Snowden, why didn't you just stop while you were ahead.

In a single move he went from a person looking out for the rights of us internet-users to a scumbag who should be killed in his sleep.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nati...story.html

U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government’s top-secret budget.

The $52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses the money or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress.

Read the documents
Budget
Inside the secret 'black budget'
View select pages from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's top-secret 2013 budget with key sections annotated by The Washington Post.
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Craig Whitlock and Barton Gellman
Satellites aimed dozens of receivers over Pakistan to collect intelligence as the mission unfolded.
Your cheat sheet to America's secret intelligence budget
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Dylan Matthews
For the first time, we know where the $52.6 billion we spend on intelligence operations goes. Here's the rundown.
More data from the ‘black budget’
More data from the ‘black budget’
Tables detail spending requests for agencies, as well as personnel breakdowns by pay grade, language expertise, and years of service.
The 178-page budget summary for the National Intelligence Program details the successes, failures and objectives of the 16 spy agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, which has 107,035 employees.

The summary describes cutting-edge technologies, agent recruiting and ongoing operations. The Post is withholding some information after consultation with U.S. officials who expressed concerns about the risk to intelligence sources and methods. Sensitive details are so pervasive in the documents that The Post is publishing only summary tables and charts online.

“The United States has made a considerable investment in the Intelligence Community since the terror attacks of 9/11, a time which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology, and asymmetric threats in such areas as cyber-warfare,” Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. wrote in response to inquiries from The Post.

“Our budgets are classified as they could provide insight for foreign intelligence services to discern our top national priorities, capabilities and sources and methods that allow us to obtain information to counter threats,” he said.

Among the notable revelations in the budget summary:

•Spending by the CIA has surged past that of every other spy agency, with $14.7 billion in requested funding for 2013. The figure vastly exceeds outside estimates and is nearly 50 percent above that of the National Security Agency, which conducts eavesdropping operations and has long been considered the behemoth of the community.

•The CIA and the NSA have begun aggressive new efforts to hack into foreign computer networks to steal information or sabotage enemy systems, embracing what the budget refers to as “offensive cyber-operations.”

•The NSA planned to investigate at least 4,000 possible insider threats in 2013, cases in which the agency suspected sensitive information may have been compromised by one of its own. The budget documents show that long before Snowden’s leaks, the U.S. intelligence community worried about “anomalous behavior” by personnel with access to highly classified material.

•U.S. intelligence officials take an active interest in foes as well as friends. Pakistan is described in detail as an “intractable target,” and counterintelligence operations “are strategically focused against [the] priority targets of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel.” The latter is a U.S. ally but has a history of espionage attempts against the United States.

This should be considered aiding the enemy; I doubt he will ever get close to us again so he won't see any justice, but god damn, what the hell man. You know for fucking sure that Russia and China already have all of the info, that's the reason they are still willing to harbor him in the first place, information; otherwise, he would just be a nuisance from an international politics' standpoint.

The NSA planned to investigate at least 4,000 possible insider threats in 2013, cases in which the agency suspected sensitive information may have been compromised by one of its own.

At least Snowden's leaking it to Americans, not just the enemies of the state...


As far as I'm concerned, your enemies knowing your priorities is one of the prices of being a free country. A secret government agency with no oversight by the people and free reign to write its own rules is a recipe for the most horrendous crimes against humanity we have on record. We know they're imprisoning people with no trial. We know they're torturing people. How is it in any way alright to let them keep the rest of their activities a secret?

Frankly your attitude towards Snowden terrifies me. If you give up on freedom this quickly, are you even going to notice when all your rights have been taken away in the name of security?

What an insubstantial article.

As far as I'm concerned, your enemies knowing your priorities is one of the prices of being a free country.

Who are the 'enemies' and what do you mean by a 'free country?' What stipulation obligates a 'free country' to dispense private information to 'enemies' against their own will? Is this the ground work for an argument or is this simply rhetoric employed with no basis?

A secret government agency with no oversight by the people and free reign to write its own rules is a recipe for the most horrendous crimes against humanity we have on record.

