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New Different Time, ∆ ages/experience-levels of the protags ... different aims re a desired response
..for a Start.

IMO the {utterly predictably-} ennui of the Murican vox-pop probably didn't so much surprise Ellsberg as it Did--in This War-crucial Event--much disappoint him. Surely he *SAW* the escalating of #-Un-Necessary Deaths ..coming.
[Then as now: Afghan, Iraq Syria? whole f'ing M.E. next?? Dead Wahabs on the pile too? they be near the most vicious and the fathers of 9/11.]

If Snowden be characterised as a bull-in-the-China-shop (no pun necessary but, ..why not??) because he abdicated creating the deeply-ordered triage of each factoid (versus the extant media thought-mixer-Machine), we might all have wished he deemed that he Had sufficient time (as he properly noted the Odds against his capture via any next small slip.) Clearly: he did not believe he Had the time/ all. things. considered. Yathink?? [I suspect that his quick action was indeed, the best means of using Surprise, for there being no previous hints of his alienation from The Machine™.

And who would not wish that he possessed years of the experience of creating such collected-factoids, all the while feeling the immense weight of Knowing that No One, not even many on some Special-list: would ever learn of the matters. Well, at least he Did possess that last, nagging awareness.

Finally, you know my screed on the over-reliance (..to the point of absurdity) on the faith that--in time--there will be an "algorithm"/EZ-recipe for the mentally lazy? ... *to "perfect" "Security", then the implementation of the shiny New-plan-for that ... etc. ad, you know.

* my limit: two scare-" " in a row :-þ

I guess I'm fuzzy re why we must keep arguing about the utter (near--) certainty of human perfidy, especiially where personal-ego+massive-power made available: regularly collide and like matter/antimatter ... we know the special word for that phenom. I cut this young guy more slack than thee, when placed in the rare position of overseeing countless factoids/so Many! so horrific in all implications.

(I wish, had it been moi, that I too might have survived This Long!) without being assassinated by the people who Loves dem old-world recipes for ..making-all-Knowledge-Simple! [-minded] Just read the Rule-book


Maybe some pages filled with ⨌∑∞ should be our ready-Ref for navigating the World of (Maya?)
..well anyway: of 'non-denumerable infinities' and other abstractions which we have made concrete. Like a lead slug. I just don't confuse the ineffable with any WFFs (well-factored formulae wasn't it, in "WFF n'Proof"?

I deem that, people who want -Evah!- to signal some grokking of [Reality] ought usually to refer to The Bard, for the best kid-glove handling of (just the ephemeral, never mind trying for the Real, in a few paragraphs.) I include-Self in the overview that most of us, most of the time are anywhere from partially- to ZZZZ-asleep. Especially about such fodder as w.t.f. Freedom, Security, and other Stuart Chase bugbears can be transliterated-into. Y'know?

(Don't believe anything I say, either ..unless it blends in purée mode.) My Gramma oft referred to .."those BIg Men in Washington know." It's my pure-Lead Standard. Now Tungsten {W} needs more words.
New I'm not arguing that humans are perfectable or can make perfectable systems.
I am in favor of looking at the circumstances surrounding people who break their oath and leak a mountain of information by hoovering up everything they can get their hands on.

Reread some of the SCMP interviews. Snowden was upset that the NSA was spying on China.

“The reality is that I have acted at great personal risk to help the public of the world, regardless of whether that public is American, European, or Asian.”


The hubris of the man is astounding. It fits with the rest of his reported childish postings:

As a twentysomething, nerdy NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who just turned 30 on the lam, frequented chat rooms and message boards under the name "TheTrueHOOHA." He held forth about anime and Ron Paul ("He's so dreamy"), which fits the profile of a Redditor-type, but IRC chat logs revealed by Ars Technica today are much more surprising: In 2009, Snowden went off on the New York Times, WikiLeaks, and government leakers in general.

He even offered a potential punishment, according to Ars Technica's transcripts:

[TheTrueHOOHA] HOLY SHIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/washington/11iran.html?_r=1&hp
[TheTrueHOOHA] WTF NYTIMES
[TheTrueHOOHA] Are they TRYING to start a war?
Jesus christ
they're like wikileaks
[User19] they're just reporting, dude.
[TheTrueHOOHA] They're reporting classified shit
[User19] shrugs
[TheTrueHOOHA] about an unpopular country surrounded by enemies already engaged in a war
and about our interactions with said country regarding planning sovereignity violations of another country
you don't put that shit in the NEWSPAPER
[User19] meh
[TheTrueHOOHA] moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this?
[TheTrueHOOHA] those people should be shot in the balls.


Snowden was (wrongly) put in a position of responsibility. He (allegedly) took advantage of his position to steal a mountain of classified information. To pump up his ego, he released it to his buddy Glenn Greenwald and friends, then fled to China and gave press conferences about how wonderful and selfless he is. He then fled to Russia and allowed himself to be used as a pawn in a Putin press conference.

He is in way, way over his head. And the process that allowed him to be hired at BAH and gain access to so much information was broken. I'd like to think that BAH suffered consequences for that, but ...

All that said, I don't think for a minute that we can construct systems that cannot be twisted to nefarious ends. But I also do not think that a single person can be permitted to claim for himself knowledge and expertise that counterweights all the legal and systemic checks-and-balances.

