NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

[FrankL]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

...
Here on iTulip we'll frame the debate with these questions:

1. Is the security we gain from a system of covert collection, analysis, and storage of our online communications worth the risk of 100 years of totalitarian rule if it falls into the wrong hands?
2. Why not debate the program in public? Are enemies of the U.S. if they know about he system going to use other means of digital communications besides social media and email? Such as what?

unfortunately the covert collection, analysis, and storage of our online communications extends beyond what the government does. In fact, either covert or overt, it's the very business model of many online entities nowadays, from ranging anywhere Google to Facebook. It is very likely that your ISP is offered big money from these type of parties to let them do deep packet inspection on all your internet traffic, technically giving them full access to all your unencrypted communications.

The internet has enabled many interesting changes in societies; however, the technological dangers from letting anyone have too much access to all communication data is a potential enabler of a form of totalitarianism of the scariest kinds.

Personally, I am pessimistic that legislation will be able to address this issue, and think only a technological solution can fix this.

[c1ue]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

i know you can use vpn's, tor, etc- but the capacity for anonymity is for most of us, most of the time, not worth the bother. and so it goes. in fact, where was the nsa and its "breakthrough" [quoted the wired article] in deciphering even encrypted communication when the tsarnaev's were putting together their bombs? my sense is that this tool will be far more effective for targeted oppression than for its purported purpose.

I completely agree - few people bother with the trouble of maintaining internet related safety precautions...because they don't feel the need.

Maybe that needs to change, and maybe Snowden's whistleblowing will help a few people consider that they might need to, or else act in some other way to remove the potential abuses inherent in the present system such that such measures are once again unnecessary.

I'll conclude with this little snippet - for those who seem to think Snowden is committing treason:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Did Snowden levy War?

Did Snowden give Aid and Comfort to the enemies of the US, in revealing that the US is blindly surveilling its own entire populace?

[mikedev10]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

unfortunately the covert collection, analysis, and storage of our online communications extends beyond what the government does. In fact, either covert or overt, it's the very business model of many online entities nowadays, from ranging anywhere Google to Facebook. It is very likely that your ISP is offered big money from these type of parties to let them do deep packet inspection on all your internet traffic, technically giving them full access to all your unencrypted communications.

i have never heard of that and doubt anyone is going through the effort of paying for and sniffing all the packets routed through an ISP.

in regards to the content being analyzed i sell the product that ibm developed with the government to analyze it in my "big data" toolkit. it's pretty powerful stuff.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

I completely agree - few people bother with the trouble of maintaining internet related safety precautions...because they don't feel the need.

Maybe that needs to change, and maybe Snowden's whistleblowing will help a few people consider that they might need to, or else act in some other way to remove the potential abuses inherent in the present system such that such measures are once again unnecessary.

I'll conclude with this little snippet - for those who seem to think Snowden is committing treason:



Did Snowden levy War?

Define war?

Extremely unlikely...but the last 5-6 years has seen a massive spike in known incidents where the Internet is centre stage of sub-conventional conflict:

Estonia 2007
Under ocean data cables cut all over the place in short order 2008
Iranian Elections and internet enables protests 2009-2010
Stuxnet 2010
internet enabled Arab Spring 2010+
Libyan Civil War(Cyber Component, including western supplied support for Qaddafi regime)
Syrian Civil War(Cyber Component)
Chinese Water Army and very recent mass media coverage of it, including reported compromise of US .MIL programs
NSA-Gate

The last 5+ years has seen the internet moving from peripheral to central in some conflicts....and that's just some slices of what we know in open source.

Could Snowden be successfully portrayed as a participant/"useful idiot" if not an enemy combatant?

Did Snowden give Aid and Comfort to the enemies of the US, in revealing that the US is blindly surveilling its own entire populace?

Quite Possibly.

Especially if you are a bit assertive in defining "enemy" as well as "aid and comfort".

If the US is still "fighting the last war" while an enemy(or potential enemy) is fighting the current or next war, then it puts things in a bit of a different perspective.

China and Russia are certainly NOT friends. Are they enemies? Some would certainly say so.

A far more reasonable argument could be made that Snowden's choices will result in a massive time suck and continue the perpetual distraction away from core issues the Obama Administration consistently fails to make any progress on.