Debatable. This past December HSBC was tried in court for money laundering i.e. helping wash hundreds of millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. The 'bank' moved money for organizations like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions. Violating any conscionable application of Trading With the Enemy Act and blatantly denying wrong doing even after being thoroughly charged, the Department of Justice chose settlement with a fine that equates to roughly two weeks of profit from the banking institution. When we weigh violations against humanity, they should be considered for the plurality of injustice. When you have a government institution that openly states they willingly choose to have no oversight on banks that have free reign over determining living cost on not only physical products, but also on intangible materials (like air & energy) to future desires (like loans & life insurance) we already have all witnessed the worst crime against humanity that could ever occur. Finances are the de facto standard of humanity. Unaccountable government agencies is something that could lead to horrendous crimes. However, the fact that government agencies that are held accountable have also failed to hold to the standard, arguably being unaccountable should consequently provide context of how much value the concept of your own humanity holds to anyone except yourself.

We know they're imprisoning people with no trial. We know they're torturing people. How is it in any way alright to let them keep the rest of their activities a secret? Frankly your attitude towards Snowden terrifies me. If you give up on freedom this quickly, are you even going to notice when all your rights have been taken away in the name of security?

Tell me what rights? If we're discussing the rights that correlate to the Justice System, then we're talking about a medium that also bases itself around money. In such a medium, your rights are directly proportional to the quality of your lawyer. And the quality of the lawyer is proportional to the size of your pockets. Based on law firm alone, certain attorneys from lower-tier law practices will move instantly into settlement when paired in litigation with a lawyer representing an extremely prestigious firm. Security itself is a figurative concept that exists on the same intangible plane as human rights. The same goes with freedom. Everyone has freedom. Everyone possesses the ability to make an independent choice on some thought process. You can't technically lose freedom. However, it is wrong to imply that we'll lose to the government simply by making the personal decision to 'give up' to the 'forces at large'. People are subjugated because they choose to play by rules established by the very people you encourage them to be wary of. Compromise is understandable, but individuals don't compromise to abuse of authority because they expect the rules to change, but because they are cognizant that they are too weak to actually make a significant difference in the system. Freedom has no place when discussing standards that people must accept because they are aware that they cannot change the current status quo. That's subjugation.

At least Snowden's leaking it to Americans, not just the enemies of the state...


As far as I'm concerned, your enemies knowing your priorities is one of the prices of being a free country. A secret government agency with no oversight by the people and free reign to write its own rules is a recipe for the most horrendous crimes against humanity we have on record. We know they're imprisoning people with no trial. We know they're torturing people. How is it in any way alright to let them keep the rest of their activities a secret?

Frankly your attitude towards Snowden terrifies me. If you give up on freedom this quickly, are you even going to notice when all your rights have been taken away in the name of security?

So, because he's leaking it to Americans, it's OK that he's also leaking it to everybody else? Sensitive data is just that. Some information the public isn't meant to know. As much as I dislike not knowing something, I'd rather pass on it than put millions of people at risk for some only moderately useful (or even interesting) information. Millions of dollars is no longer a very large amount when our debt is 5-6 digits higher than that. If it were tens of billions, I might see the usefulness of this information IN THE PROPER CHANNELS, with details that completely compromise our national security structure left out for the general public.

Telling EVERYONE all of our weakpoints when we are the world's number one superpower is absurd, and the best way to quickly and destructively remove us from that. Isn't that the very definition of traitorous?

Did the Post not censor it so their would be minimum danger? [MENTION=2088]Flonne[/MENTION];

So, because he's leaking it to Americans, it's OK that he's also leaking it to everybody else? Sensitive data is just that. Some information the public isn't meant to know. As much as I dislike not knowing something, I'd rather pass on it than put millions of people at risk for some only moderately useful (or even interesting) information. Millions of dollars is no longer a very large amount when our debt is 5-6 digits higher than that. If it were tens of billions, I might see the usefulness of this information IN THE PROPER CHANNELS, with details that completely compromise our national security structure left out for the general public.

