Sorry guys out some days for work, I've been thinking about this subject and apart from the theme that this guy is a decoy :-) We really must not judge people like this, all this is for distraction, the important event that is happening in this precise moment is that ourselves are alive, and have strength to do something for our own lives and people we love. Be happy enjoy little precious things like fresh air and a smile. And just maybe when they are spying on us the happiness will get to them also... ;-)

BIG SMILE TO ALL

The big story is really probably that Snowdon is going to be made an example of.

Information wants to be free

Once the war-cry of idealists, it sould now be given the status of one our law s of social behaviour: Information will be free and will get out, no matter what we do.

Jut like most of we IT consumers felt that initial rush of empowerment at being able to research and find friends and products online - only to discover later that our own searches were no secret, so have governments found out that their own snoooping activities tent to come to the surface. (Yes at very high levels, cigar-smoking government types get Rushes of empowerment like a kid with a new face-book account).

Some Governments developed different styles of stealth. The Chinese went for what they really wanted. Others in the US like Oliver North, jumped in willy nilly and was naive enough to think he could cover his Iran arms- dealing tracks by deleting lots of email on his own computer workstation. He got burned and we all laughed. By then we'd learned that emails get read off servers.

But there's another born every minute. Government politicians, understanding little about IT, can order surveillance clumsily. What turns out is that all our attempts to watch on somebody get found out in the end - either by new technology, a USB stick left somewhere, a disgruntled employee, a careless employee or simply a set of procedures which were flawed.

Even cash leaks. Our banks have periodic incursions of cash trickling out. Staff get called in at 3 am to stick their fingers in dykes. Sometimes there are GULP-sums of cash whisked away - yet the Banks rarely declare those losses.

If the Banks have outward trickles, the French would have bubbles coming from their blow-up Zodiacs "a la Rainbow Warrior," While the USA has a barbed-wire canoe, with its faithful subjects lashing out with their paddles at the occasional deserters like Snowdon.`

I'm absolutely sure the USA has masses of data - and that they can hardly wait to tell us how good it is. But I'm saying a lot of it is possibly data for it's own sake, lots of it useless, that there differing arguments about how it should be mined, That there will have been a confusing number of means of collating, prioritising, storing and retrieving the data. If you remember Mogadishu, Afghanistan, Kuweit, Watergate, Abu Graheb and Guantanamo Bay, a picture should start to form of the way orders are carried out at variance with procedures.

We'll find out. The 4th and 5th amendments allow every US agent to spill the beans eventually.

Contacting really independent people :-)

Yeah, Greenwald is so much part of the mainstream that the D.o.D. has officially blocked access to his blogs on the Guardian's website from all of its bases. That and the forced search of the Bolivian president's (one of Obama's drinking buddies) plane in Austria for a potential whistleblowing fugitive is all part of their plot to convince the world Snowden is not a decoy...

Contacting really independent people

Hence, Greenwald. His involvement was enough to convince me that Snowden was legit.

@leonbeas

So if Snowden wants to use this way to tell the world we are being spied ... It's a complete contradiction"

Then what mechanism do you propose for exposing government offenses, other than working with independent journalists like Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, publishing material on the internet for everyone to read, giving interviews and using mass-media as best you can?

What would you suggest he do, other than telepathy or smoke signals?

IS this really a conversation imagining that the US,UK and especially France etc DONT spend most of our hard earned pennies on spying still?

Snowdon ~ as a decoy or just a brilliant opportunity? The US response is message to the world of the same kind we got from the Stasi, the KGB and other authoritarian powers:

"We know all about you, and we have been monitoring you for a long time."

"If you get smart with us we'll bring you down. Just look what we did to this guy. "

"You can run but you cannot hide.."

As Al Capone put it, to justify his unlawful operations,

"My rackets are run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way."

Or, to quote the bully who stole your lunch at school, the US is responding to our accusations of their snooping,

"Yes, I did steal your lunch. And just what are you going to do about it?"

Or, as George Orwell wrote, "Big Brother is Watching You.".

