Fools celebrate Snowden's blunder

Snowden--

Should Go To Prison For the Rest of His Life

He committed treason

It doesn't matter whether or not you think the government PRISM program is legal. What Snowden did was not legal. It was not smart. It was dangerous.

The kid has a high school education and upper level programming skill. He is not an NSA agent, nor a highly skilled hacker. He was a plant. Planted by people smarter than him. He immediately fled to...China?! Then to Russia?  The kid is a spy, now hiding in plain sight. The Chinese debriefed him in Hong Kong, as the Russians did yesterday. "What exactly do the Americans have access to?" "How quickly does it take them to develop their information?" "By what methods do they infiltrate?", "Do they use it to access commercial data?" On and on. The kid was or is now a spy. Which is why he is suspected of carrying 200 more classified documents...for whom?

He knowingly committed a crime, without a glimmer of the depth of the consequences. The term Classified exists for this exact reason (although thoroughly abused). So when a person does come across documents that they would like to reveal, they cannot. Why? Because they don't have the whole picture and therefore cannot know the ultimate consequences of leaking their conscience.

Snowden, spy or not, should go to prison fro treason. The U.S. should be emphatic about getting him. This kind of breach is plain treason. If he didn't think our adversaries knew about Prism, then he committed high treason by describing--in detail-- our most potent not-so-secret weapon...simply because he passed his own myopic judgment upon it.

He Weakened Us Internationally

The timing, right before meetings with China--where our media is critiquing Chinese censorship regarding Tianaman Square--is suspicious. Just look at their media...lowering the bar by bringing us low.

Did Snowden think he was going to stop the program? No. Did Snowden think that China and Russia and all other technologically advanced adversaries didn't know about PRISM, and have one of their own already? Of course not.

Who benefits? China and Russia. Why? Because we lost our moral high ground at a very economically and politically weak time. Why? Because we now may limit a technology that is our ONLY effective measure against non-state adversaries.

If Snowden was going to do something that hurt us and our adversaries equally, then perhaps that would mitigate. It would be a human rights story. But Snowden solely hurt the U.S., at a time that the U.S. is already internationally vulnerable. We have lost the high ground for neutrals to look up to.

He Has Blunted Our Best Defensive Domestic Weapon: Intelligence

Who did know about PRISM? Most of our adversaries, China, Russia etc...
Who didn't? Our avowed enemies, foreign and domestic. Non-state actors such as Al Queda and home grown psychos who look up bomb construction on their computers. (Did you know the FBI used to track library check-outs? If you checked out any "flagged" material, they would look into it to see if you were trying to make sarin, stealing academic science, or whatever).

About the time the Clinton Administration was learning that this Osama Bin Laden guy was responsible for killing US soldiers on the USS Cole, and was becoming a formidable threat, somebody let slip that we were listening to Osama's satellite phone. Though there is enough blame to go around, that particular leaker may be the one person most responsible for 9-11. Tracking Osama's phone calls was our best source of protection. When we lost it, we lost him--for over two years. Then the Two Towers fell. It took us 11 years after that. Intelligence secrets matter.

He Betrayed Our Process, lessened our Security,

Like it or nor, our elected officials chose to keep this program secret from us. Why? Because it is hard to catch criminals when they know they are watched. Our elected leaders balanced the interests, and made a decision.

Ask yourself, if the NSA offered to stop PRISM tomorrow, would you be ok with that?

What if it meant that we never find the people who bombed the Boston marathon? What if it means a  commercial plane is bombed once every two years? (I am not claiming that PRISM found the Boston bombers, or does foil terrorist plane bombings every two years...but somewhere, sometimes, either more or less frequently, it is preventing stuff).

Would you pay that price--guilty go free, a few more preventable innocents die every year--for freedom?

Think about it. How much do you really value freedom, when it poses a measurable cost against your security? Even a miniscule one?

Snowden stole away this timely (and timeless) debate. We need to confront these issues. Unfortunately, acting as our benevolent Big Brother, he made the decision for us, forever upset that balance and retarded a meaningful discussion.

In Utah, the press has reported upon the completion of the NSA's redundant informational storage complex . Citizen silence gives a palpable nod of approval with only a handful of protesters. (This, from a state constantly decrying government overreach). Utahns are more concerned with catching Snowden than considering PRISM.

