Vanity of vanities all is vanity. – Ecclesiastes
It is human nature to want to be relevant. To know that to the world we are important. It does not matter who we are or where we live, that is a reality.
By his chosen career path, Edward Snowden demonstrated that he wanted to matter, to make a difference, and he acted on it, as all idealistic young men do. He took action, joining the Army to make a difference and ending up as a CIA technician where he “discovered” that Americans’ rights were being violated through the wide ranging collection of the electronic data we all produce every day.
Mr. Snowden discovered this; he claims it didn’t sit well and it was part of his disillusionment with the Obama administration; and so he made a hard copy of several classified computer files, fled the country and “leaked” information about a program that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the national communications infrastructure and the nature of online content (once it’s there, it’s there forever) should have known was most likely happening.
Doesn’t anyone else have a suspicious and cynical mind?
Online information, especially content in social media, IS NOT SECURE, NEVER HAS BEEN AND NEVER WILL BE. Why? Because it flows all around us, a la wireless and sat phones. Plain and simply, anything that flows through the air and bounces off satellites is interceptible. Not only that, the electrons that make up all this “data” travel over an infrastructure owned by the US government, including our GPS system. It’s always been this way, and back doors have always existed. Aside from that, social media is just that. Social – and very public.
So, other than private emails, which should be encrypted, but probably aren’t, information posted on public forums, flowing over public hardware, is being scooped up and indexed by the very entity that owns the system, ultimately, and Mr. Snowden is horrified because it violates our rights, so he takes action and incites a firestorm of debate with the words treason, hero, prosecute, and triumph coming from all sides in the political sphere (although, I understand the left is persuading its following to go toward the “treason” side. Curious).
No discussion on whether or not information posted on public websites or flowing through servers owned by someone else is really private, but lots of discussion of a violation of rights, real and imagined.
Well, we Americans, yes, are touchy about our rights, particularly privacy, but how private, exactly, is social media?
Leaving that thought aside, Mr. Snowden, while claiming to look out for the rights of his fellow Americans since that was his stated motive, breached a contract he had with the US government regarding his security clearance in removing files without authorization (that’s called stealing), not just blowing the whistle. He also lied to family and friends about where he was headed when he went to China. I don’t know about the rest of America, but that raises a few red flags in the integrity arena for me.
In addition, there have been reports out of online ezines and social media sites for years about a program that the FBI was pushing to do exactly what PRISM is reported to do. That it really exists, and the FBI or NSA or CIA, whichever, was seeking legal cover should be no great stunner.
So, Mr. Edward Snowden, who felt he had to leave the country to expose the tyranny that the US government is wielding over Americans with a storage program that pinpoints messaging from foreign countries flowing over its own equipment, is now taking credit for “blowing the whistle” on it, even if there may well have been actionable intelligence being tracked which is now in the wind.
If the whole country wasn’t up in arms over the IRS actually targeting AMERICANS and subduing opposition to the current regime during last year’s election, would any of us seriously be calling this guy a hero? Treason may not be quite the right word, but he’s definitely guilty of bad judgement if intelligence operations in progress were disrupted (and maybe cost lives. We may never know the answer to that question).
Forget the national security concerns – at this point the enemy has moved to greener pastures, communications wise – why is a liar and thief being called a hero? Did he really do “the right thing”?
Edward Snowden wanted to make a difference. He has, in a way, as a debate that no one saw coming is now raging on national security vs. privacy rights. For that alone, we will know the name Edward Snowden forever. Having been raised in an America that fosters self worth, importance, esteem and the assurance of privacy where those feelings trump ethics, integrity, and common sense, his glory is assured.
However, at the tender age of 29, he cannot come home. He’ll never work in intelligence or security in or with the US. And employers everywhere will have reason to question his word.
That’s Edward Snowden’s price for being a glory hound. He better be willing to pay it.
