The entire conspiracy theory at this point is people drawing a Venn diagram with Snowden in one circle and Russia in the other and wiggling their eyebrows suggestively until we all get confused.
Keep in mind, the entire reason Snowden is in Russia is because of the US State department. Neither Snowden nor Russia had any idea he would end up in Russia until after he got on his flight leaving Hong Kong.
a) He did not steal 1.7M documents. This is a lie that’s being repeated enough times in the hope it becomes a truth. The NSA publicly claimed he stole 1.7M documents while simultaneously saying their auditing systems were so weak they had no idea what he did or had access to. Greenwald claims to have received 15 - 20K documents and Snowden claims to have divested himself of all data before he left Hong Kong.
b) We learnt from the Wikileaks cable dump that a dump of a large cache of unprocessed data doesn’t have a media impact as no media organization has the scoop and so is unmotivated to report on it.
c) The act of releasing information takes vast amounts of journalistic resources and the combined might of 4 news organizations has managed to get through barely a fraction of it. It involves redacting of sensitive information synthesis from multiple documents, negotiation with government officials and editing and factchecking. Snowden has already publicly stated he has neither the means nor ability to do that which is why he approached select journalists who he trusted.
This is all part of the public record on the situation and there’s not much use speculating if you’re not familiar with the basic facts.
The spy hypothesis requires that the Obama administration was in on it, because it was their decision to pull his passport that resulted in Snowden ending up in Russia instead of Latin America. Ergo, if you take this notion seriously, you stand with the “Obama is a socialist Nazi atheist Muslim deep agent born in Kenya” crowd.
Next time, try putting a couple of United Way updates in between the talking points that fall apart when the reader asks himself “what motivation do they have to say that?” and the talking point sandwiched between them that explicitly invites the reader to ask himself “what motivation do they have to say that?”
Actually, the most credible theory suggested by the fact that Snowden was able to get all this stuff is:
The NSA is to sound compartmentalization practice what Glenn Beck is to rational debate.
This is especially true given that the NSA admits that it has no idea exactly what Snowden got – I’d quit using that “1.7 million” figure, and (considering where the NSA produced it from) wash the hand you picked it up with in a hot bleach solution.
Oh? Edward Lee Howard (a disgruntled former CIA employee) passed classified information to the Soviets, once he finally defected he found a publisher and published memoirs of his exploits.
I guess he didn’t know about the “Marley rule” of what spies do and don’t do. An American CIA agent sent to spy on China probably is highly unlikely to ever talk about the fact. But that’s not the kind of spy anyone is suggesting Snowden is, if these allegations are true he’d be an alleged “asset” turned by the Russians. Not an actual covert operative from Russia, trained in Russia, loyal to the Russian government exclusively etc who is sent to the United States to work. Turncouts typically have reasons (like Ed Howard was mad at the CIA for firing him) and those reasons could very well also make it entirely sensible for them to publish things.
Your conclusion has been my conclusion for awhile as well, but I simply heard the “Snowden is a spy” argument put together in a decent way and decided to convey it. Note that I never said I think Snowden is a spy, I genuinely don’t feel any certainty about what he is or isn’t.
I also take minor issue with you saying “my position”, I feel I made it clear I was relating Edward Epstein’s position.
Sure he is, that’s the only topic I’m interested in within this thread. I briefly mentioned my feelings on the whole surveillance program, which basically are “yeah, I agree we shouldn’t have been doing that without some public debate, but I’m not that interested in it as a discussion.”
I don’t think it would either. Even if he was just an Ames style spy who wanted money and just did the whistleblowing stuff to somehow distract from that it doesn’t discredit his information (especially since the government has already conceded it was legit.) It’s akin to someone putting out a fire while robbing a bank, robbing the bank doesn’t make putting out the fire any less a good deed (I’d say that cuts both ways, though.)
All actual espionage would look like a conspiracy theory because actual espionage requires conspiracy to work, so repeating the word “conspiracy” doesn’t necessarily undermine the espionage claim. It’s not like the JFK assassination which could be carried out by a lone gunman, espionage requires teamwork, which means conspiracy.
That’s based only on the word of Snowden and Russia, actually. We don’t know that Snowden was genuinely interested in heading to Latin America. That also wouldn’t necessarily make him not a covert agent. There have also been American turncoats who sold secrets to the Russians then fled to Latin America, primarily because some of the Latin American countries that don’t extradite are perceived to have superior living conditions to Russia.
I don’t understand how you can call it a lie. We can’t know for sure if the NSA is lying or if Snowden is lying. The NSA says 1.7m, I personally doubt they’d make the number up. It looks like it’s based off of an NSA claim, and there are other claims out there. None of which are clearly substantiable.
None of the nonsense you just spouted tells us that Snowden did or didn’t give everything he had to the journalists he gave documents to, so maybe you’re the one who needs to be acquainted with the basics of not just the facts, but logic itself.
There’s no good way for us nobodies to figure out what’s going on. When it comes to classified documents and the powers that want to keep them that way, the only thing we can assume is that everyone’s lying about everything. I suspect we’ll never know for certain what was leaked or Snowden’s exact role because nobody thinks its in their best interest to be honest with the public.
All espionage may look like conspiracy theories but not all conspiracy theories look like espionage. In particular, conspiracy theories that require enemies to co-operate or smart -people to do stupid things are probably not espionage.
Not it’s not, it’s based on the public record available at the time. We knew via media reports that Snowden was en-route to Cuba after he left Hong Kong but before he landed in Russia. The US State Department has publicly admitted that it was their diplomatic pressure that prevented the transfer. Thus, we have the word of multiple sources who are adversarial to Snowden and have no reason to support him.
If Snowden’s goal was to secretly end up in Russia, why announce his identity in Hong Kong? The only reason Snowden ended up in Russia is because the US State department failed to pressure the HK government and succeeded in pressuring the Cuban government. If your plan involves your adversary executing an improbable set of events, then it’s not a very good plan.
It’s a lie because the NSA is caught in a contradiction of pushing a number while admitting they have no idea what actually happened. There’s no way the number can be true.
I’m not saying any of it is true but it plausibly explains your objections. Honestly, the reason you seem to be pushing your ideas is because you’re mostly unfamiliar with the basic facts around the story and a lot of it has been rehashed over and over again with satisfactory answers to most “Why would he do X” questions.
They admitted that they don’t know what Snowden accessed. That leaves no possible source for any specific number other than the depths of some NSA flack’s ass.
So the US government created an international incident on no factual basis whatsoever? :eek:
See, that makes no sense at all. “Public cover”? Spies don’t need “public cover,” spies try to evade public notice entirely; and once Snowden blows the whistle he becomes useless as a spy as he no longer has access to anything classified and, more importantly, he’s suddenly famous, which no spy can afford to be. If he is a spy, it would have made more sense for the Russians or Chinese to keep their agent quietly in place, feeding them intel, for as long as possible.
Indeed. The Wall Street Journal has one foot in the fever swamp, and any day now I expect them to solemnly declare that the whole NSA dustup is a diversion from BENGHAZI1!II.
In the abstract, sure, there’s plenty of room for a “one time” spy, a spy who has a limited mission, after which he is expendable.
I don’t think for a second Snowden is that kind of operative, but BrainGlutton’s description of spies isn’t absolutely definitional. Someone in a foreign intelligence service could have devised such a “suicide mission” operation.
In this particular case, no, because what was gained was vastly less valuable than the resources that would have been dedicated to the task. Spy-masters aren’t so stupid as to expend a pound of resources for a ha’penny of results.