Greenwald's Finale: Naming Victims of Surveillance

It will be a list of subversives, people with grand ideas of "freedom", free thinkers, animal rights activists, left wing loonies, right wing fanatics, gun ownership campaigners, anti war campaigners, conspiracy theorists, home schoolers, etc etc.

I think that covers pretty much everyone.

...it will take awhile to read through a list of over 300 million names. Let's be honest here, it has already been leaked that anyone who's made a phone call, sent an email, or used a credit/debit card for a purchase in the USA has had their data collected by the NSA. Same for health files, taxes, drivers license, plane tickets, and firearm purchases. If you're a resident of the United States of AMerica, you're presently a victim of these asshats.

Which list from which NSA spy program? It seems there are dozens of different programs monitoring different people by different means. Each program will have its own list(s), probably with some interconnection between programs. So, which one(s)?

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
...it will take awhile to read through a list of over 300 million names. Let's be honest here, it has already been leaked that anyone who's made a phone call, sent an email, or used a credit/debit card for a purchase in the USA has had their data collected by the NSA. Same for health files, taxes, drivers license, plane tickets, and firearm purchases. If you're a resident of the United States of AMerica, you're presently a victim of these asshats.

I know for a fact my data has been collected, all of our data has. There's a difference between blanket collection and focused collection based on a target list however. The way data collection works is the agencies grab EVERYTHING and then they use criteria to filter it down to what specifically is interesting to them. Those filters are essentially the target list. My guess is this list will be 500k people but with what few details of the list have been provided there's arguments that it could realistically be anything between 500 people and 500 million people.

I hope he doesn't drive a Mercedes.

Or own a light aircraft.

Or even plan on flying at all.

Using caution when crossing the street might be advised.

And prescription medications should be right out.

He might want to buy a flak-jacket too.

originally posted by: Wrabbit2000
Well, I give Greenwald a little slack here that Snowden doesn't get. While Snowden has been off hiding like a kid from his parents, all safe and sound with the Russians? Greenwald has been the one having quality time spent with British and probably American intelligence under conditions any of us would call hostile at the very least.

Snowden risks his public image and since landing in Hong Kong? Has had nothing but him image at true risk. Greenwald still has the goods to get him killed in such a way that history never even has evidence he died, let alone who or how. He's still out in public and standing behind his actions with his head held up ...not asking the enemy of his home nation to protect him.

I respect Greenwald, even if his every last action isn't one I'd have ever done. Some yes..Some? No way..but I respect it all for the man, motivations and end results he's bringing with it. Snowden? Well....If he really has nothing left? Then it won't break my heart if a random act of senseless violence came across the news from Moscow regarding some American upstart hiding in the shadows.

To be fair it's US policy that drove Snowden to China and Russia. Our esteemed president ran on a campaign of among other things enforcing and strengthening whistleblower protections and he has instead essentially run a war on whistleblowers. If legal protections were in place for Snowden to have been able to take a responsible path (first through congress second to the press if nothing happened) things would have gone down different.

I think it's unreasonable to expect Snowden to have stayed in the US given our anti whistleblower culture. We've had members of congress publicly call for his death... any sane person would flee from that. It's also worth pointing out that he didn't intend to goto Russia, he tried to goto South America and seek shelter in a country that respects individual liberty. It was the US policy of canceling his passport, not letting him leave the transit area of the Moscow airport, and then finally the forced landing of planes he was suspected to be on that pushed him into Russia.

At every step of the way the US could have chosen a different set of actions, and acted out of responsibility rather than embarrassment and vengeance. Had those in power done so the Snowden situation would look much different today. We might have congressional hearings, we would know where he is, we wouldn't have been risking him giving information to a rival, and so on.

As far as Greenwald goes, I don't agree with some of his politics but he's a stand up guy. It takes courage to face the people you're accusing in debate, engage the public, and not hide in fear. I think the biggest criticism of him is that he has released information at such a slow rate that the public has been largely apathetic.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Living in a small country like Iceland and looking over to you folks in the USA, I've got to say...Man I would've gone all by myself up to the white house, sat down in calm position and just stayed put. Like Gandhi did.

