Take A Break From The Snowden Drama For A Reminder Of What He's Revealed So Far

[Catherina]

82. Thanks for these points

Overall I agree with you but I'm not sure why you're mentioning four laptops here, unless it's just as a mention of how the US propaganda is angering you, because the author didn't mention them. I think there's a lot of horrible propaganda out there too but the 4 laptop thing came from the Guardian's Ewen MacAskill who appears to be working in tandem with Greenwald as he leaked the GCHQ stories, so I wouldn't discount it that quickly. That could be because I've hung around computer geeks most of my life and traveled with them. I once traveled with a guy who traveled 6 of them so I carried three. Since we're on the subject, the US media horribly distorted what the Guardian said. The sentence about 4 laptops was was sloppy to begin with.

As he pulled a small black suitcase and carried a selection of laptop bags over his shoulders, no one would have paid much attention to Ed Snowden as he arrived at Hong Kong International Airport. But Snowden was not your average tourist or businessman. In all, he was carrying four computers that enabled him to gain access to some of the US government’s most highly-classified secrets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/11/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-profile

The bullshit about him having 4 laptops full of classified information is, just as you said, sensational bullshit. Besides the NSA has no idea what he has and anyone who's ever set foot an NSA facility knows you can't walk out with laptops or even thumbdrives. How do you even read that sentence by the way? To me "enabled to gain access" implies hacking into the NSA, which would be an even bigger scandal. I honestly don't know why that phrase is even there or what it means. I'm filing it under *sloppy* for now.

The other point I'd like to make is that there are way more than 2 who have come forward with information some, especially the government, considered detrimental to the interests of the government of the US. There are several who are members of the National Security WhistleBlowers Coalition, a few more who are part of the [link: http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=71&Itemid=108|National Whistleblowers Center], and others such as Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe.

I totally agree with you about contractors. Contractors aren't the issue here because the NSA has always used contractors, like when it was scrambling to find Farsi linguists, but privatizing and outsourcing intelligence operations, for profit at that, are an issue.

Thanks for your adding your points BrainDrain. Other than my nitpicking comments above, we agree.

If you haven't listened to the 3-4 videos in the following thread, I highly encourage you to do so. I think you'll find them very interesting with your background: 3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so (excellent information)

Thanks again