How is a perpetually distracted US NOT good for China/Russia?

How does this particular incident NOT benefit China in portraying it's own human rights and cyber activities in a less negative light?

How does this particular incident NOT benefit Russia that just pinched an American intelligence officer and outed the CIA Chief of Station in Moscow?

If Snowden can actually make it to a welcoming Iceland as he seems to hope(and is yet to be proven an option) he'll likely have to travel through Mainland China and Russia to get there without getting pinched.

While I cautiously commend Snowden for shining a light on this and I do lean towards thinking he is potentially genuine and sincere, it is still more than just a possibility that he could be directly involved in espionage.

What bothers me the most(beyond just the serious issue of NSA well exceeding their initial charter) is that US government abuse of power(real or perceived doesn't matter) combined with the implosion of the US economy over the last decade leaves the US increasingly vulnerable to genuine foreign intelligence recruitment efforts. Much like a watered down version of the Soviet Union pre-post collapse.

The US is becoming like a company that cooks its books and treats it's employees like poop....highly vulnerable to both legal and illegal employee action.

And the possibility of Snowden causing unintentional damage to US foreign intelligence collection efforts is real(and will certainly be portrayed as catastrophic for those out to persecute/prosecute him). He will need to act very, very carefully as he is playing an extremely dangerous game of brinksmanship against unlimited resources in the form of the US/China/Russia.

And that's what I think is worth watching........what does he do in terms of legal defense and PR defense?

IF he can shed the "defector to China" bit and make it to Iceland or somewhere else regarded as neutral would probably be of great value in the court of public opinion.

BUT if he stays in China/Russia it would raise legitimate questions and he would probably get convicted and executed in the court of public opinion.

I wonder if India is an option?

Afterall, the CIA exfil'd a senior RAW executive a few years back as well as screwed India around with "David Headley" in the Mumbai Massacre case.

Anywho......about the only thing I can guarantee with this(as most of the story still seems to be in the "too soon to tell" box) is that the negative perception of the US government is not only the #1 sales tool for firearms retailers, but it will likely become the #1 sales tool for private communication security/encryption companies.

I wonder if it's possible to monitor the download and userbase metrics of encryption/security apps like RedPhone?

I wonder if it's a space that the iTulip community will be monitoring for investment opportunity?

[c1ue]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

Define war?

Extremely unlikely...but the last 5-6 years has seen a massive spike in known incidents where the Internet is centre stage of sub-conventional conflict:

Estonia 2007
Under ocean data cables cut all over the place in short order 2008
Iranian Elections and internet enables protests 2009-2010
Stuxnet 2010
internet enabled Arab Spring 2010+
Libyan Civil War(Cyber Component, including western supplied support for Qaddafi regime)
Syrian Civil War(Cyber Component)
Chinese Water Army and very recent mass media coverage of it, including reported compromise of US .MIL programs
NSA-Gate

The last 5+ years has seen the internet moving from peripheral to central in some conflicts....and that's just some slices of what we know in open source.

Could Snowden be successfully portrayed as a participant/"useful idiot" if not an enemy combatant?

Given that the information leaked was about the US public and its government, I'd say the only war possibly involved is not one involving the outside powers. Or more particularly, the only war involved is a war on civil liberty and privacy.

Quite Possibly.

Especially if you are a bit assertive in defining "enemy" as well as "aid and comfort".

If the US is still "fighting the last war" while an enemy(or potential enemy) is fighting the current or next war, then it puts things in a bit of a different perspective.

China and Russia are certainly NOT friends. Are they enemies? Some would certainly say so.

If Snowden's act was one of treason, then we should all go to jail - starting with Wal-Mart - because selling massive quantities of Chinese goods is much, much worse as far as providing 'aid and comfort'. We should then toss all the electronics companies in jail - for providing 'aid and comfort' to China in the form of Foxconn jobs. The list goes on and on.

