Thread: Edward Snowden and his stay in Russia

Edward Snowden's not the story. The fate of the internet is | Technology | The Observer

From article:


...without Snowden, we would not be debating whether the US government should have turned surveillance into a huge, privatised business, offering data-mining contracts to private contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton and, in the process, high-level security clearance to thousands of people who shouldn't have it. Nor would there be – finally – a serious debate between Europe (excluding the UK, which in these matters is just an overseas franchise of the US) and the United States about where the proper balance between freedom and security lies.

These are pretty significant outcomes and they're just the first-order consequences of Snowden's activities. As far as most of our mass media are concerned, though, they have gone largely unremarked. Instead, we have been fed a constant stream of journalistic pap – speculation about Snowden's travel plans, asylum requests, state of mind, physical appearance, etc. The "human interest" angle has trumped the real story, which is what the NSA revelations tell us about how our networked world actually works and the direction in which it is heading.

As an antidote, here are some of the things we should be thinking about as a result of what we have learned so far.

The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty.

Second, the issue of internet governance is about to become very contentious. Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable.

Third, as Evgeny Morozov has pointed out, the Obama administration's "internet freedom agenda" has been exposed as patronising cant. "Today," he writes, "the rhetoric of the 'internet freedom agenda' looks as trustworthy as George Bush's 'freedom agenda' after Abu Ghraib."

That's all at nation-state level. But the Snowden revelations also have implications for you and me.

They tell us, for example, that no US-based internet company can be trusted to protect our privacy or data. The fact is that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all integral components of the US cyber-surveillance system. Nothing, but nothing, that is stored in their "cloud" services can be guaranteed to be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by employees of the consultancies employed by the NSA. That means that if you're thinking of outsourcing your troublesome IT operations to, say, Google or Microsoft, then think again.

Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash | Threat Level | Wired.com

From article:

The numbers tell the story — in votes and dollars. On Wednesday, the House voted 217 to 205 not to rein in the NSA’s phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 “no” voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 “yes” voters.

That’s the upshot of a new analysis by MapLight, a Berkeley-based non-profit that performed the inquiry at WIRED’s request. The investigation shows that defense cash was a better predictor of a member’s vote on the Amash amendment than party affiliation. House members who voted to continue the massive phone-call-metadata spy program, on average, raked in 122 percent more money from defense contractors than those who voted to dismantle it.

Overall, political action committees and employees from defense and intelligence firms such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Technologies, Honeywell International, and others ponied up $12.97 million in donations for a two-year period ending December 31, 2012, according to the analysis, which MapLight performed with financing data from OpenSecrets. Lawmakers who voted to continue the NSA dragnet-surveillance program averaged $41,635 from the pot, whereas House members who voted to repeal authority averaged $18,765.

Of the top 10 money getters, only one House member — Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) — voted to end the program.

Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Poll shows that for the first time since 9/11, more Americans are worried about civil liberties than terrorism.

From article:

"Overall, 47% say their greater concern about government anti-terrorism policies is that they have gone too far in restricting the average person's civil liberties, while 35% say they are more concerned that policies have not gone far enough to protect the country. This is the first time in Pew Research polling that more have expressed concern over civil liberties than protection from terrorism since the question was first asked in 2004."

Originally Posted by Deborski

Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Poll shows that for the first time since 9/11, more Americans are worried about civil liberties than terrorism.

From article:

"Overall, 47% say their greater concern about government anti-terrorism policies is that they have gone too far in restricting the average person's civil liberties, while 35% say they are more concerned that policies have not gone far enough to protect the country. This is the first time in Pew Research polling that more have expressed concern over civil liberties than protection from terrorism since the question was first asked in 2004."

Could Americans be starting to wake up at long last? (I mean, apart from you, Deborski, lol!)
Terrorism is just a bogeyman and an excuse for starting wars, spying on citizens and much more.

The UK had IRA who killed lots of people, Spain had ETA,Germany had RAF, Russia has Dagestan/Chechnya Etc!!

None flipped out like the USA did over 9/11.
And guess what; IRA agreed to a peace treaty, ETA voluntarily put down their arms, the RAF members got old and decided they had enough of fighting the system and Chechnya did --- whatever they did -- but at least they stopped killing regular Russians.

There is no need to turn the whole world upside down, start wars and become Big Brother from 1984 just because of one terrorist attack!

