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Snowden publicly offers to sell/trade Brazil secrets for asylum

RChildress107 said:
If he wasn't a genius than the NSA has bigger problems than Edward Snowden. If this community college flunkie was able to walk away with this much damaging information without any discernible skills imagine what the best of the best from other countries are capable of getting their hands on.
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If you have the right clearance with the right agency, it doesn't take a genius IT whiz to get to some of these files. Also, this was not the first time he had been caught trying to access files that he had no business messing with. He was on the verge of being fired from his contracting position with the CIA when he left on his own accord for attempting to do the same thing. I have a friend of mine that worked with him at Booz Allen. He said the guy would have never been hired in the first place after leaving his contracting position with the CIA, if it wasn't for pressure within some higher up levels of management, that had some dealings with his family to hire him.
 
RJKarl said:
He hacked into the NSA computer to steal the questions and answers to get a permanent job there. Those who portray him a a "genius" don't know much about him.
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His mommy got him these jobs. He is not this brilliant educated individual that so many portray him to be.
 
DeaconOEF/OIFvet said:
If you have the right clearance with the right agency, it doesn't take a genius IT whiz to get to some of these files. Also, this was not the first time he had been caught trying to access files that he had no business messing with. He was on the verge of being fired from his contracting position with the CIA when he left on his own accord for attempting to do the same thing. I have a friend of mine that worked with him at Booz Allen. He said the guy would have never been hired in the first place after leaving his contracting position with the CIA, if it wasn't for pressure within some higher up levels of management, that had some dealings with his family to hire him.
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And how many people have this clearance? Regardless of how he got the files the fact that he is allegedly a run of the mill community college drop out is far less comforting and indicates far bigger problems with the NSA than whatever damage Snowden has done by leaking these files.
 
RChildress107 said:
And how many people have this clearance? Regardless of how he got the files the fact that he is allegedly a run of the mill community college drop out is far less comforting and indicates far bigger problems with the NSA than whatever damage Snowden has done by leaking these files.
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His educational background has little to do with the real problem. It doesn't matter if it's random schmoes or Harvard Joes with this type of access. Everybody has the capability to do bad things with this info. What Snowden did is pretty far down the list of harmful things.
 
His coworkers claim he was brilliant and got his access by impressing his superiors, the other narrative (drop out loser) is what the spooks want you to believe...... Fucking fools.
 
Underrated said:
His coworkers claim he was brilliant and got his access by impressing his superiors, the other narrative (drop out loser) is what the spooks want you to believe...... Fucking fools.
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Total BS. I know some of his former coworkers. Yes, he got along with some of them, but a great many of them thought he was an egotistical prick that had no business being there. He's known to be a complete douche bag that overly exaggerates what he does/did.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/booze-allen-employees-think-edward-snowden-is-a-douche?s=mobile
 
RChildress107 said:
And how many people have this clearance? Regardless of how he got the files the fact that he is allegedly a run of the mill community college drop out is far less comforting and indicates far bigger problems with the NSA than whatever damage Snowden has done by leaking these files.
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I'm not disputing the problems. I'm just tired of hearing some people glorifying this little prick.
 
DeaconOEF/OIFvet said:
Total BS. I know some of his former coworkers. Yes, he got along with some of them, but a great many of them thought he was an egotistical prick that had no business being there. He's known to be a complete douche bag that overly exaggerates what he does/did.
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This coworker seems to strongly disagree:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/12/16/an-nsa-coworker-remembers-the-real-edward-snowden-a-genius-among-geniuses/?goback=.gde_3131037_member_5818379784106844163
 
DeaconOEF/OIFvet said:
I'm not disputing the problems. I'm just tired of hearing some people glorifying this little prick.
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Why? He gave up everything to expose what a lot of people consider to be outrageous, unconstitutional government abuses. He's a great American in my book.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
Why? He gave up everything to expose what a lot of people consider to be outrageous, unconstitutional government abuses. He's a great American in my book.
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This. The haters just want to get mixed up in his background and other stuff instead of the good he has done by showing us what is really going on.
 
PhDeac said:
This. The haters just want to get mixed up in his background and other stuff instead of the good he has done by showing us what is really going on.
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The informed public already knew a lot of this stuff had been going on. If they didn't, then they were being willfully ignorant. Not condoning it by any means. Hell, I'm a f'in Libertarian! But this guy has a past of making bad choices, egotism, and seeking attention. He almost caused a similar problem as a contractor with the CIA.
 
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BobStackFan4Life said:
Why? He gave up everything to expose what a lot of people consider to be outrageous, unconstitutional government abuses. He's a great American in my book.
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I get where you're coming from, and agree with you on the principles. I just don't like the character. This guy was going to cause problems eventually anyways.
 
The informed public? Who is that and why didn't they inform everybody else?
 
All fine. At the end of the day the focus is still much more heightened in terms of where it belongs - namely on the scope of the programs in question. Sometimes it takes an ego-maniac to drive folks to take notice. This is probably just one of those times.
 
No current or future President is going to be the one to have another 9/11 on their watch and then have to avoid the question of why we weren't doing more. If they can help it from occurring, and it is debatable if these practices accomplish that goal, they will ask forgiveness not permission.
 
Would this have prevented 9/11?
 
PhDeac said:
Would this have prevented 9/11?
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Not the pertinent question, but maybe. My point was that no President is going to scale back these practices because if they do, and there is a incident in the US afterwards, they are toast politically.
 
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ONW said:
Not the pertinent question, but maybe. My point was that no President is going to scale back these practices because if they do, and there is a incident in the US afterwards, they are toast politically.
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Eh. 9/11 happened and the person on whose watch it occurred was re-elected despite putting us into two wars - one of which became incredibly unpopular because of bad intelligence.

Furthermore, if everyone understands the scope of what is actually taking place and permitted to take place better it is hard for them to argue we should be doing "more". The worst part of this NSA stuff is how secretive the practices are and how at every turn we seem to learn more about just how intrusive they have been towards the American people. It sort of sucks when the head of intelligence say they are not wittingly collecting information on Americans only to learn they are wittingly doing it on a massive scale. It's even worse when the President tries to calm the waters by saying no one is listening to your calls or collecting your emails only to learn that in fact that is happening. The cover up is far worse than the crime because it destroys all trust people have.

This isn't a you can't have your cake and eat it too type of situation IMO. People can expect to be relatively safe without having the government know what they are ordering for dinner from the local Chinese carry out on their cell phone.
 
Again, I'm talking about the political aspects, not the validity of the practice itself.
 
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