Interview with NSA whistleblower

[Spata]

Q: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower?

A: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."

Q: But isn't there a need for surveillance to try to reduce the chances of terrorist attacks such as Boston?

A: "We have to decide why terrorism is a new threat. There has always been terrorism. Boston was a criminal act. It was not about surveillance but good, old-fashioned police work. The police are very good at what they do."

More @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why

Well, he will be dead before the sun comes up


From the interview:

...while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government , or someone they suspect of terrorism , they're collecting your communications to do so . . .

.....any annalist at any time can target anyone , any sector anywhere ...where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor network , and the authorities that annalist is empowered with...not all annalists have the ability to target everything ...but I sitting at my desk certainly had the authority to target anyone...from you , your accountant , a federal judge to even a president , if they had a personal e-mail. "

"....even if you're not doing anything wrong , you're being watched and recorded . . . .

.....the storage capability of these systems increases every year , consistently , by orders of magnitudes , to where it's getting to the point that you dont have to have done anything wrong , you simply just have to eventually have fallen under suspicion by somebody , even by a wrong call , and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made ...every friend you've ever discussed something with , and attack you on that basis . . . . "

 

[ignerntbend]

Well, he will be dead before the sun comes up.

No. He'll disapear into the gulag. He'll be replaced by a Stepford Wife type robot.One more Snowden of yesteryear.

 

[Spata]

No. He'll disapear into the gulag. He'll be replaced by a Stepford Wife type robot.One more Snowden of yesteryear.

Nuh-uh dead man walking

 

[farmerbyron]

I gotta say this guy comes across as a level headed patriot and not an Alex Jones nut job. Hope this keeps snowballing on the most transparent administration in history.

 

[Sanford]

Okay, cover me clueless but I can't see that he's "leaked" or "whistlebown" any information that wasn't already publicly available - or at the very least could be easily inferred from publicly available information. The following snippets are from the NSA's Domestic Surveillance Directorate public website:

...what if we could collect the information in advance, before the target was known? What if the mere act of collecting information could result in the identification of new targets? What if we could build a national data warehouse containing all available information about every person in the United States? Under the authority of the classified Homeland Security Directive 15 (U.S. Strategy and Policy in the War on Terror), we can.

Every day, people leave a digital trail of electronic breadcrumbs as they go about their daily routine. They go to work using electronic fare cards; drive through intersections with traffic cameras; walk down the street past security cameras; surf the internet; pay for purchases with credit/debit cards; text or call their friends; and on and on.

For security reasons, it is unrealistic to expect a complete list of information we collect for our national citizen database. In the spirit of openness and transparency however, here is a partial list:

internet searches
websites visited
emails sent and received
social media activity (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
blogging activity including posts read, written, and commented on - View our patent
videos watched and/or uploaded online
photos viewed and/or uploaded online
music downloads
mobile phone GPS-location data
mobile phone apps downloaded
phone call records - View our patent
text messages sent and received
online purchases and auction transactions
bookstore receipts
credit card/ debit card transactions
bank statements
cable television shows watched and recorded
commuter toll records
parking receipts
electronic bus and subway passes / Smartpasses
travel itineraries
border crossings
surveillance cameras
medical information including diagnoses and treatments
prescription drug purchases
guns and ammunition sales
educational records
arrest records
driver license information

Considering the timing, could this whole thing be a ploy intended to divert public (and congressional) attention from all the other "stuff" going on with the Administration? Heck, they even have patents on mining social media and telephone records, so it didn't just spring up overnight.

 

[Spata]

Okay, cover me clueless but I can't see that he's "leaked" or "whistlebown" any information that wasn't already publicly available - or at the very least could be easily inferred from publicly available information. The following snippets are from the NSA's public website http://nsa.gov1.info/:







Considering the timing, could this whole thing be a ploy intended to divert public (and congressional) attention from all the other "stuff" going on with the Administration? Heck, they even have patents on mining social media and telephone records, so it didn't just spring up overnight.

Im thinking he isn't done leaking yet.

 

[Sanford]

Im thinking he isn't done leaking yet.

Will be interesting to see if he leaks anything that's not already on their list. Reading through the information available just on the pages of that site should be enough for most people to intuit much more even without any additional specifics.

Either way, though - seems funny that the news media has suddenly jumped on this to the distraction of all else, especially when anything we've heard thus far is not much "news" in the sense of "new information."

 

[loudshirt]

Here is my favorite part of the interview:

Q: Why Hong Kong?

A: "I think it is really tragic that an American has to move to a place that has a reputation for less freedom. Still, Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People's Republic of China. It has a strong tradition of free speech."

China (or Hong Kong for that matter)=strong tradition of free speech

 

[Dale00]

Here is my favorite part of the interview:



China (or Hong Kong for that matter)=strong tradition of free speech

He's seeking shelter under the wing of one of our most powerful adversaries. But he is doing so in HongKong where the Chinese have allowed residents to retain much of their freedom of speech.

 

[Spata]

the war has begun

Snowden is a ron paul supporter

http://www.ibtimes.com/nsa-whistleb...ron-pauls-2012-presidential-campaign-does-nsa


Time to make sure your house is in order, check your bob and load your mags.