Although I'm no conspiracy theorist it's certainly INTERESTING to note that 9/11 gave the US government and top corporations carte blanche to start wars, start snooping, sell weapons like there's no tomorrow, create a whole privately employed army in the Middle East, start the drone programme and what not.
Reminds me of a Ludlum novel I read many years ago, where private weapons/security interests set off a bunch of disasters, to turn the whole planet into a Big Brother states so they could rake in the profits from it. To many of thew private corporations in the USA, Osama bin Laden is the best thing that ever happened to their balance sheets.

Originally Posted by Doomer

That's a little bit too much of the black paint
How many unarmed US citizens did the US killed willingly?

The point is: They don't CARE who dies as they try to kill "terrorists".
And besides, one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighters. The people they are killing are in most cases religious people who also happen to be anti-imperialist and supporters of Islam in their countries. Why should they deserve to die for that?
If they have to die, let their own governments take care of it; it's nothing to do with the USA.

But for some reason the USA reckons it's entitled to go in anywhere it likes and kill off people it doesn't like. It's revolting.
One day Yemen, the next day...... your country or mine!!!

The USA is totally out of control. Like a rapist who thinks he's entitled to sleep with any woman he likes, and whoever doesn't accommodates gets beaten up, or even killed. That's a good allegory of the behaviour of the USA in the Middle East, East Asia and South America over the last half century!

Originally Posted by Doomer

CPUs of many computers in the world are made in the USA
China doesn't have much of technology to produce competitive stuff on their own

Last I heard, most of the components for CPUs were made in China, Taiwan.... S. Korea, Israel... Japan

Originally Posted by Hanna

Could Americans be starting to wake up at long last? (I mean, apart from you, Deborski, lol!)
Terrorism is just a bogeyman and an excuse for starting wars, spying on citizens and much more.

The UK had IRA who killed lots of people, Spain had ETA,Germany had RAF, Russia has Dagestan/Chechnya Etc!!

None flipped out like the USA did over 9/11.
And guess what; IRA agreed to a peace treaty, ETA voluntarily put down their arms, the RAF members got old and decided they had enough of fighting the system and Chechnya did --- whatever they did -- but at least they stopped killing regular Russians.

There is no need to turn the whole world upside down, start wars and become Big Brother from 1984 just because of one terrorist attack!

Although I'm no conspiracy theorist it's certainly INTERESTING to note that 9/11 gave the US government and top corporations carte blanche to start wars, start snooping, sell weapons like there's no tomorrow, create a whole privately employed army in the Middle East, start the drone programme and what not.
Reminds me of a Ludlum novel I read many years ago, where private weapons/security interests set off a bunch of disasters, to turn the whole planet into a Big Brother states so they could rake in the profits from it. To many of thew private corporations in the USA, Osama bin Laden is the best thing that ever happened to their balance sheets.

If what I see on Facebook is any indicator, then people are definitely waking up. When the Snowden story first broke, I heard a lot of people calling him "traitor" and now I am hearing more concern from those very same people, not about Snowden, but about the police state we live in. Then again, it's only Facebook. But the poll I posted above gives me hope that this could be a new trend.

I think America's biggest problem right now, what is causing this police state as well as our military aggression overseas, is greed, bottom line. The military-industrial complex is the strongest in our nation. It has bought and paid for all of our political representatives, so that they no longer represent the people but rather the lobbyists who bribe them (legally).

If we could eliminate public campaign funding, and ensure that every candidate gets equal and fair publicity, we might have a chance at turning things around I think. That was the original goal of the Occupy movement, before they got sidetracked trying to protest everything at the same time. But I have little hope that this will ever change, especially given prevalent attitudes in the United States.

I do know, however, that every time I gather with my friends, the overriding concern everyone has is the militarization of America, the loss of our freedoms, and the burgeoning police state. What we can actually DO about it is a completely different matter, unfortunately. I think nothing will change until some breaking point is reached, and people are still far too comfortable (and distracted) for that to happen here.

The NSA is lying. They said they were using keywords to look for terrorists in America and that can't be true. But even if it is true, they are not looking for foreign terrorists in the US with their surveillance system.

It boggles the mind that we didn't listen to the Russians when they warned about the Tsarnaev brothers in part because, well, they're the Russians. But we want to preserve the records of every housewife in Des Moines because data mining that arguably invades the privacy rights of innocent Americans might reveal something.
One person whose privacy was not invaded by U.S. intelligence was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as he repeatedly visited the al-Qaida online magazine Inspire for its recipe "Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom."

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editor...ism.htm?p=full

The new surveillance system was already operating and they were already warned about the Tsarrnaev brothers but they ignored them.
So I gotta ask. If they didn't build the system to spy on possible foreign terrorists in the US, then what is the real reason why they built it?
The only other answer would have to be to spy on non-foreign Americans.

