That means as bad for the NSA as giving amnesty would be, they consider remaining documents worse.
That means however bad you've found the revelations so far, expect worse to come.
As for Snowden, I presume he's smart enough to realize amnesty from the NSA leaves dozens of other government entities or just angry people to get him, whether legally or illegally, who already flout the Constitution, lie, illegally detain and send people to countries that torture, etc.
Well, it would mean that, if it were serious. Snowden has already said that he has transferred control of all the documents to journalists and no longer has any control of them, and the whole amnesty spiel was predicated on him having control of the documents and being able to demonstrate that it was impossible for any more of them to escape.
It's not really a statement of intent to provide amnesty, its an attempt to:
1. Reiterate the claim that Snowden has compromised the "keys to the kingdom" when it comes to US national security,
2. Provide a justification for the continued hard line against Snowden based around the need to protect those supposed vital-to-national-security secrets that have not been revealed, rather than retribution for the clear abuses that have been revealed.
The conspiracy theorist in me wishes that the X-files would do a movie on it, as we'd solve JFK and the aliens all in one wrap.
The NSA isn't offering amnesty. An NSA official is saying that he would recommend offering amnesty if doing so would assure no further leaks of the information Snowden has revealed. Presumably, the Justice Department would be the recipient (or among the recipients) of that recommendation.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
That's not even untenable at this point either -- he's just enough outside of the public eye that it would be easy to manufacture another crime that he's also guilty of for which he could be separately arrested. Capture him during the exchange, wait a couple of weeks, then announce that he was arrested on some completely unrelated matter for which he will be tried and sentenced, secretly, in a tribunal, behind closed doors.
It's not like we haven't established clear precedent.
This isn't even the most pessimistic of equally plausible scenarios -- we could just opt to kill him.
> This is analogous to a hostage taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10, and then say, 'if you give me full amnesty, I'll let the other 40 go'. What do you do?
That is absolutely absurd. No lives are put in harms way like they could've been with the unredatcted wikileaks data. I believe the reporters are being cautious on what type of data they post.
Yet undoubtedly the NSA, DOJ and other state elements, despite how we like to snark at the technical ignorance of politicians, must realize it is going to be practically impossible to suppress all the possible sources of this info getting out. And Snowden of course must be well aware that the pseudo-offer is very unlikely to be sincere, loophole-free or workable in practice.
Thus the real question is, why would NSA make such a futile gesture? It could hardly be intended at face value.
Either way, the fact that these guys put this together and did the good cop/bad cop routine on TV in itself is very telling. Looks like fear to me -- my question is, after all of the stuff released to date, what are these guys afraid of? The other question this brings up is what is Snowden really up to?
No idea why everything hasn't been released yet. It also isn't bulk data like the wikileaks fiasco. Looks like NSA program specs. Redaction can't be taking this long.
Funny how Snowden is now caught between a dictator in Russia and the Western for-profit press. Probably not a good place to be. I imagine he's smart enough to have an "insurance" file which means we'll never see the real dirt on the NSA.
And this is the same Alexander who helps CIA kill that many people per day with his mass surveillance and "signature drone strikes" - right? Just checking to see if he's the right guy to question Snowden's morals.
Alexander is saying "He's already committed a crime and is promising to do another. How do we give him a free pass on the first crime if he promises not to do the second?"
Sorry, i do not mean to compare alexander to a nazi, i'm just ridiculing the idea that the head of the nsa, a general, is merely a bureaucrat.
If I were him I'd tell the US to shove it. They made him intentionally stateless and pressured other nations to make seeking asylum difficult - that to me is a low blow when it comes to treating whistle-blowers - even by US standards.
Frankly it would be stupid to grant him amnesty because it will pretty much open the door to copy cats. They can simply wait him out, Russia only does this when it has value on the international stage, its quite evident Putin has little respect for the President.
Not so sure. Remember the article 2/3 days back about how the NSA has no real idea exactly what kind of info he has. This move strikes me as a shallow attempt at damage control. Or more accurately an NSA person thinking "lets rather not find out how deep this goes".
Regarding Putin - yes no doubt its a pure PR exercise but I'm thankful that there is some kind of force to balance it in this case. As I said, a nation using citizenship & asylum interference to specifically target one person is deeply immoral in my books. If Putin is the one calling them out on that sht then so be it.
Also just because the NSA gives snowden amnesty doesn't mean UK won't extradite him for espionage. I'm sure they will play that game to jail him some how for life
No. This is analogous to YOU taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10 of them, and then someone coming to you and telling you to stop shooting people or they are going to tell on you if you don't release the rest of the hostages.
> What do you do?
You let your hostages go.
NEVER forget that people like Alexander are professional murderers, liars, and plain: THUGS. They have been in the business of oppressing their fellow human beings for decades.
They are masters at owning the battlefield - which means they will frame their argument in the very substance of the TRUTH, twisting it to suit their intended purpose - in this case, to gain lost ground in the "honor" and "righteousness" department - two vile substances which propel many a killing, murdering, destruction machine.
Turn the table back on Alexander, always. Whenever he is given credence as the victor in the moral argument, remind the victim of his propaganda that they are responsible for the continued actions of this government if they agree with its statement, its message, and its positions on its crimes against humanity.
Until Americans realize they ARE responsible for the machine they have created, and under whose labour they live their very protected lives, we will get no true change.
Given that there have been stories saying that the NSA have not been able to work out exactly what he took from them, this implies that they are afraid of what he has yet to reveal.
We know that he deliberately didn't release material that was specifically going to endanger individuals or operations and that newspapers have been even more careful to only reveal generalities. This suggests that there is no need for the NSA to worry about stuff that is not suitable for publication. Which implies that there are other stories which are a really big deal, which both he and newspapers would be happy to publish, but which they have not published yet.
But what? I can't imagine what else they could've been up to on top of what we've learnt. Maybe I just have incredulity burnout.
With that in mind, the best manner to recover the data completely and securely may be to get him back on their side.
If he takes the deal unconditionally, he will have accomplished nothing other than isolate the United States from the rest of the world. Laws will not change, the people will not gain control of its government's activities.
Snowden can take the deal under one condition only - and that is that the NSA stops their improper practices under the supervision of Snowden. Of course, this will never happen.
Any interest Snowden expresses in a NSA deal will only be used to discredit him.
"If we 'consider' this, it's because the most important information is still not out there, yet."
So it's basically counter-productive, unless your goal is to get the public behind the NSA in order to hang Snowden one way or the other.
My opinion is that this is exactly it. Once Snowden is here, the "amnesty" will end just as soon as they can hang a false statements charge on him, then parade him in handcuffs or on trial to discredit everything associated with him, including Greenwald et al stories, after which they can continue their business as usual. Make no mistake that Clapper, Alexander and Holder would LOVE to make a Rosenberg out of him.