Telling EVERYONE all of our weakpoints when we are the world's number one superpower is absurd, and the best way to quickly and destructively remove us from that. Isn't that the very definition of traitorous?

he raises a good point however, how do you expect to be informed as an american, without having U.S.' enemies be informed too? at what point information is "sensitive"? according to the US, all information he's revealed so far is sensitive, that's what got him in trouble in the first place

Did the Post not censor it so their would be minimum danger? [MENTION=2088]Flonne[/MENTION];

Most places are doing so, which is actually something I'll give the media credit for...at least until someone wants more attention and spills everything. The media isn't the source of the leak though, they are just an outlet.

he raises a good point however, how do you expect to be informed as an american, without having U.S.' enemies be informed too? at what point information is "sensitive"? according to the US, all information he's revealed so far is sensitive, that's what got him in trouble in the first place

That's a difficult line to draw, I agree, and I don't really know the answer, all I know is this one went over it for me. I was totally OK with everything else he leaked.

That's a difficult line to draw, I agree, and I don't really know the answer, all I know is this one went over it for me. I was totally OK with everything else he leaked.

You're lying. 'This one' went over it for me. What did you actually dislike from the source document that is posted on the linked web site.

I prefer not to take sides, so I'll just leave a couple of comments here.

=> Nurmengard - "For the greater good"... who deems what is good? How good is good enough? Do the ends - (a/an) "greater good(s)" - justify the means? On whose justification(s)? This applied to both sides of the current issue.
=> Moral obligations are... I would say, highly personal and subjective. The claim of a moral obligation is not a solid argument because it is not solely affected by societal norms. A twisted righteousness is still righteousness... to the own person but not others. Morality is, unfortunately, not universal, and most definitely isn't tied to us all being (civilised) humans.
=> Even if one's words and actions resonate with some others, performing an act that is later echoed by others does not necesarily grant one justification for one's actions at that point of time. Because of this, judging one's actions becomes very... nuanced.

@above: would you mind clarifying your sentence? Its sentence structure makes understanding difficult.

Hadriel

What an insubstantial article.



Who are the 'enemies' and what do you mean by a 'free country?' What stipulation obligates a 'free country' to dispense private information to 'enemies' against their own will? Is this the ground work for an argument or is this simply rhetoric employed with no basis?

My easiest option here is to quote Wikipedia:

Free country is a political and ideological concept of the existence of freedom in a country. This includes the existence of democratic institutions that guarantee freedom in practice, such as representative government, political parties, trade unions, political opposition, branches of government, judicial independence, independence of media. It also encompasses institutions that avoid political repression, torture, censure and other forms of denying freedom.

Censure being the main one I'm thinking of with regard to Snowden. And I tend to draw the line on private information at "personally identifying information". I don't want to know what specific terrorist threats the CIA/NSA are combatting, in terms of "they are wiretapping 1-800-555-1234". I do want to know that they're using proper judicial channels to obtain their wiretaps, and a general idea of who they're employed against.

Debatable. This past December HSBC was tried in court for money laundering i.e. helping wash hundreds of millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. The 'bank' moved money for organizations like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions. Violating any conscionable application of Trading With the Enemy Act and blatantly denying wrong doing even after being thoroughly charged, the Department of Justice chose settlement with a fine that equates to roughly two weeks of profit from the banking institution. When we weigh violations against humanity, they should be considered for the plurality of injustice. When you have a government institution that openly states they willingly choose to have no oversight on banks that have free reign over determining living cost on not only physical products, but also on intangible materials (like air & energy) to future desires (like loans & life insurance) we already have all witnessed the worst crime against humanity that could ever occur. Finances are the de facto standard of humanity. Unaccountable government agencies is something that could lead to horrendous crimes. However, the fact that government agencies that are held accountable have also failed to hold to the standard, arguably being unaccountable should consequently provide context of how much value the concept of your own humanity holds to anyone except yourself.

I'm not actually interested in weighing which is worse pound for pound. But thanks for pointing out that they're already doing it.

Tell me what rights? If we're discussing the rights that correlate to the Justice System, then we're talking about a medium that also bases itself around money. In such a medium, your rights are directly proportional to the quality of your lawyer. And the quality of the lawyer is proportional to the size of your pockets. Based on law firm alone, certain attorneys from lower-tier law practices will move instantly into settlement when paired in litigation with a lawyer representing an extremely prestigious firm. Security itself is a figurative concept that exists on the same intangible plane as human rights. The same goes with freedom. Everyone has freedom. Everyone possesses the ability to make an independent choice on some thought process. You can't technically lose freedom. However, it is wrong to imply that we'll lose to the government simply by making the personal decision to 'give up' to the 'forces at large'. People are subjugated because they choose to play by rules established by the very people you encourage them to be wary of. Compromise is understandable, but individuals don't compromise to abuse of authority because they expect the rules to change, but because they are cognizant that they are too weak to actually make a significant difference in the system. Freedom has no place when discussing standards that people must accept because they are aware that they cannot change the current status quo. That's subjugation.

