(1) The ease of access to broad swaths of poorly protected secret information via espionage is my foremost concern.
It should be your foremost concern as well. It isn't.

(2) Incompetence leading to that poor protection would fall next on my list. I.e., preventing access from occurring again. Should have occurred after Manning. It didn't!
At this point, heads should roll! They haven't.

(3) Government spy programs targeting the majority of Americans would rank right up there, as would officials lying to our citizenry about those programs.
Snowden unroofing those programs was a public service. Sorry that rustles your obamalovingjimmies.

(4) Appropriately punishing those who broke the law is critical.
This has everything to do with Clapper, Manning, and Snowden.

(5) Regaining and accurately cataloguing the information Snowden accessed would be immensely valuable.
In that regard, a nonnegotiable, unrelenting intent to throw Snowden in jail for life is stupid. What is more valuable to the country at this point, debriefing Snowden and regaining the information he accessed in exchange for a vastly reduced sentence, or exacting revenge and leaving unknown information out there?

Amnesty?
I guess if that is what it took.
But I suspect a compromise deal could be cut, if Obama & Co were so motivated. They aren't though. A nonpartisan person would ask himself why.

With all this supposedly vital information still out there, why not try to cut a deal?

quote:
I'll repeat the passage here for efficiency's sake.

As previously noted, there is no evidence Snowden has released information to the Russians. In fact, as I understand it, there is tremendous confusion as what information he actually took, other than to say it was voluminous.

For example, "an anonymous US official" leaked his supposition that these secret files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy. Your source seems to hold that fact in high esteem. In the context of this discussion, that strikes me as odd.

Does that "anonymous US official" have evidence that Snowden provided any information he cites to the Russians?
No?
Then why is your big-mouthed "anonymous US official" leaking that the information is potentially out there in the first place? Sounds like this "anonymous US official" would like the Russians to know Snowden may have some good stuff, if they can just find a way to extract it.

This post was edited on 3/25/14 at 11:21 am

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Posted by Decatur

Member since Mar 2007

28872 posts

Posted on 3/25/14 at 11:35 am to NC_Tigah

quote:
As previously noted, there is no evidence Snowden has released information to the Russians. In fact, as I understand it, there is tremendous confusion as what information he actually took, other than to say it was voluminous.

For example, "an anonymous US official" leaked his supposition that these secret files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy. Your source seems to hold that fact in high esteem. In the context of this discussion, that strikes me as odd.

There is evidence he stole it though. And if you think a system admin with a GED is gonna outwit the entirety of the world's hostile intelligence services, then I don't have anything more to say to you on that.

If he had just taken the docs from that first leak (the telephone metadata program), we might be having a different conversation right now. But he took SO much more...I mean tens of thousands, maybe over a million more, and just about all of the rest of it has nothing to do with American civil liberties, rather legitimate foreign intelligence collection sources and methods. That's major damage. And he didn't even know what he was taking before he took it. He first made the decision that he was going to be the guy to blow US SIGINT practices worldwide, in turn damaging the foreign relations of the United States, and he's now doing this under the control of Russian intelligence.

Is this what you agree with? You'd give him amnesty after all this?

quote:
For example, "an anonymous US official" leaked his supposition that these secret files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy. Your source seems to hold that fact in high esteem.

Because they are stating it as fact. There is no supposition there.

This post was edited on 3/25/14 at 12:10 pm

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Posted by Decatur

Member since Mar 2007

28872 posts

Posted on 3/26/14 at 9:56 am to NC_Tigah

quote:
(3) Government spy programs targeting the majority of Americans would rank right up there, as would officials lying to our citizenry about those programs. Snowden unroofing those programs was a public service. Sorry that rustles your obamalovingjimmies.

But I asked a more specific question. So just to clarify you think it was a public service for Snowden to steal the documents described below?

quote:
U.S. officials are alerting some foreign intelligence services that documents detailing their secret cooperation with the United States have been obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to government officials.

Snowden, U.S. officials said, took tens of thousands of military intelligence documents, some of which contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China. Some refer to operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States.

The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure is delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.

The notifications come as the Obama administration is scrambling to placate allies after allegations that the NSA has spied on foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The reports have forced the administration to play down operations targeting friends while also attempting to preserve other programs that depend on provisional partners. In either case, trust in the United States may be compromised.

“It is certainly a concern, just as much as the U.S. collection [of information on European allies] being put in the news, if not more, because not only does it mean we have the potential of losing collection, but also of harming relationships,” a congressional aide said.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is handling the job of informing the other intelligence services, the officials said. ODNI declined to comment.

In one case, for instance, the files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy, said one U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. Snowden faces theft and espionage charges.

“If the Russians knew about it, it wouldn’t be hard for them to take appropriate measures to put a stop to it,” the official said.

Snowden lifted the documents from a top-secret network run by the Defense Intelligence Agency and used by intelligence arms of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, according to sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Snowden took 30,000 documents that involve the intelligence work of one of the services, the official said. He gained access to the documents through the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, or JWICS, for top-secret/sensitive compartmented information, the sources said.

The material in question does not deal with NSA surveillance but primarily with standard intelligence about other countries’ military capabilities, including weapons systems — missiles, ships and jets, the officials say.