Undoubtedly, some future casualties would have been avoided where perpetrators were not aware of the details of this program. Snowden informed some unaware threats that they must stay offline to avoid detection. And some of them will now be successful, whereas otherwise, they would not.

Snowden made the trade for you. And traded for nothing.  PRISM goes on. So we did not trade anything for our lessened security. We are not more free. Just less secure and embarrassed.


Although Creepy, Ominous, and Underhanded, The PRISM Surveillance Is (Probably) Legal For A Lot of Reasons

The Fourth Amendment assures us security against illegal search and seizure. Illegal wiretapping is an illegal search, and arguably, illegal seizure as well. We can compare PRISM to a wiretap. Whereas a Wiretap involves a thin wire, PRISM is comparably a firehose.

If you did not already suspect that Russia, China, U.S., Apple and Google were reading your non-encrypted cyber behaviors, you are an idiot.

Snowden revealed that the government was secretly recording all internet communications it could. That, however, is not clearly illegal. If I copy all mail sent by postage, but never actually read it, have I invaded your privacy? What if I throw my copy away six months later? At no time did anyone have (legal) access to any specific person's information without probable cause.

 It is not clear that the gathering of information is, in itself, illegal. We know that commercial companies often collect information from us indefinitely after we visit their site. They use cookies. We normally do not give them permission to do this. They don't ever throw that information away. They access it, profile it, and sell it to marketing companies...or otherwise use it to optimize their products. Ever seen the ads on the side of your email account adapt themselves to the text of your email?

Cyberspace is not a private space. You don't own the servers that run it, nor the fiberoptic highways it travels upon. What do you pay for? The only thing you paid for was your access instrument, and small amount of personal memory...a personal computer, and monthly fee to hook up an IP address. (Theoretically) The government is not searching your personal computer...unless it gets probable cause...derived from your activities in cyberspace.

So why can't the government do this? How is this not like cops on a beat, just patrolling for suspicious behaviors? What about internet searching and communications is private?

Where is the expectation of privacy online? We know viruses are there. WE know Google and Apple watch our email. Facebook owns our uploaded photos. It is not like someone is opening your front door, that you paid for, and have a lock. You don't get to shoot people for entering your cyberspace.

 As I understand it, the government only accesses the information when, according to its wundergadget--Prism--flags certain behaviors which the algorithm tells them is suspicious. Then they determine whether or not there is probable cause to search.

But they do not actually access the information unless there is a suspicion strong enough to satisfy probable cause.

How is this unlike sitting at a high crime area, or all areas, looking for suspicious behaviors, and then investigating them as they happen? If we had an infinite number of cops...

Because NSA computers cannot analyze all traffic real-time (yet), they must store it until PRISM can observe it. Also, it can be stored for a time in order to look back in time for evidence after a crime has occurred. But they don't (legally) look back unless there is a crime..in other words, probable cause.

Why We Will Tolerate Prism, Even Though It Remains Anti-American and Orweillian

Most media reactions feign horror, then moderate with a natural press cycle. (See Benghazi for exhibit A. Romans extincted populations for less than what happened to our Ambassador's team. Americans acted horrified, its politicians pointed fingers...and after weak words...nothing.)  Few are calling for a stop to PRISM. They are just mad we were called out on it by China, er, uh, Snowden. We allow for PRISM for the same reason we allowed the Patriot Act. The same reason we choose to venerate 9-11 attacks.

Fear. We remember what we fear. Fear motivates. In the long run cowardice prevails. (All men harbor fear, survivors remember it, cowards move forward forever distorted by its counsel).

Although ethically permissible, and legal, PRISM is UN-American. Politically and morally. It is secret, it is subject to "trusting the government". Recall, government is a "necessary evil" according to some Americans.

The government made some secret rulings, in secret courts, creating secret judicial precedent, to provide for secret surveillance. What if the judge is in on it? The legislature certainly cannot be trusted to know too much about our secrets.

You cannot, and should not trust a government who grows everytime there is an emergency, and then, like any power, refuses to relinquish the ground gained. Look at the dates associated with spending debt to GDP spending here.

Particularly a government, fueled by editorialized media which seeks out a crisis every news cycle and election.

I don't trust government. But, our fear will fuel PRISM. Eventually, the government will betray our trust, whether we know it or not. A frog boiled slowly...

This is the America we've evolved through affluence and complacent citizenry. We just won't admit it. .Never.