Uh you can technically lose many freedoms. Freedom of expression, freedom of congregation, freedom from imprisonment. If a government takes one away, very few individuals have the resources to fight back.

@above: would you mind clarifying your sentence? Its sentence structure makes understanding difficult.

OP states that the information leaked in this instance constituted a 'breaking point' that was somehow worse than previous leaks. However, doesn't provide details on how this is the case. Having skimmed over some of the headers, sparse information is provided therefore begging to question how one can make such a call. My impression is that the OP hasn't bothered to check the formatted 'source document' and has instead relied on the tone of the article in passing their own judgment.

Uh you can technically lose many freedoms. Freedom of expression, freedom of congregation, freedom from imprisonment. If a government takes one away, very few individuals have the resources to fight back.

You should have grasped in my prior post that I find ideas like 'freedom of congregation' and 'freedom of imprisonment' to be a debasement of my belief that no matter what has happened, is happening, or will happen to an individual they always possess an uncompromisable ability of choice. I suspect that you brought freedoms into this discussion as a matter of thought-train consistency with respect to you elaborating on your initial promotion that America should hold to being a free country. However, we are discussing two very different things. My prior post was more focused on the discussion of freedom as it exists as a concept. Your response is a discussion of how institutions implement the concept of freedom as freedoms. Are we good? Because I actually typed up an entirely different response before realizing that it was just easier to explain how I feel that this was a conversation over cmanticks.

You should have grasped in my prior post that I find ideas like 'freedom of congregation' and 'freedom of imprisonment' to be a debasement of my belief that no matter what has happened, is happening, or will happen to an individual they always possess an uncompromisable ability of choice.

I'm not sure if I can agree with that, unless people can cease to be individuals without, in the traditional sense, dying (take people in persistive vegetative comas - they're not able to make any choices as far as I can tell). Also, a third party can certainly affect your set of choices - if you're in solitary confinement "kiss a person" is no longer one of your options, you're stuck with "pace restlessly", "stare at the wall", "starve yourself to death", and so on. It's in this sense that I care about freedom - I feel that some choices should be available to anyone, in order to maintain human dignity. And when you take those choices away from someone you're doing something bad. That's not to say it's never necessary - but just that it needs to be acknowledged as such in every case when it's done (and as far as I'm concerned, the only reason to do it is to prevent them doing worse to others).


btw I'm a little confused if you have 2 accounts or just completely didn't post the thing I was rebutting.

I'm not sure if I can agree with that, unless people can cease to be individuals without, in the traditional sense, dying (take people in persistive vegetative comas - they're not able to make any choices as far as I can tell). Also, a third party can certainly affect your set of choices - if you're in solitary confinement "kiss a person" is no longer one of your options, you're stuck with "pace restlessly", "stare at the wall", "starve yourself to death", and so on. It's in this sense that I care about freedom - I feel that some choices should be available to anyone, in order to maintain human dignity. And when you take those choices away from someone you're doing something bad. That's not to say it's never necessary - but just that it needs to be acknowledged as such in every case when it's done (and as far as I'm concerned, the only reason to do it is to prevent them doing worse to others). btw I'm a little confused if you have 2 accounts or just completely didn't post the thing I was rebutting.

Quick answer. Yes, coma patients are unconscious and therefore don't have the freedom to make their own decisions. No, people in solitary still have the freedom to make their own decisions, they are limited though in the ability of decisions they are able to make due to their presence in a 'solitary' environment. There is no proven correlation with humanity and dignity or dignity being an objective standard to judge humanity. Yes, I agree that it would be nice if people have the ability to do anything they wanted, but realistically we know that is not true. And no, I don't believe that restricting someone's ability of choice is bad. I believe that it is only a disparity that comes from one person having a superior platform to the other person. I am still under the belief though that even though we don't have a choice to how we are born in this world, we do have a choice of how we die, the only caveat being children born with severe birth defects and disabilities that leave them physically crippled and unable to move their bodies (a caveat just for you). I have more than two accounts. Due to my impulsive nature I sometimes jitter about. But I am mostly on this one all the time. And I responded to what I felt was relevant to discussion.