[c1ue]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

Here's an interesting writeup on how this vacuuming of mass data can be used:

http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives...d-paul-revere/

I have been asked by my superiors to give a brief demonstration of the surprising effectiveness of even the simplest techniques of the new-fangled Social Networke Analysis in the pursuit of those who would seek to undermine the liberty enjoyed by His Majesty’s subjects. This is in connection with the discussion of the role of “metadata” in certain recent events and the assurances of various respectable parties that the government was merely “sifting through this so-called metadata” and that the “information acquired does not include the content of any communications”. I will show how we can use this “metadata” to find key persons involved in terrorist groups operating within the Colonies at the present time. I shall also endeavour to show how these methods work in what might be called a relational manner.

The analysis in this report is based on information gathered by our field agent Mr David Hackett Fischer and published in an Appendix to his lengthy report to the government. As you may be aware, Mr Fischer is an expert and respected field Agent with a broad and deep knowledge of the colonies. I, on the other hand, have made my way from Ireland with just a little quantitative training—I placed several hundred rungs below the Senior Wrangler during my time at Cambridge—and I am presently employed as a junior analytical scribe at ye olde National Security Administration. Sorry, I mean the Royal Security Administration. And I should emphasize again that I know nothing of current affairs in the colonies. However, our current Eighteenth Century beta of PRISM has been used to collect and analyze information on more than two hundred and sixty persons (of varying degrees of suspicion) belonging variously to seven different organizations in the Boston area.

Rest assured that we only collected metadata on these people, and no actual conversations were recorded or meetings transcribed. All I know is whether someone was a member of an organization or not. Surely this is but a small encroachment on the freedom of the Crown’s subjects. I have been asked, on the basis of this poor information, to present some names for our field agents in the Colonies to work with. It seems an unlikely task.

If you want to follow along yourself, there is a secret repository containing the data and the appropriate commands for your portable analytical engine.
Here is what the data look like.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

StAndrewsLodge LoyalNine NorthCaucus LongRoomClub TeaParty Bostoncommittee LondonEnemies Adams.John 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 Adams.Samuel 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 Allen.Dr 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 Appleton.Nathaniel 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 Ash.Gilbert 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Austin.Benjamin 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Austin.Samuel 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Avery.John 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 Baldwin.Cyrus 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Ballard.John 0 0 1 0 0 0 0

The organizations are listed in the columns, and the names in the rows. As you can see, membership is represented by a “1”. So this Samuel Adams person (whoever he is), belongs to the North Caucus, the Long Room Club, the Boston Committee, and the London Enemies List. I must say, these organizational names sound rather belligerent.

Anyway, what can get from these meagre metadata? This table is large and cumbersome. I am a pretty low-level operative at ye olde RSA, so I have to keep it simple. My superiors, I am quite sure, have far more sophisticated analytical techniques at their disposal. I will simply start at the very beginning and follow a technique laid out in a beautiful paper by my brilliant former colleague, Mr Ron Breiger, called ”The Duality of Persons and Groups.” He wrote it as a graduate student at Harvard, some thirty five years ago. (Harvard, you may recall, is what passes for a university in the Colonies. No matter.) The paper describes what we now think of as a basic way to represent information about links between people and some other kind of thing, like attendance at various events, or membership in various groups. The foundational papers in this new science of social networke analysis, in fact, are almost all about what you can tell about people and their social lives based on metadata only, without much reference to the actual content of what they say.

Mr Breiger’s insight was that our table of 254 rows and seven columns is an adjacency matrix, and that a bit of matrix multiplication can bring out information that is in the table but perhaps hard to see. Take this adjacency matrix of people and groups and transpose it—that is, flip it over on its side, so that the rows are now the columns and vice versa. Now we have two tables, or matrices, one showing “People by Groups” and the other “Groups by People”. Call the first one the adjacency matrix A and the second one its transpose, A^T. Now, as you will recall there are rules for multiplying matrices together. If you multiply out A(A^T), you will get a big matrix with 254 rows and 254 columns. That is, it will be a 254x254 “Person by Person” matrix, where both the rows and columns are people (in the same order) and the cells show the number of organizations any particular pair of people both belonged to. Is that not marvelous? I have always thought this operation is somewhat akin to magick, especially as it involves moving one hand down and the other one across in a manner not wholly removed from an incantation.

