Jim Leff raises an important point in his blog about Edward Snowden after reading a recent article on him in the Washington Post.
'In a feat of power jujitsu, the whistle-blower has taken on the responsibilities of the institution, and while I lack confidence in the wisdom and competence of institutions, I have exponentially less confidence in the wisdom and competence of a Snowden,' Leff writes.
Snowden protests his meticulous and thoughtful evaluation in the Guardian. "I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is."'
'In a feat of power jujitsu, the whistle-blower has taken on the responsibilities of the institution, and while I lack confidence in the wisdom and competence of institutions, I have exponentially less confidence in the wisdom and competence of a Snowden,' Leff writes.
Snowden protests his meticulous and thoughtful evaluation in the Guardian. "I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is."'
There is an argument against transparency; we certainly do not know everything we could know. Information on the Kennedy assassination, for example, will never be released in our lifetimes to no descernable outrage but to considerable social confusion. But that aside, Leff excerpts these quotes from the Washington Post article as salient:
U.S. officials are alerting some foreign intelligence services that documents detailing their secret cooperation with the United States have been obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to government officials.
Snowden, U.S. officials said, took tens of thousands of military intelligence documents, some of which contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China. Some refer to operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States.
The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure is delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.
The material in question does not deal with NSA surveillance but primarily with standard intelligence about other countries’ military capabilities, including weapons systems — missiles, ships and jets, the officials say.
Although Snowden obtained a large volume of documents, he is not believed to have shared all of them with journalists, sources say. Moreover, he has stressed to those he has given documents that he does not want harm to result.
"He’s made it quite clear that he was not going to compromise legitimate national intelligence and national security operations," said Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive who visited Snowden in Moscow this month. Snowden separately told Drake and a New York Times reporter that he did not take any documents with him to Russia. "There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents," Snowden told the Times in an online interview last week.
Indeed, Drake said, Snowden made clear in their conversation that he had learned the lessons of prior disclosures, including those by an Army private who passed hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, which posted them in bulk online. "It’s telling," Drake said, "that he did not give anything to WikiLeaks."
U.S. officials are alerting some foreign intelligence services that documents detailing their secret cooperation with the United States have been obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to government officials.
Snowden, U.S. officials said, took tens of thousands of military intelligence documents, some of which contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China. Some refer to operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States.
The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure is delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.
The material in question does not deal with NSA surveillance but primarily with standard intelligence about other countries’ military capabilities, including weapons systems — missiles, ships and jets, the officials say.
Although Snowden obtained a large volume of documents, he is not believed to have shared all of them with journalists, sources say. Moreover, he has stressed to those he has given documents that he does not want harm to result.
"He’s made it quite clear that he was not going to compromise legitimate national intelligence and national security operations," said Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive who visited Snowden in Moscow this month. Snowden separately told Drake and a New York Times reporter that he did not take any documents with him to Russia. "There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents," Snowden told the Times in an online interview last week.
Indeed, Drake said, Snowden made clear in their conversation that he had learned the lessons of prior disclosures, including those by an Army private who passed hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, which posted them in bulk online. "It’s telling," Drake said, "that he did not give anything to WikiLeaks."
The whistle-blower has always had some respect because it is assumed there is something for him to blow the whistle on, something to expose. Snowden raises a new element: Judgment. With Snowden, the whistle-blower assesses which admitted secrets should be made public. This is different from revealing hidden smoking statistics or suppressed evidence of abuse. This is the whistle-blower acting as information manager, as a triage agent. And that demands the same measure of trust as does the NSA official.
We already have hired a guy for that. How do we vet the volunteers?
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