I'm honestly not sure how to take the other viewpoint of this, so I don't really know how to respond to you defending him. It's on such a fundamental level of "wrong" to me that it isn't possible for me to do so. Here's a larger list since I guess you didn't look up more articles on this:

1. Spending by the CIA has surpassed all of the other spy agencies. The CIA requested $14.7 billion for 2013. That’s roughly twice that of the NSA.

2. The CIA, NSA and National Reconnaissance Office receive the bulk of the funding—68%.

3. There funding is based on five mission objectives: Warning U.S. leaders about critical events ($20.1 billion), Combating terrorism ($17.2 billion), Stopping the spread of illicit weapons ($6.7 billion), conducting cyber operations ($4.3 billion) and defending against foreign espionage ($3.8 billion).

4. The CIA and NSA have beefed up efforts to hack into foreign computer networks. The budget refers to this as “offensive cyber operations.”

5. The NSA planned on looking into a whopping 4,000 possible “insider” threats this year, in which one of its own employees was suspected of compromising top-secret information.

6. Pakistan is described as an “intractable target.” Meanwhile, there are counterintelligence operations “strategically focused against [the] priority targets of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and Israel.”

7. There are ongoing, expanded efforts to collect information on Russia’s chemical warfare countermeasures. There are also efforts to look into the security of biological and chemical labs in Pakistan.

8. Details about the U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden were revealed too. According to the Post, the budget points to the operation as an example of cooperation among the intelligence agencies and reveals the raid was “guided from space by a fleet of satellites which aimed dozens of separate receivers over Pakistan to collect a torrent of electronic and signals intelligence as the mission unfolded.”

9. “Blind spots” the agencies wish they more information about are acknowledged in the budget, although the document says there has been “moderate” progress on some, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. Other blind spots include Pakistan’s nuclear program, what China’s next generation fighter aircrafts are capable of, and how Russian authorities are likely to respond in the event of a terrorist attack. The paper reported that there are what it called five “critical gaps” for North Korea—the most in comparison to other countries that “has or is pursuing” a nuclear bomb.

I don't mind the leak on 1-5, and while 8 is sketchy I'd still say I'm fine with it, but 7 and especially 9 are breaches of national security at a major level, plain and simple. ...and it didn't number them.

I don't understand. What about #7 and #9 make them so important?

I don't understand. What about #7 and #9 make them so important?

For one, that we are looking to obtain that information. China/Russia has always been the "Enemy closer than my friend" circumstance. Although they are considered "allies" it still looks bad when you're exposed for looking through your "friends belongings". It also reveals how much information we do have. That put's us in a poor position as they know our limitations while there information is endless as far as we as a country are concerned. It also red flags what we are looking for, thus they focus their "counter espionage" on those points.

I didn't really want to comment on snowden until his intentions were finally developed, this just proved he was more of a traitor than a patriot, hell he had most of the world believing the later, so just to me, seems like a bad fellow in general :|

For one, that we are looking to obtain that information. China/Russia has always been the "Enemy closer than my friend" circumstance. Although they are considered "allies" it still looks bad when you're exposed for looking through your "friends belongings". It also reveals how much information we do have. That put's us in a poor position as they know our limitations while there information is endless as far as we as a country are concerned. It also red flags what we are looking for, thus they focus their "counter espionage" on those points. I didn't really want to comment on snowden until his intentions were finally developed, this just proved he was more of a traitor than a patriot, hell he had most of the world believing the later, so just to me, seems like a bad fellow in general :|

How much information do we have on them?

How much information do we have on them?

Essentially all the information they need is what we are targeting, which defines our interests, and that we know of the existence of these programs but not in detail. They'll obviously make it even more difficult to acquire that information, which by evidently our government standards should be a priority, for reasons probably out you or I's understanding, or rather perspective