omnibus PRISM/NSA/free Edward Snowden/encryption tutorial thread

Anything on the arguments in the Ars op-ed, or just "fuck that guy?"

None of you actually see the problems with the "pardon Snowden" idea, do you.

no, i do, encouraging similar thefts?

burn baby burn

also, fuck that guy

in any case, there won't be a pardon

None of you actually see the problems with the "pardon Snowden" idea, do you.

not really. feel free to make a case for there being the problems rather than just saying they are there.

This is IMHO the important part of the op-ed that I linked to:

Another reason why Snowden won’t and shouldn’t be pardoned for his actions is that doing so would have a demoralizing effect on the thousands of intelligence community personnel who devote (and in some cases risk) their lives to US national security, who follow the rules laid down by Congress and the president, whose work was diminished, and whose jobs were made much harder as a result of Snowden’s non-US related disclosures. I disagree with Tim that “a pardon sets no precedent and so creates no incentives.”

Pardoning the perpetrator of the most damaging leak by far in American history would send a clear signal of approval for what Snowden did and a clear signal about a lack of seriousness on the part of the government about its truly most important secrets. Those signals would affect the attitude of everyone in the intelligence community about the value of our most important secrets and would have a terrible impact on the government’s already-difficult ability to keep such secrets. In saying this, I do not detract from the importance of the greater transparency that Snowden brought to the intelligence community. That community was self-defeatingly secretive and insular and terrible at explaining what it was doing and why. But to say that it needed to open up a great deal, especially about the extent of and legal bases of its domestic operations, is not to say the government should countenance disclosure of details about its lawful electronic intelligence operations abroad against non-US citizens, which is what the pardon Snowden seeks would do.

And I don't really care much about "demoralizing" people in the IC, but the pardon sends a ludicrous message that all your NDAs are null and void immediately, which is a simultaneously silly and horrible stance for any state to take.

seems like it boils down to it makes the intelligence community look bad cos they failed to do their job and they are too big to fail

uh okay sure

the pardon sends a ludicrous message that all your NDAs are null and void immediately, which is a simultaneously silly and horrible stance for any state to take

Seriously? Wouldn't there be some way around this sort of thing, administratively, legally?

But to say that it needed to open up a great deal, especially about the extent of and legal bases of its domestic operations, is not to say the government should countenance disclosure of details about its lawful electronic intelligence operations abroad against non-US citizens, which is what the pardon Snowden seeks would do.

I thought that the cost-benefit ratio of that whole "loss of civil liberties / invasion of privacy / absence of public accountability / operating in secrecy / violating the Constitution" thing vs. "actual effectiveness in prosecuting the War on Terror and preventing terrist attacks and so on" was rather lopsided, myself.

From the comments on the Ars article, this seems more persuasive to me:

Pardon is the wrong debate. Pardoning someone without a trial is hot bullshit. That is a way to cover up the truth, not to render justice. It was true of Richard Nixon, and it would be true of Edward Snowden. There is a reason why Justice Department guidelines oppose granting pardons this way.

Snowden's trial should be public, before a jury of his peers. The US government just wants to do a Chelsea Manning on Snowden, and that is some even hotter bullshit.

Persuasive how? "Everything is bullshit" oh good to know

good to remember

Here's the argument that Goldsmith was countering: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/op-ed-why-obama-should-pardon-edward-snowden/

Key part:

If Snowden returned to the United States today, of course, he would have to stand trial for disclosing classification communications intelligence, among other serious crimes. This will never happen. Snowden’s lawyers know he would likely be convicted and would face a lengthy prison term. Under federal sentencing guidelines, an offender with no criminal history who is convicted of disclosing “Top Secret” communications information under 18 U.S.C. § 793(d) faces a prison term in the range of 168-210 months, or 14 to 17.5 years. See U.S.S.G.M. § 2M3.2. Snowden might face a considerably longer sentence if convicted of additional charges, or as a result of sentencing enhancements. Naturally, Snowden prefers to stay abroad.