The Conservative Citizen 
We are a little too “shocked and appalled” by these “revelations” lately. Nice how we’re kept preoccupied with “old news”. Why do we have to keep building a case that the government is out of control? Because, like it or not, most people don’t think it goes too far. To kill cancer, cut off its food chain. direct assault doesn’t work well, but a slow starvation, over the long haul, does. That takes a political shift, and that is not accomplished by smear campaigns. It takes long-term, calm elucidation of a better alternative
I’m not building a case for anything. Just stating a few facts people forget. The hardware infrastructure was built for eavesdropping and the people utilizing it just merrily went along their way assuming no one was listening because we have a right to privacy. Most likely no one is listening. At least not to the everyday stuff. There’s no reason to. But, at the same time, social media is not private. If you want something confidential, say it in person, write a letter, keep a hand-written diary.
The debate we are having over all this is long overdue, but that doesn’t change that someone who stole top secret documents fled the country, went to a foreign news outlet, had this splashed all over everywhere, and took credit for informing the world. Trust destroyed, enemies no longer in a place easy to watch.
Almost as if it was by design.
No, you are not building a case. My point is that we should not build a case, because that is beating a dead horse. We all should know what you point out, that our info is not private. Rather than express horror at the obvious, it’s more important to figure out how to wake the brain-dead to the fact that our there can be an alternative to Big Brother.
As for Mr. whistle blower, he could have figured a way to go through channels and not break the law. Unless he had knowledge of an actual treasonous act that was being covered up, he had no right to do what he did. They have this thing called resignation for people who can’t stomach the program.
I hate to disagree, but Edward, if he had been a democrat during the bush years doing exactly what he has done would be lauded to the nth degree. If I thought for one moment that a BLANKET trap such as the one they have in place now actually would save one American Life I would be all for it, but with people of the ilk in the executive office now, Valerie Jarrett and her “we will get even” stance I say what did he really do wrong, make obuttman look like a butt head, well I’m sorry people he is and blaming one person for spilling the bean book so to speak, isn’t going to change that one little bit. And I believe that we all are smart enough to know that who ever wants to check your social networking experience on line can, that is NOT THE QUESTION for the outrage, it is how is it we have a liar as prez, a criminal liar, and murderer and no one seems to be focused on that.
We’re all now focused on a glory hound.
Think, Kathi. what is really usable in all the information that’s been collected?
Treason is too harsh, particularly in America, not even sure that he really needs prosecuting but you’re right. the last time you were assured of communications privacy was when you picked up a hard wired land line and called another hard wired landline. One of the funny things about the electromagnetic spectrum in the US is, if you can intercept it, you can listen to it, store it, whatever. You are not supposed to make use of it, but that is another issue.
Snowdown is little but another kid promoted well beyond his maturity, I doubt he really knows right from wrong, for all that I think he thought he was doing the right thing. He’ll pay a hefty price, in any case.
What’s usable? Little but the meta-data, and even that is a gargantuan task to get anything even marginally useful out of. I’m inclined to think NSA said, “We can do this, Let’s.” With little idea of why.
Actually, all day I’ve been thinking about the Confessional. We Catholics go to confession in person exclusively for the very reasons being magnified by this case. There can be a screen between the priest and the person, but it cannot be over communications gadgets. Why? Because what is said is between the person and God, and there is no guarantee that there would not be eavesdropping. (The priest is obligated to maintain confidentiality under the seal which is why crimes committed in a Confessional are dealt with differently. That’s what Cardinal Ratzinger did before he was pope.) Even when standing in line, those waiting are at least 15 feet away to give whoever is in the confessional privacy.
The internet is not a confessional. People need to quit expecting it to be one.
Yes, and very much on point, in the confessional end of my church, yes we do have one :-), sometimes device are used, and I’ll bet it’s because nobody thought it out.
I grew up on a party line phone, and my parents taught me to say nothing on it that I would mind seeing on the front page of the paper. A pretty good rule for the internet as well.
I thought about party lines, but having no experience with one, couldn’t really comment.
Reblogged this on My New Politics.
Is everyone afraid now?? Is this really news to anyone?? I for one would want to make sure we know we have the right terrorist before we blow him to smithereens and save the lives of millions of Americans for the sacrifice of what I had for breakfast in the morning “unwittingly” overheard by the powers that be while tracking the true monsters seeking to strike fear in the hearts of Americans. Is Edward Snowden really any different? Thanks for enlightening us Edward… you have really done the country some good… NOT.