I still think Snowden is a traitor/hero but the "hero" part is starting to look more important. Maybe freedom really does trump security and people shouldn't have to live in fear of their own government.
Anyway, it's really cool that it happened because it kinda forced me to think about stuff I never really wanted to think about - politics.
When it first happened, all I thought was "traitor" but now I don't know. My opinion has changed up a lot since then.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Last I heard, most of the components for CPUs were made in China, Taiwan.... S. Korea, Israel... Japan

I don't think CPUs have components
CPU is a chip that is "grown" on silicon base.

Originally Posted by Doomer

I don't think CPUs have components
CPU is a chip that is "grown" on silicon base.

True. It's more like etching a pattern of transistors from a solid plate of transistors that are just pure silicon.

Originally Posted by Basil77

I understand that Putin just can't play edgy leftist as some Latin American Presidents, he just plays in the higher league. But he could at least make a "good" face and let some local authorities comment the situation instead of him.

Very well put. I thought he was capable of showing some Russian muscle & character while not actually being an "edgy lefty". But he has indeed been put in a spot.

I really have high expectations on him though; he himself is the one who wants to portray himself as a Superman. So do something cool with this; what a PR opportunity for Russia!

Like I said before, there are more countries in the world, than the USA, and they too are looking to see how Russia handles this. And even amongh EU/Europeans, quite a few people are disgusted by the overall behaviour of the USA in this. Just look at the mass protests in Germany. Angela Merkel stays polite (and she'd better! her entire country is packed with US military bases and staff!)

Originally Posted by Hanna

Like I said before, there are more countries in the world, than the USA, and they too are looking to see how Russia handles this. And even amongh EU/Europeans, quite a few people are disgusted by the overall behaviour of the USA in this. Just look at the mass protests in Germany.

As far as I understood Germans don't care much about Snowden's fate etc. They are abused with the fact that according to Snowden's data PRISM is spying on Germany more than on any islamic country full of potential terrorists. They thought that USA is the best friend of Germany and took the idea of friendship too seriously. And now it appears that all the expensive PRISM was about stealing German technologies rather than about catching terrorists. Now Germans are in the process of making conclusions and the history teaches the world to fear processes of such kind in Germany. That may be the main reason why USA establishment is so angry.

I wonder if it would be possible for Snowden to get a normal job in Russia?
What do you think?

Obviously he doesn't have unlimited funds. Within the next year he probably needs to find some source of income.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I wonder if it would be possible for Snowden to get a normal job in Russia?
What do you think?

Obviously he doesn't have unlimited funds. Within the next year he probably needs to find some source of income.

Poor guy, he'll have to steal and sell some Russian secrets

Originally Posted by Eric C.

Poor guy, he'll have to steal and sell some Russian secrets

Yeah, that has to be the worst way to visit Russia. He could probably get some support from his dad but our government would probably block that too. And zOOmg! They would probably charge his dad with "aiding the enemy"!
Well, the Russian government couldn't hire him since they know he leaks. And other companies may not want to hire a leaker.
But Snowden is intelligent and knows a lot of tech stuff. And Kucherena - who has strong ties with the Kremlin - is buying him stuff. And while everyone says Snowden will probably have to live in the refugee camp, Kucherena says no and that he can live anywhere he wants to live.
I think Kucherena has plans or ideas about how Snowden could make a lot of money in Russia. Kucherena is very intelligent too.

Mr. Kucherena, who turns 53 next month, is certainly no dissident. Nor is he simply a product of the Soviet legal system, having joined the bar only in 1993. He was born in a tiny village in what is now Moldova and served as a sergeant in the Soviet Union’s strategic rocket forces before moving to Moscow to become an officer of the traffic police. He leveraged that job into acceptance for a correspondence course at the Moscow Legal Institute in 1985, which he completed six years later, just as Russia began its chaotic legal evolution.
He is a prolific author of books and textbooks and often appears as a commentator on television, something exceedingly rare for avowed opponents of Mr. Putin’s authority.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/wo...anted=all&_r=0

But I'm only guessing about what kind of plans Kucherena may have. If I'm wrong then Snowden may never have a very easy life in Russia. I mean, he could get a really cool house for less than $4 million usd but I don't think he can make that much if he just works in a restaurant or something.

Originally Posted by UhOhXplode

I mean, he could get a really cool house for less than $4 million usd but I don't think he can make that much if he just works in a restaurant or something.