MLK had a huge impact, but not for a single act, and not by himself. He helped build a system that had internal battles over the proper way forward and the best intermediate goals to strive for. A 30-something IT guy cannot take the system into his own hands and do what he wants with it because he thinks that it's somehow wrong for the NSA to spy on China. Or that he has the right to take secret information that he has sworn an oath to protect and give it to whomever he wants.

Systems are imperfect, and they can be wrong. But individuals who go around important systems are wrong more often than not. Look at Bundy. Look at McVeigh. Look at Trump.

Snowden wouldn't get much more than pity from me if he had leaked all the stuff, then called a press conference in DC, gave his spiel about how he did it to protect China from the NSA, and then waited to be arrested. I would have thought that he was a misguided idealist, perhaps. Especially given his diametrically-opposed professed views of less than a decade earlier. But he seems to be a giant narcissist who thinks that he's smarter and more virtuous than everyone in the US Government.

Maybe I'll change my mind in a few years, but I wouldn't bet on it.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Belatedly..
OK a fair exposition of your (and some others') character analysis of this/"any old?" young guy, on a self-assigned MIssion.

So then.. we were expecting, perhaps Epictetus, Montaigne and Kurt V. in an attractive wrapper?
OTOH, from Mozart to Shelley to Dennis Brain (Fr. horn player killed in a Canadian air crash IIRC) lots of exceptionals at or near-30: distinguished selves. Dying at their only local-peak, leaving us to miserably-Miss what we imagine would have become. If. Only.

We now KNOW that Murica (not alone, but still.. counter to all the propaganda of our innate-Goodness) Would/Did.. tell-any-lie/globally as locally; spread any sanctimonious self-aggrandizement as from the first ("Remember the Maine" cha. cha. cha.) or contemporaneously (The Tonkin Gulf LIE to massively intensify the Vietnam pre-Iraq Fiasco. Etc.fucking-Etc.

Weighing the [+]s [-]s of this opera would need a book-shelf of tl;drs, as our grey cells weary of perpetually debating such un-Resolvables as:

JUST *HOW* FUCKED-UP *IS* -??_ this chimerical/ largely imaginary/over-hyped 'THING' called -by at least-One- The dis-U.S.A. Hmmmm?
.
.
.
"We" bloody-Began as a Slaver State, as we commenced our perpetual hypocrisy: within the earliest documents, with phrases like
All Men Are Created Equal
... cha. cha. cha.

This young guy did, at least: allow any/all of us to become Truly! more current on, the State of the U.S. and its (Governmental) world-view, as well as demonstrating the degree of dissembling in Govt. rhetoric to the masses ..previously and just-Then. (Almost any Useful-factoid in this morass Would have been Classified [X] ... the Real-est problem that any 'democratic' ideals must face, in a world run just like The School for Scoundrels

New Thanks. We'll have to battle again when he's back in the USA. ;-)
     the fate of NSA whistleblowers - (rcareaga) - (32)
         Well, at least our 4th Estate repor...., er, ... never mind. -NT - (mmoffitt)
         Dunno. - (Another Scott) - (30)
             "Things they didn't like." - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                 Just because you don't like the oversight doesn't mean there wasn't any... - (Another Scott)
             Why the scare quotes? - (rcareaga) - (14)
                 There's too much history to dig through for a detailed answer. - (Another Scott)
                 Re: Why the scare quotes? -NT - (Ashton)
                 Re: Why the scare quotes? -NT - (Ashton)
                 Re: Why the scare quotes? -NT - (Ashton)
                 Have to pile on here, for recalling Ed Murrow's earnest comment to his staff - (Ashton) - (9)
                     It really is different, I think. - (Another Scott) - (8)
                         So you'd prosecute Ellsberg? -NT - (rcareaga) - (7)
                             Dunno, but probably not. - (Another Scott) - (6)
                                 "Snowden is no Ellsberg" - (rcareaga) - (5)
                                     Re: "Snowden is no Ellsberg" - (Another Scott) - (4)
                                         Different Time, ∆ ages/experience-levels of the protags ... different aims re a desired response - (Ashton) - (3)
                                             I'm not arguing that humans are perfectable or can make perfectable systems. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                                 Belatedly.. - (Ashton) - (1)
                                                     Thanks. We'll have to battle again when he's back in the USA. ;-) -NT - (Another Scott)
             Re: Underlings don't decide policy. - (a6l6e6x) - (12)
                 True, but ... - (Another Scott) - (11)
                     Manning and Padilla were driven insane by the system in question - (jake123) - (4)
                         Different. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                             author of the account is on the local NPR affiliate - (rcareaga) - (2)
                                 Yeah, it's a slanted piece. It's from the Hudson Institute. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                                     Hheheeeeehaaahaaaaa - (crazy)
                     You should have been part of the defense team - (rcareaga) - (5)
                         Scott's only following orders! :) -NT - (a6l6e6x) - (3)
                             Ouch. -NT - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                 I wasn't likening you to the defendants - (rcareaga) - (1)
                                     "Democratic Traditions" - (Another Scott)
                         Saved me the trouble of mentioning that: "Aber es war doch Policy zu gassen die Juden!" - (CRConrad)

It would have been much more tolerable if they used wires and an action figure.
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