor which corners of its vast computer landscape its employees are navigating at any given time.
[...]
Mr. Snowden gave his cache of documents to a small group of journalists, and some from that group have shared documents with several news organizations — leading to a flurry of exposures about spying on friendly governments. In an interview with The New York Times in October, Mr. Snowden said he had given all of the documents he downloaded to journalists and kept no additional copies.
[...]
Mr. Snowden has said he would return to the United States if he was offered amnesty, but it is unclear whether Mr. Obama — who would most likely have to make such a decision — would make such an offer, given the damage the administration has claimed Mr. Snowden’s leaks have done to national security.

Because the N.S.A. is still uncertain about exactly what Mr. Snowden took, government officials sometimes first learn about specific documents from reporters preparing their articles for publication — leaving the State Department with little time to notify foreign leaders about coming disclosures.
[...]
As investigations by the F.B.I. and the N.S.A. grind on, the State Department and the White House have absorbed the impact of Mr. Snowden’s disclosures on America’s diplomatic relations with other countries.

“There are ongoing and continuing efforts by the State Department still to reach out to countries and to tell them things about what he took,” said one senior administration official. The official said the State Department often described the spying to foreign leaders as “business as usual” between nations.

My guess is he will have legal representation that will make the legal representation of Simpson, Jackson, and Zimmerman look like amateurs.

Frank Apisa wrote:

My guess is he will have legal representation that will make the legal representation of Simpson, Jackson, and Zimmerman look like amateurs.

And who do you think they're going to get to prosecute, my cousin Vinnie?

He is a whistle blower, he exposed crimes. He's not the one who should be standing trial

izzythepush wrote:

He is a whistle blower, he exposed crimes. He's not the one who should be standing trial

Well, that would be so in Europe, but Frank lives in the USA ...

Probably not in this bit of Europe, unfortunately.

He is a whistle blower, he exposed crimes. He's not the one who should be standing trial

He has been charged with breaking some very significant laws. He is allegedly a law-breaker...and HE SHOULD STAND TRIAL.

He should come back to the US and stand trial...and if the jury agrees with your take on the issue...he will be properly exonerated.

Quote:

He has been charged with breaking some very significant laws. He is allegedly a law-breaker...and HE SHOULD STAND TRIAL.

He should come back to the US and stand trial...and if the jury agrees with your take on the issue...he will be properly exonerated.

Right we have an out of control government that is not obeying the constitution and therefore have no moral standing to demand to try anyone over reporting their crimes to the American people and the rest of the world for that matter.

Thanks to him the world technology community have been warn and are fighting back to maintain the concept of privacy from massive and warrantless surveillance.

Just hear today for example that a version of linux have stop trusting random number generating chips for fear that the NSA had place a weakness in those chips and going back to software pseudo random number generators. Not good for the manufacturers of such chips and other such chips such as SSL accelerators.

Of course such steps as encrypting even private cables between data centers such as google is ongoing.

The real hope to stop this cold rest with the fact that American firms are now looking at losing 100s of billions of dollars of business a year as only an insane person would trust any company that are subject to current US law.

I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,

snip


It's one thing to say that people expect phone companies to occasionally provide information to law enforcement; it is quite another to suggest that our citizens expect all phone companies to operate what is effectively a joint intelligence-gathering operation with the Government.

In a 68-page ruling, Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia called the program’s technology “almost Orwellian” and suggested that James Madison, the author of the Constitution, would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way.

Quote:

In a 68-page ruling, Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia called the program’s technology “almost Orwellian” and suggested that James Madison, the author of the Constitution, would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way.

Source

[...]American officials have refused to extend the “no spying” guarantee beyond Ms. Merkel, telling German officials in private sessions that if the White House agreed to forgo surveillance on German territory, other partners would insist on the same treatment.
[...]
But as Mr. Obama considers his options, the effort to repair the damage to the United States’ relationship with Germany appears to have stumbled. American officials have so far refused to pull back from electronic spying in the country, save for Ms. Merkel’s own communications, even though German officials argue that the United States is violating German law.
[...]
Germany has for years participated in American counterterrorism operations, especially those tracking suspected Al Qaeda or other terrorist cells inside Germany, but it has refused to provide the United States with information that it believes could help provide targets for drone strikes. Now, officials are reluctant to join in some types of bulk collection of telephone data or preparations for offensive digital strikes against other countries.

“We simply don’t have the capability or the legal authorities,” said one senior German official involved in the talks, who, like other officials interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are confidential.

The White House has tried to engage the German leadership quietly, hoping to avoid further public confrontations while Ms. Merkel formed her new government.
[...]
The dispute also reflects very different views of how far the state should go in conducting surveillance, both at home and abroad.
[...]
The distaste within the German political establishment for the United States’ approach extends beyond former citizens of East Germany, like Ms. Merkel. Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of the Social Democratic Party and deputy chancellor in Ms. Merkel’s new government, took time in a speech last month to emphasize Germany’s dismay that the United States could engage in the kind of surveillance Mr. Snowden has disclosed.

“The United States, the country we Germans have so much to thank for,” Mr. Gabriel said at a party congress in Leipzig, “is at the moment endangering the most important foundation of our trans-Atlantic partnership.”