The law does not allow the public interest defense that Snowden says he wants, nor should it. Permitting such a defense would encourage copycats. A Snowden wannabe might hope his lawyer could convince a credulous jury that his leaks also had some positive outcome, even if the benefits were scant. The Snowden disclosures were a unique watershed event, resulting in historic reforms. It is highly unlikely a future leak of classified surveillance information would produce such positive change.

While Snowden might be enticed to return if offered a favorable plea agreement, negotiating such a deal would create poor incentives. One idea, favored by the top lawyer for the intelligence community, was for Snowden to plead guilty to a single felony charge and serve three to five years in exchange for his help undoing the damage he caused. Through his lawyer, Snowden has said he would never plead guilty to a felony. If a plea deal was ever really on the table, Snowden has less to offer every day, as the information he leaked becomes stale and the intelligence community moves on. In any event, the Justice Department rightly objects to negotiating plea agreements with fugitives, to avoid giving those who flee prosecution an advantage over those that do not.

In short, the argument for giving Snowden a pardon rests solidly on a foundation of "he's special, none of the rules apply."

I just realized I have no idea why I'm reposting this stuff here. People done made up their minds and so have I

"Does the Post believe that reporting on the government is important, and that leaks are a necessary evil in order to do so? Or does it believe that leakers should be prosecuted? It appears to believe both simultaneously."

http://fortune.com/2016/09/19/washington-post-snowden/

In short, the argument for giving Snowden a pardon rests solidly on a foundation of "he's special, none of the rules apply."

That's the crux of most arguments for extrajudicial pardon, isn't it? There's an awareness that there are no legal avenues to pursue but the circumstances of the case dictate that there are moral arguments for the law to not be applied. There would be no legal precedent and making the case against a general public-interest-disclosure exemption is a separate issue.

Snowden's supporters aren't just arguing that he disclosed information in a vaguely defined 'public interest', they argue that he exposed rampant illegal behaviour at the NSA and didn't see an alternative route to bringing it to light. Whether that's true or not, idk, but it's a stronger justification than 'the public right to know'.

But the unfortunate truth of our times is that Obama is not going to pardon Snowden and Manning. His administration has invested too much capital in demonizing them to turn back now. However, there are other leakers and whistleblowers for whom the arguments in favor of pardons are not only compelling but politically palatable, too. Their names are Stephen Kim, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou, and Thomas Drake. All of them were government officials who talked with journalists and were charged under the Espionage Act for disclosures of information that were far less consequential than the classified emails that Hillary Clinton stored on her server at home or the top-secret war diaries that David Petraeus shared with his biographer and girlfriend....

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/19/why-obama-should-pardon-all-leakers-and-whistleblowers-not-just-edward-snowden/

good link morbz

That author's disinterest in the facts or the rule of law is really, uh, fascinating

How do you pardon somebody after all the charges against them were dropped? I'm not saying that Thomas Drake didn't get screwed but he also didn't get convicted of anything.

Jeff Sterling's lawyers specifically called out Petraeus' wrist slap and got his sentence significantly reduced by the judge, who also pointed out the pertinent differences between both respective breaches in her ruling.

I could be pissing in the wind here, but haven't pardons been issued to people who weren't convicted before? "symbolic" et al

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_or_granted_clemency_by_the_President_of_the_United_States

You're almost as good at Wikipedia as I am

Kiriakou compared to Petraeus is a much more interesting case although the former did make some of his own bed by lying repeatedly and then pleading guilty to same. Petraeus should have done time, for sure.

Any discussion of the Stone movie anywhere? I can't seem to find it.

but the pardon sends a ludicrous message that all your NDAs are null and void immediately, which is a simultaneously silly and horrible stance for any state to take

So you think that if you have a non-disclosure agreement, you have to do anything your employer asks and keep it quiet, be it unconstitutional or illegal?

I feel like I'm speaking a different language over here. No. That's not at all what I meant. I mean that a pardon would signal, in varying degrees to people depending on their inclination, something along the lines of "these TOP SECRET stickers? That's just a serving suggestion. Go ahead and talk about stuff whenever and wherever to whomever, we might act tough at first but you know, whatever." And it would also signal to every informant that we only kind of care about protecting their identity, which is the same as not caring at all.