I think someone with solid IT skills can always get a job fast almost regardless of the circumstances.
There's not much to leak if you work in an average company, particularly an IT company.
The thing is, he had a management job and he can't really do that unless he speaks the language. So he might have to go back to basic and be a regular team member.

Perhaps he can set up some form of web business in Russia. Or work remotely for Wikileaks.

I think the language is his biggest challenge for a successful life in Russia. Until he masters it, he'll be an outsider, and only a minority of people will be able to have a serious conversation with him. I think he knows Spanish, so he knows how to learn a language... Russian will just be harder. But since he's in an "immersion course" lol. I look forward to hearing him speak Russian!

Well, now he can legally live in Russia for a year with this:





Moreover, a person who was granted such a document can't be extradited to the country of his origin. It's a Russian law.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/snowden-lea...ry?id=19835727


From article:

In perhaps a sign of the difficult position Snowden has put him in, Putin later likened Snowden to an unwanted Christmas present.

A poll by the independent Levada Center taken earlier this month and released Wednesday found that 51 percent of Russians supported Snowden's leaks and 43 percent approved of granting his asylum.

Всего лишь на год старше меня, а уже в такую историю влип. ))

Originally Posted by Hanna

I wonder if it would be possible for Snowden to get a normal job in Russia?
What do you think?

Obviously he doesn't have unlimited funds. Within the next year he probably needs to find some source of income.

Check this: Павел Дуров предложил Эдварду Сноудену работать «ВКонтакте» | RT на русском

But I'm only guessing about what kind of plans Kucherena may have.

He’s going to become coauthor of Snowden’s future book “To Russia with files”.))
----------
Anyways, I’m impressed with the latest groundbreaking leakage article. It exceeds all my expectation.

As one slide indicates, the ability to search HTTP activity by keyword permits the analyst access to what the NSA calls "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet".

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet' | World news | theguardian.com

Originally Posted by Eledhwen

Check this: Павел Дуров предложил Эдварду Сноудену работать «ВКонтакте» | RT на русском

«Приглашаем Эдварда в Петербург и будем рады, если он решит пополнить звёздную команду программистов ВКонтакте», - написал он на своей странице в сети.

Как считает Дуров, Сноудену «может быть интересно заниматься защитой личных данных миллионов» пользователей социальной сети.

Awesome, hurrah!!!! I am so pleased he was granted asylum, and got this nice and cool offer!
Listen and learn, Facebook --- I've never used it a lot and I darn well think I'll get on VKontakte instead... It would be a nice thing if VK could establish itself as a credibly PRISM-free alternative to facebook, outside of the Russian speaking world too.

I think he was a systems administrator though, so I am not sure how comfortable he would be as a team leader of developers

такие минуты чувствуешь гордость за нашу страну и сожаление по поводу курса США - страны, предающей принципы, на которых она некогда была построена»

Too right! It's interesting that Russia's done this "by the book" and quite transparently as well. Very much a new era, and who the hell can complain about protection of a person's human rights; somebody who stands up for freedom of speech and against tyranny and is persecuted.


The NSA leaks is one of the biggest revelations in modern time.

• It's a pivotal moment in history where there world must make a choice. Become a 24/7 Big Brother state, where all your information is stored and can be used against you at any time.... Or the freedom to remain private until you actually commit a crime.

• I think that outside of the IT sector, most non-technical people don't really understand the ENORMOUS implications of this -- what you can do with all this saved data, if it's cross-referenced. In a computerized world there is literally no privacy. Trust me; it has potential to get WORSE than the scenario from Orwell's 1984... Orwell had no means of know what computing, data mining and CCTV (just for starters) could achieve.
• Eduard Snowden is nothing short of a revolutionary and a freedom fighter --- the only difference to Che or Nelson Mandela is that his fight took place is cyberspace and he used a keyboard, not a rifle.
• He'll go down in history and quite rightly so!!! Russia's role will never be forgotten, what a comeback for a country that keeps being accused of spying, supressing freedom of speech etc.
• The US government may be pissed off, but millions of regular Americans will view Russia with new eyes after this!

Originally Posted by Host of CrossTalk on RT

I hope to have Snowden on my show here in Moscow shortly.

I have a better idea for them: Give Snowden a computing show on RT and have him on as a regular guest.
And watch how long it takes for RT to lose its broadcasting license in the USA...
I loved Snowden's dad's little speech thanking Russia, too.

Well done Putin and Russia! Good luck to Snowden in his new life!!!