Why would the US need to advertise that point? Well, as it turns out, the USA's surveillance in the past (as revealed by the KGB) has usually turned out to be a hopeless shamozzle. I agree more and more with @Vitaly_Kiselev - this, intended or not, has turned out some priceless publicity for American hegemony. And, in case anyone missed it, a bare-faced, undisguised threat to the private lives of us all.

Well looks, like slowly is coming out what was obvious: more and more intelligence services are involved in spying everybody. Thats why the EU also is not really protesting against anything. They just stand by foot to the US - violating human rights. The most pervers thing is to pretend, this is protection about terrorists. Its all about global control. Resources. Power. Yesterday Obama killed another 17 people in Pakistan with his evil drones - violating human rights - who is the terrorist? Who wouldn't stand up and fight against this evil power to revenge a terrorist killing of his whole family? This is an undeclared war against the people on world scale.

This story somewhat reminds me of the case of Christopher Boyce (see the movie "Falcon and the Snowman" if you're not familiar with him). The differences are he hasn't sold his information (as far as we know) and he managed to flee the country. Now the US can bully, threaten and bribe world nations. I wonder what deal Old Man Biden cut with Ecuador?? I say leave the guy alone. As Vitaliy suggests, any government that is "shocked" by the so-called "revelation" that we're spying on them is either naive, grandstanding for PR, or both!

I can't see any conspiracy in this - he felt compelled to release this information in the public interest, for better or for worse.

Thing is that that in this case he behaved very strange. As he contacted newspapers and media corporations in such a way that everyone knew about him, all details for months. And all such outlets have certain policies about natinal security, so this information become known to NSA in seconds.

As I said, information were presented in the form that can be consumed by average person having few minutes before TV. And this information, at best, can be called light slap.

The "global elite slapping the US and showing them their place" suggest the the "global elite" lost control and there is a government FOR the people in charge? Does not compute.

Nope, it does not mean that anyone lost or gained control. Just different groups have different interests.

I can't see any conspiracy in this - he felt compelled to release this information in the public interest, for better or for worse. My coworker said today that she thought he was getting paid for it, and was rather incensed with my position about his motive being honorable - basically as a privacy-rights defender.

We both agreed that he's pretty much screwed though - his biggest crime was taking classified information from the defense apparatus of the state.. it could be completely harmless, but parading it in front of the public attacks the authority of the state.. remember there are millions of Americans that have access to classified information, which is a great way to keep whistleblowers quiet. When they see Snowden chased all over the world and finding no friends anywhere most will choose to keep their mouths shut.

Anyway I don't expect it do do much policy-wise.. people just don't really care, and probably assume it's for homeland security and doesn't apply to them.. that is probably the case, but it's certainly at risk of being corrupted in the future

that the facts couldn't be ignored by major media, hard as major media is trying to turn the whole thing into amateur psychology babble, the same way it did with Bradley Manning.

Thing is major media have exactly same interestes most of the time.

Another decoy theory is that Snowden is just global elite toy, used to slap US slightly and show them their place.

You can make many absolutely probably theories, but only his owners know real one.

The claim that the whole thing is an orchestrated diversion -- as opposed to an incidental one -- strikes this reader as, well, far more improbable than the claim that Snowden is exactly who he says he is.

You can't even imagine how much orchestrated things can looks like random ones.

The Dictionary of the Global War on You (GWOY) Definitions for a New Age

The Global War on You (GWOY): This term, not yet in the language, is designed to replace a post-9/11 Bush administration name, the Global War on Terror (GWOT), sometimes also called World War IV by neocons. GWOT was famously retired by President Obama and his top officials, turning the ongoing global war being fought on distant battlefields and in the shadows into a nameless war. That may, however, change. You are, after all, being called to the colors in a war on... you. Congratulations, son or daughter, Uncle Sam wants you (even if not in the way he used to in your grandparents’ day). You, after all, are the central figure in and the key to GWOY and the basis upon which the new global security state will continue to be built.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175720/