So you think this guy should be locked up too:

Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an activist and former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.

I get that there are legitimate reasons for top secret classification sometimes, but there are also times when it is not legit.

seems like people that are in the field of espionage and stealing top secret documents don't really need a reason to keep doing what they are already doing

it would also signal to every informant that we only kind of care about protecting their identity

VP Cheney's staffer was the one who did this

OK, there's no defense of the intelligence business that you won't counter by arguing (badly) against a position that I haven't actually taken at any point

what does tombot think about harold thomas martin the third

personnel security at the fort needs to probably abandon the insipid theatrics of polygraphs and piss cups and get better at spying on its own people

paul berman, camus-loving liberal champion of the iraq war (and a pretty good writer, sadly), has written one of the dumbest takes on snowden i've ever read:

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/214286/edward-snowden-very-little-brother

funny how that combines contempt for snowden w misplaced holy awe at his "hacking"

Here is a man who, like everyone else, has opinions. Only, in his case, his technical skills allow him to act on his opinions.

his position and the information it gave him allowed him to act on his opinions, just like any other whistleblower (or traitor, if you like) of any other era

His technical skill was dumping shit onto a USB drive and exfiltrating it

well once he'd gotten past the ice, sure

touch and go for a while tho, he almost had to jack out

then where would he have been? on his back in the lee kuan yew pods with $3k of illegal grafts in his brainstem and a trace flashing like the ass end of an ambulance, that's where

So Martin worked for Booz Allen Hamilton and has not been charged with espionage

lol USG

The battle over encryption, which dates to the 1990s, could heat up quickly with Trump's win and the reelection of Republican Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.

Burr spearheaded a failed effort last year to pass legislation requiring that companies build 'back doors' into their products that would allow government agents to bypass encryption and other forms of data protection.

Such requirements are fiercely opposed by the tech industry, which argues that back doors weaken security for everyone and that the government has no business mandating tech product design.

"I imagine (Trump) is going to be a guy who is probably going to mandate back doors," said Hank Thomas, chief operating officer at Strategic Cyber Ventures and a veteran of the National Security Agency. "I don't think he's ultimately going to be a friend to privacy, and the fearful side of me says he will get intelligence agencies more involved in domestic law enforcement."

http://news.trust.org/item/20161110005059-q7znd

Saw somebody tweet yesterday about how many new Signal check-ins they were getting on their phone.
You can't put back doors in everything.

Verge has a handy update on what does what

http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/10/13585712/secure-encrypted-messaging-services-signal-imessage-president-trump

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/

Intelligence experts urge Obama to end Edward Snowden's 'untenable exile

Fifteen former staff members of the Church committee, the 1970s congressional investigation into illegal activity by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, have written jointly to Obama calling on him to end Snowden’s “untenable exile in Russia, which benefits nobody”. Over eight pages of tightly worded argument, they remind the president of the positive debate that Snowden’s disclosures sparked – prompting one of the few examples of truly bipartisan legislative change in recent years.

...

The lead signatories of the Obama letter are Frederick Schwarz, who was chief counsel to the Church committee and is now at the Brennan Center for Justice, and William Green Miller, the committee’s staff director who went on to become US ambassador to Ukraine in the 1990s.

...

In their letter, which they have also sent to the US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, the 15 cite the former CIA director David Petraeus as an example of the kind of official leniency that has so far eluded Snowden. Petraeus violated both the law and national security by leaking confidential information to his biographer and lover, then lied about it to the FBI.

“Yet he was allowed to plead guilty to just one misdemeanor for which he received no jail time,” the letter says. The reference to Petraeus is pointed at a time when the former military commander is being actively considered by President-elect Donald Trump to become US secretary of state.

Dutch newspaper announcing that at 20.00 gmt "shocking news' will be revealed, researched by 60 papers and journalists worldwide from 1.7tb of data.

(Posting it in this particular thread is my own personal guess, don't know if it's from Snowden stuff)

no anglo papers have the story?