I would never put up with such a corrupt system like your country has. Not criticizing anyone directly. Just what has apparently happened to your "system".

Now ours is potentially this corrupt, though I know it s quite corrupt. But if our cops behaved like the black sheep of yours and the milita-police you have got over there and the system keeping tabs on...well...everyone out of the ordinary. I would've just said enough and gone and sat down and done squat but preach what is good if asked of what I'm doing while criticizing the system.

Good luck all.

a reply to: Sump3

The problem is that with no social welfare systems the only people that can afford to take time off of work to protest are those doing well in the first place.

a reply to: Aazadan

Well then they are not ready to get what they want. But still want to live as slaves.

Edit to add:
Sry, read your response wrong.

I would've thought that those who have nothing at all would be the ones with the time off, and ye, the one's who have too much.

But those clashed in the middle who work 8 - 14 hours a day doing 1 or 2 jobs...they "should"(if they want) give up their "belongings" and protest peacefully.

This is my sincere opinion.

originally posted by: dovdov
I want to know why information about the UFO/alien coverup isn't being released; lots of people do. A lot of people have been expecting there to be revelations along this line from what Snowden uncovered. I'm disappointed that it is still being covered up.

I dont know?

Maybe because there is no coverup!

a reply to: Aazadan

To be equally fair, I think our system has serious issues for a man of conscience to take something entirely against their principles.

7 years full time spent inside the CIA and NSA before he even got to the contractors is far to long for me to ever accept he was "forced" into anything..

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Forced or not, there's been a very clear cut path from DC to throw the SNowden straw man out anytime their actions are about to be laid bare.

Personally? I love the dude. For probably the same reason Bonnie & Clyde and the James Gang were viewed as heroes by the public of the day... he's embarassing and openly insulting individuals in power who dorely needed to embarassed and insulted. The USA sorely needs a lot more Ed Snowdens, all standing with middle fingers raised high towards anyone claiming to be in authority.

ETA: Snowden didn't "Betray America" or "harm America" in my eyes. He did me, as an American, absolutely no wrong. He betrayed the self-advocating leadership. He harmed the self-agradizing leadership. To me that's nothing worth fighting over. We fought a significant war in this country nearly 250 years ago for the right to remain on our bar stool, not giving a tinker's damn if somebody just insulted the queen or the king. I'm choosing to sit here, let Snowden say whatever he wishes to about America's "crown" and probably buy the kid a pint when he's done speaking... as is my Constitutional right.

I'd like to see lists of Politicians, Conspiracy people, Actors and actresses and Oligarchs.
If the list is NAME - REASON
Even better.

If it's Joe Bloggs, John Smith it really won't be interesting,
with the hype I'm expecting at least a few of my earlier picks.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

I think Snowden was fine with it for awhile, this is a guy who a couple years prior to releasing information said whistle blowers were traitors to the country and should be shot. If anything I see that as a reflection on our society and how we have essentially criminalized whistle blowing when it's an activity that should be encouraged in order to keep people honest.

He was clearly fine with it for awhile but with more time spent on the inside he would have learned more about how things worked. Keep in mind that we have also massively expanded these programs year after year and that internal concerns were dismissed (and not just by Snowden), sometimes with very large consequences to those who raised the concerns. At some point as the potential for abuse grew and he became more disillusioned with what was going on I think he changed from seeing what was going on as right to seeing it as a huge problem that people needed to be made aware of.

originally posted by: Wrabbit2000
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I agree. I think this is precisely the kind of material many Americans like myself were hoping would be coming out. Dirty deeds done regarding Americans and widespread with specifics to personalize it all. This is what could bring change.

If his list is showing citizens and it covers the high society down to the middle-lower/middle class type folks? That could be one heck of a unifier in collective outrage. This has also built in a bi-partisan chain of outrageous things to get here, so the worst case scenario for politicians. Both sides mad at the same time and ....at the same thing.

Both sides being mad at the same time and at the same thing is going to be GOOD for all politicians. I'm smelling a Wag the Dog moment.

