Comment Re:Snowden's copies? (Score 3, Insightful) 231
Snowden said he wrote emails that he can't produce despite taking almost two million documents. You can't explain that away since you are directly challenging him.
Ok, I'll stipulate that he claims he wrote them.
All this while intending to make the claim that he was a "whistle blower" on the US? And he forget the whistle he claims to have blown, repeatedly, while there? That doesn't wash.
I honestly and sincerely don't even see it as related. He may not even anticipated that someone would challenge. He was seeking to establish beyond credible doubt that the NSA was doing XYZ. That is "the story" he was looking to tell. That someone would try to argue that a big part of the story would be "hey, can you prove you tried to tell someone inside, first" possibly didn't even enter into his mind.
In the big picture, it doesn't even matter. What matters is what the NSA was doing, not how vigorously Snowden tried to change it from within first.
Regardless of how important this particular detail is to you, its at best a tangential detail to the main story.
Its just a small minded distraction to try and divert attention from the main story. Like obsessing over Julian Assange's significant personal flaws instead of focusing on the actual wiki leaks leaks.
Maybe because they don't exist?
That doesn't fly within this thread of the sub-argument.
You'd stipulated they DID exist and contained the NSA's response that they were legal. You can't now argue that maybe they didn't exist, at least not within this sub-thread.
Or they discuss classified programs that are still classified?
They could redact them. Even if they were just "walls of black ink", they would establish that they existed.
I expect that the NSA has done that in the proper forums for discussing classified matters: in meetings with the administration, in closed sessions of Congress, and before the courts in closed hearings.
You are contorting like an acrobat. You are arguing that "if they exist, the NSA is rightfully keeping them secret, therefore we should assume Snowden is lying about their existence, and that they don't exist". That's not even coherent.
Seems to me then, its perfectly reasonable to accept Snowden's claim they exist.
Which "general consensus" is that?
Lets see:
the 5 member Privacy and Civil liberties Oversight Board created by Congress ruled them illegal.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled them illegal.
United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled them illegal.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar...
http://www.wired.com/2013/12/b...
And even the NSA itself, has ADMITTED substantial wrongdoing.
http://thehill.com/policy/tech...
"The one on Slashdot?"
Yeah, sure, the one on slashdot too.