Good job, you [expletive deleted] son of a [expletive deleted].
Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies have reportedly decrypted files of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor and leaker Edward Snowden, and have identified British and U.S. secret agents.
MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service, has withdrawn agents from overseas operations in hostile countries, according to a report in the Sunday Times of London, citing U.K. government officials and Western intelligence agencies.
And by “Good job” I of course mean “I hope to God that you get within range of a US snatch team that can deliver you to a federal judge for your trial for espionage.” Not that Ed Snowden will ever, ever admit that he did anything wrong. Heck, if this story turns out to be true and if it results in an American and/or British spy getting killed or captured then Snowden will turn right around and blame us for it. I mean, the way that the West was dressed? They were just begging for Ed Snowden to come along and take the files…
Moe Lane
PS: I don’t call Ed Snowden a traitor because I cannot prove that he actively colluded with foreign governments to actively attack the West’s intelligence services. I may believe that he did, but I cannot prove it. But it’s self-evident by now that Ed Snowden is a God-damned, anti-American spy.
I don’t know if Benedict Arnold was ever convicted of anything in a court of law either, but we still call him a traitor.
If you want to get technical about it, our Founding Fathers were traitors to the British Crown…
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As soon as Snowden ended up stuck in Russia, this was bound to happen, with or without Snowden’s cooperation, the Russians were eventually going to gain access to the information. The damage was done.
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What I want to know is whether or not Snowden’s accusations are true. If the accusations are false, than this is pretty open and shut. If his accusations actually have merit, then this isn’t so simple anymore.
Moe, did Snowden hand them the keys to whatever encryption he used or did they have to break the encryption? Also how long ago did they break the encryption. If they only broke the encryption recently, it kind of undermines the argument that he’s an anti-American spy…
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Consider for a moment the possibility that Snowden’s accusations were true. That the Administration was using the NSA to systematically gather information on average Americans.
1. He wouldn’t have gotten a fair trial.
2. The administration would have made sure he disappeared.
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As to whether or not I think Snowden was telling the truth, I was (and am still) on the fence, because the Obama Administration has a long track record of being willing to use government agencies as political weapons against average Americans. To me, Snowden’s credibility (or lack of credibility) wasn’t the issue, the Obama Administration’s lack of credibility was the issue.
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I wanted Snowden in the hands of a more friendly nation, to lessen the chance of something like this happening, so his accusations could be investigated, while he was in a country that would be less inclined to try to use the information against us.
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Again we don’t know the following:
1. Whether or not his allegations were true. In my opinion they were certainly highly plausible given the behavior of the Obama Administration (IRS scandal for example).
2. We don’t know if Snowden had encrypted the files, how heavily he encrypted them, etc. We also don’t know whether or not Snowden gave them the keys to the encryption or if they had to break the encryption.
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Rather than everyone jumping to conclusions (on one side or the other), this really needs to be investigated (whether or not his accusations are true and whether or not he actively helped the Russians and Chinese). For all we know he may have had coding in place to destroy the information in the event of tampering and the Russians and Chinese managed to get around it.
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Given where Snowden ended up having to flee to, quite frankly it was only going to be a matter of time before those countries (especially Russia), would gain access to those files.
> I cannot prove that he actively colluded with foreign governments to actively attack the West’s intelligence services.
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In Snowden’s circumstances (fleeing to a hostile nation), you don’t take anything with you you don’t want the Russians to ever have. Since he took that list of names with him, that pretty much makes him a traitor. Even if he didn’t “intend” to give the names away, this is another case of intent follows the bullet (or in this case, the list of names).
JustDave, this isn’t that simple, this all hinges on whether or not his allegations are true. If his allegations are true, then he would have been letting the administration destroy evidence that would incriminate the Obama Administration.
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I got into a very heated argument with another conservative over this issue. Personally I wanted an allied country to take custody of Snowden and his allegations investigated, precisely so something like this wouldn’t happen. The conservative in question had his mind made up that Snowden was a traitor, and wouldn’t even acknowledge the possibility that Snowden was telling the truth.
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We should not act like Liberals and just rush to judgement, we should examine the situation logically.
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Do you believe the Obama Administration would spy on average Americans if they had the opportunity to do so? If you believe that the Obama Administration would in fact pull a stunt like that, then Snowden’s accusations really do need to be investigated.
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If what he alleged is a bunch of garbage, then he’s a traitor, but if what he said is true, then I’m not sure it’s appropriate to label him a traitor. If it is true, I believe he should end up serving time for his negligence, but treason is over the top.
Quite bluntly, I have more reason to trust the Russkies and Red Chinese than I do this administration.
At least they never called me a potential terrorist for having honorably served my country.
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Did Snowden betray our federal government? Emphatically yes.
If his information is true, did our federal government betray its citizens? Also, emphatically yes.
I’m much more concerned about the second than the first.
Okay, so a report in a major media publication states that MI6 has removed or moved foreign agents. That may or may not be true. The assertion is made that the move was because the agents’ identities were compromised. That might or might not be true too. The additional assertion is that the identity compromise came from Snowden documents that, while unreleased and unverifiable from our perspective, were nonetheless decrypted by Russian and Chinese actors. Might be true. Could EASILY be true.
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Or not, and it’s all a farrago of lies or a mash-up of fact and fantasy. Perhaps they wanted to cover a different breach and Snowden provides nice cover. There’s no way he can argue otherwise – he could have sanitized every agent identity in every document, but there’s no way he can prove it. Maybe they had a personnel problem or needed to pull a “turned” agent and the simple existence of Snowden’s papers provides an excuse to do so without triggering the agent to wonder if their betrayal was suspected. Or maybe they just want to bash Snowden a bit and they haven’t moved anybody anywhere. It’s not like a single thing in the “report” is indepdendently verifiable, after all. In the game of spy versus spy, the very concept of an independent truth can become impossible.
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The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Edward Snowden revealed things that were criminally stupid, pointless, and combined gross surveillance over-reach with – as far as anyone can tell – precisely zero effective use to prevent attacks or prosecute the current conflicts against those who wish us harm. This does not make Edward Snowden a good person or mean that he did not also expose information that places good people at risk or impedes active operations that are needed. We will all be long dead of old age, I suspect, before the “hero or goat” debate can be satisfied with any significant amount of objective evidence. Until then, I reserve judgment on the whole mess. I simply have no way to know what’s real and what I’m being fed by someone (including Snowden, of course) with an axe to grind.
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As an exercise for the student, however, one question does emerge: why now? Why the timing of the release of this report? I don’t believe for a second that there’s no context or secondary intent here.
Bartlet, was all of the damage done by Snowden though? Remember the people accusing Snowden of giving this information to Russia and China, are the same people that Snowden accused of spying on the American people…
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1. Remember this administration leaked the Seal Team 6 information because it benefitted them politically after Bin Laden was killed. So Obama has a history of compromising national security for his own political gain (not to mention the Taliban 5).
2. We found out here recently that the Chinese have been hacking into our government databases involving government employees (including our military). It isn’t a stretch to consider the possibility the Chinese and/or Russians may have already obtained said information that way, and Snowden is being used as a scapegoat.
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For instance, I find it interesting that this came out when it became known about how extensively the Chinese hacked our government databases…
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Was the information being obtained just not useful, or were they more interested in spying on conservatives (before anyone starts about “tin-foil hats,” remember the Obama administration used the IRS to target Conservatives)?
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I think too many people are being distracted by the proverbial “squirrel,” instead of focusing on the larger issue. Was the Federal Government spying on Average Americans illegally?
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If Snowden was telling the truth, then it’s certainly plausible that he’s being Saul Alinskied and people are buying into it.