Sanders (re-posting from National Journal): Why I Don't Care About Edward Snowden

[SunSeeker]

67. Yes, he did give up secrets. He described how our China surveillance system works.

U.S. intelligence agents have been hacking computer networks around the world for years, apparently targeting fat data pipes that push immense amounts of data around the Internet, NSA leaker Edward Snowden told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday.

Among some 61,000 reported targets of the National Security Agency, Snowden said, are hundreds of computers in China -- which U.S. officials have increasingly criticized as the source of thousands of attacks on U.S. military and commercial networks. China has denied such attacks.

The Morning Post said it had seen documents provided by Snowden but was unable to verify their authenticity. The English-language news agency, which operates in Hong Kong, also said it was unable to independently verify allegations of U.S. hacking of networks in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009.

Snowden told the paper that some of the targets included the Chinese University of Hong Kong, public officials and students. The documents also "point to hacking activity by the NSA against mainland targets," the newspaper reported.

...

In the Morning Post interview -- published one week after the British newspaper The Guardian revealed the first leaks attributed to Snowden -- he claimed the agency he once worked for as a contractor typically targets high-bandwidth data lines that connect Internet nodes located around the world.

"We hack network backbones -- like huge Internet routers, basically -- that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

A "backbone" is part of the inner workings of a computer network that links different parts of that network. It is used to deliver data from one part of the network to another and, as such, could expose data from multiple computers if hacked.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/12/politics/nsa-leak/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Maybe the Chinese knew this, but even it they did, he helped them in their propaganda war against the US by publicly confirming it--RIGHT when the Chinese were negotiating with the US over stopping pretty outrageous Chinese hacking--everything from industrial espionage that hurts our industries, to listening in on the Obama and McCain campaigns.

The NSA has been spying on Americans since its inception in the 1950s. I recommend The Puzzle Palace; a decades old book that gives a chilling history of the NSA--and demonstrates that NO ONE should be surprised by what is going on now at the NSA.