Citizenfour

I was running out of interesting movies to watch and reluctantly ordered it. It turned out to be an interesting perspective on the scandal. Beforehand, I thought Snowden was a scum bag but I've relaxed my view a bit. It took some balls and was probably the right thing to do given the way things things have changed in the US.

The government and media loyalists responded to this in typical fashion by going after a persons character and to insert false narratives, motivations, negative key words like traitor.  If a person wanted to sell secrets to governments and barter for the value of those secrets, the last thing a person would do would be to hand over all of the documentation to journalists to publish to the world.  Makes the black market of those secrets worthless.  He certainly could have done so, and become very rich.

All the negative connotations about him and the planting of false motivations comes from the governments line of thinking that its impossible for people do be motivated for principled reasons and being steadfast in those principals.

There's a bunch of good speeches and presentations and testimony on youtube from Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Appelbaum, Jeremy Scahill and others that bring a considerable amount of detail to bear on what was published.  How the NSA was and is doing what they're doing, how they are able to do it, and how they've exploited just about anything that's electronic and has power.  Everything.

Then you have the brazenness of General Alexander and Hayden.  Just meta data this and that.  We're not listening. blah bla hblah.  This plays to people's ignorance of the meta data objects that are collected, and the story they tell about a persons life, everything.  How many kids you have, your acquaintances, your health considerations, your activities, your eating habits, social economic status, your everything via meta analytics can tell a persons story, and predict behavior without content.   Hayden has even admitted, "We kill people on meta data alone."   Thanks that's real nice to know General.

If you liked that, you might also like one called, "Dirty Wars".  Its about the covert operations of JSOC, special operations being outside of the normal military activity and rules of engagement.  Brings some humanity to the mess.

Thanks, I'll see if I can put that one on the Netflix queue.

I should add, Snowden seemed much more thoughtful and articulate than I got from the news media. That movie served him well.

But I thought the US protected whistle blowers?

The current administration has prosecuted more people under the Espionage Act than all administrations going back fifty years or more. Whistle blower protections apply to government employees, not contractors like Edward Snowden.   Though the protections even for government employees simply are weak and don't appear to inhibit the government if it wants to send a message.

Then looking at what they did to Bill Binney, Thomas Drake, Jeffery Sterling.  

In Drake's case the government was caught manufacturing evidence.  Falsifying unclassified documents Drake had, stamping them classified and submitted them as evidence against Drake.  The government simply ran Drake's cash dry trying to defend himself.  He lost is house, retirement, everything, life ruined.

In Sterling's case he went public with Operation Merlin where the US was giving nuclear weapons plans to Iran through a Russian intermediary, with minor flaw designed into the plans.  Scientists interviewed said the "flaws" could have been figured out by a third grader.  Like the US is wanting to give Iran the bomb in secret, so that in public they can claim they have the bomb and then have the excuse for military action.

http://www.rt.com/usa/224895-cia-whistleblower-iran-sterling/
https://theintercept.com/2015/05/11/sterling-sentenced-for-cia-leak-to-nyt/

The government also going hard at media bring charges against:  James Risen, Laura Poitras.  Or simply a good dose of continual detaining, harassment, interrogation, confiscation of material, laptops, notebooks, cell phones, thumb drives every time they travel.

Watched "Dirty Wars" last night on Netflix again.