I cannot show you the whole Person by Person matrix, because I would have to kill you. I jest, I jest! It is just because it is rather large. But here is a little snippet of it. At this point in the eighteenth century, a 254x254 matrix is what we call ”Bigge Data”. I have an upcoming EDWARDx talk about it. You should come. Anyway:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Adams.John Adams.Samuel Allen.Dr Appleton.Nathaniel Adams.John - 2 1 1 Adams.Samuel 2 - 1 2 Allen.Dr 1 1 - 1 Appleton.Nathaniel 1 2 1 - Ash.Gilbert 0 0 0 0 Austin.Benjamin 0 1 0 0

You can see here that Mr Appleton and Mr John Adams were connected through both being a member of one group, while Mr John Adams and Mr Samuel Adams shared memberships in two of our seven groups. Mr Ash, meanwhile, was not connected through organization membership to any of the first four men on our list. The rest of the table stretches out in both directions.

Notice again, I beg you, what we did there. We did not start with a “social networke” as you might ordinarily think of it, where individuals are connected to other individuals. We started with a list of memberships in various organizations. But now suddenly we do have a social network of individuals, where a tie in the network is defined by co-membership in an organization. This is a powerful trick.

We are just getting started, however. A thing about multiplying matrices is that the order matters. It is not like multiplying two numbers. If instead of multiplying A(A^T) we put the transposed matrix first, and do A^T(A), then we get a different result. This time, the result is a 7x7 “Organization by Organization” matrix, where the numbers in the cells represent how many people each organization has in common. Here’s what that looks like. Because it is small we can see the whole table.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

StAndrewsLodge LoyalNine NorthCaucus LongRoomClub TeaParty BostonCommittee LondonEnemies StAndrewsLodge - 1 3 2 3 0 5 LoyalNine 1 - 5 0 5 0 8 NorthCaucus 3 5 - 8 15 11 20 LongRoomClub 2 0 8 - 1 5 5 TeaParty 3 5 15 1 - 5 10 BostonCommittee 0 0 11 5 5 - 14 LondonEnemies 5 8 20 5 10 14 -

Again, interesting! (I beg to venture.) Instead of seeing how (and which) people are linked by their shared membership in organizations, we see which organizations are linked through the people that belong to them both. People are linked through the groups they belong to. Groups are linked through the people they share. This is the “duality of persons and groups” in the title of Mr Breiger’s article.

Rather than relying on tables, we can make a picture of the relationship between the groups, using the number of shared members as an index of the strength of the link between the seditious groups. Here’s what that looks like.

And, of course, we can also do that for the links between the people, using our 254x254 “Person by Person” table. Here is what that looks like.

What a nice picture! The analytical engine has arranged everyone neatly, picking out clusters of individuals and also showing both peripheral individuals and—more intriguingly—people who seem to bridge various groups in ways that might perhaps be relevant to national security. Look at that person right in the middle there. Zoom in if you wish. He seems to bridge several groups in an unusual (though perhaps not unique) way. His name is Paul Revere.

Once again, I remind you that I know nothing of Mr Revere, or his conversations, or his habits or beliefs, his writings (if he has any) or his personal life. All I know is this bit of metadata, based on membership in some organizations. And yet my analytical engine, on the basis of absolutely the most elementary of operations in Social Networke Analysis, seems to have picked him out of our 254 names as being of unusual interest. We do not have to stop here, with just a picture. Now that we have used our simple “Person by Event” table to generate a “Person by Person” matrix, we can do things like calculate centrality scores, or figure out whether there are cliques, or investigate other patterns. For example, we could calculate a betweenness centrality measure for everyone in our matrix, which is roughly the number of “shortest paths” between any two people in our network that pass through the person of interest. It is a way of asking “If I have to get from person a to person z, how likely is it that the quickest way is through person x?” Here are the top betweenness scores for our list of suspected terrorists:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

round(btwn.person[ind][1:10],0) Revere.Paul Urann.Thomas Warren.Joseph Peck.Samuel 3839 2185 1817 1150 Barber.Nathaniel Cooper.William Hoffins.John Bass.Henry 931 931 931 852 Chase.Thomas Davis.Caleb 852 852