It means it takes the heat off their incompetence and greed placing it squarely on the NSA. Both parties get to play hero and vilify the demonic NSA.

I really feel this is a ploy being used to unify and boost Congress/President approval ratings. I could be wrong, but I smell a "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" moment.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I'll tell ya, this is where I've always been a bit mixed with Snowden. If it is or if it had ever remained the bad deeds of the NSA and overall Intelligence against Americans, I would have been all for the guy. It wasn't though. By Greenwalds descriptions, Snowden used a google-bot type crawler and just harvested the whole system he could access. 2 Million documents from a network admin's perch inside the NSA.

What he could have done is what has been done before in this nation, and it has precedent which could have been followed here. The 1970's brought revelations that shook society so badly, it's literally defined society and even brought much of the material for a site like ATS. The dark side of American Government. However, Woodward and Bernstein weren't also selling their insider information and raw notes to the Soviets or making the whole thing public. Daniel Ellsberg didn't drop his little atomic bomb of a leak and then run to the Soviets. Context can be everything, IMO.

Snowden has been hinting at his "smoking gun" for a while. I hope it is enough information to finally get the American public off their knees and demand some sanity in the government. We are so spread out across this country and fight over stupid things like sports or racism, when we should be standing up to our real enemies.

I cannot wait to see what unfolds.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Ellsberg wasn't also in a position where he would very likely be tortured or killed. At the worst he would goto jail. If what happened to Bradley Manning hadn't happened I would agree with you. Snowden should have stood his ground and faced the charges. That would force everything into the courts.

The government doesn't do that anymore though. Instead they strip people naked and leave them in empty cells in solitary confinement without so much as a mattress to sleep on. And they leave them that way for years on end. If Ellsberg knew that was the treatment that awaited him... even while waiting for trial before being found guilty I believe he would have run as well.

Again, this goes back to the decisions made by those in power and our government at this point has a very long list of failures relating to Snowden and whistleblowers in general.

With the government willing and able to indefinitely detain/torture someone for much less they put Snowden in a position where he could either flee or very likely get thrown in a dark hole in the ground to never be heard from again. He wouldn't even get a trial. Snowden ran but it was the policies of Bush and especially Obama that lead to a situation where he had to run.

All the illegal conduct the government committed against Ellsberg during his trial that lead to a dismissal is now legal. Just something to think about.

a reply to: Aazadan

By the logic folks use to justify what Snowden did, anyone currently holding high clearance in the U.S. should just defect to the Russian Federation too, and help collapse our whole system.

That would quite possibly thrill some in the world to no end...but I'm interested in seeing reform, not destruction of our system.

I had also understood or gotten the impression Snowden wanted to cause change with his material and see it through to make that happen as much as possible. That isn't the case though, and one of his recent statements did more to kill the last positive feelings I had about him than anything else could have.

In 14 hours of interviews with Washington Post journalist Barton Gellman, Snowden said: “For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished.”

He continued: “I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.

“All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed.”

Source

That's it. It was all for his personal satisfaction to know people had a chance .. I see.. Well, I'd tell him thanks for that I guess and have a nice life now, comrade. (Not at all what it first appeared to be, IMHO).

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Not every bit of information should be leaked but there's a lot of bad things that go on in both the government and random business. A friend of mine has recently started working at a hedge fund company and I've been hearing lots of things about that. It's enough to make me never want to put my money in one because I know they're all the same. Government is no different, the level of professionalism and skill we like to imagine exists in every sector isn't there, it's mostly average to below average people doing as little as they can get away with and if something goes against the rules well... that's just how it's done, the individual paycheck is more important.

We need a lot of reform in society but without an actual option for whistleblowers it's not going to happen. There were a lot of things Snowden could have done instead if we had the policies we were told we would have.

Your quote of Snowden is actually why I like what he did, he didn't say things should be done in X way. He said this is what's going on, the people should know. Then we should use our version of democracy to decide if we're ok with it. If people are ok with it, should he have the right to force a change?