Perhaps I should not say “terrorists” so rashly. But you can see how tempting it is. Anyway, look—there he is again, this Mr Revere! Very interesting. There are fancier ways to measure importance in a network besides this one. There is something called eigenvector centrality, which my friends in Natural Philosophy tell me is a bit of mathematics unlikely ever to have any practical application in the wider world. You can think of it as a measure of centrality weighted by one’s connection to other central people. Here are our top scorers on that measure:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

> round(cent.eig$vector[ind][1:10],2) Barber.Nathaniel Hoffins.John Cooper.William Revere.Paul 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.99 Bass.Henry Davis.Caleb Chase.Thomas Greenleaf.William 0.95 0.95 0.95 0.95 Hopkins.Caleb Proctor.Edward 0.95 0.90

Here our Mr Revere appears to score highly alongside a few other persons of interest. And for one last demonstration, a calculation of Bonacich Power Centrality, another more sophisticated measure. Here the lower score indicates a more central location.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

> round(cent.bonpow[ind][1:10],2) Revere.Paul Urann.Thomas Warren.Joseph Proctor.Edward -1.51 -1.44 -1.42 -1.40 Barber.Nathaniel Hoffins.John Cooper.William Peck.Samuel -1.36 -1.36 -1.36 -1.33 Davis.Caleb Chase.Thomas -1.31 -1.31

And here again, Mr Revere—along with Messrs Urann, Proctor, and Barber—appears towards the top or our list.

So, there you have it. From a table of membership in different groups we have gotten a picture of a kind of social network between individuals, a sense of the degree of connection between organizations, and some strong hints of who the key players are in this world. And all this—all of it!—from the merest sliver of metadata about a single modality of relationship between people. I do not wish to overstep the remit of my memorandum but I must ask you to imagine what might be possible if we were but able to collect information on very many more people, and also synthesize information from different kinds of ties between people! For the simple methods I have described are quite generalizable in these ways, and their capability only becomes more apparent as the size and scope of the information they are given increases. We would not need to know what was being whispered between individuals, only that they were connected in various ways. The analytical engine would do the rest! I daresay the shape of the real structure of social relations would emerge from our calculations gradually, first in outline only, but eventually with ever-increasing clarity and, at last, in beautiful detail—like a great, silent ship coming out of the gray New England fog.

I admit that, in addition to the possibilities for finding something interesting, there may also be the prospect of discovering suggestive but ultimately incorrect or misleading patterns. But I feel this problem would surely be greatly ameliorated by more and better metadata. At the present time, alas, the technology required to automatically collect the required information is beyond our capacity. But I say again, if a mere scribe such as I—one who knows nearly nothing—can use the very simplest of these methods to pick the name of a traitor like Paul Revere from those of two hundred and fifty four other men, using nothing but a list of memberships and a portable calculating engine, then just think what weapons we might wield in the defense of liberty one or two centuries from now.

Note: After I posted this, Michael Chwe emailed to tell me that Shin-Kap Han has published an article analyzing Fischer’s Revere data in rather more detail. I first came across Fischer’s data when I read Paul Revere’s Ride some years ago. I transcribed it and worked on it a little (making the graphs shown here) when I was asked to give a presentation on the usefulness of Sociological methods to graduate students in Duke’s History department. It’s very nice to see Han’s much fuller published analysis, as he’s an SNA specialist, unlike me.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

Given that the information leaked was about the US public and its government, I'd say the only war possibly involved is not one involving the outside powers. Or more particularly, the only war involved is a war on civil liberty and privacy.

I will state again that I am hopeful and lean towards Snowden acting with the best of intent with his decisions.

But it is worth repeating that there were considerable numbers of actions committed in the 20th century where the superficial intent most believed also carried/masked less altruistic objectives backed by foreign actors.

Two examples that have come to light with considerable evidence to support them would be the Vietnam War protest movement as well as the Western European anti-nuclear weapons movement. Both quite considerable and altruistic movements on the surface, and both proven to have had considerable investment made by the Soviet Union and others to shape perceptions.

We know what's been leaked, but we don't know what hasn't been publicly disclosed yet to the Guardian, to the US government, to the Chinese, etc.

Snowden could be a Digital Mandela, he could be a Chinese intelligence asset, or more likely he is somewhere in the vast space in between the two.

If Snowden's act was one of treason, then we should all go to jail - starting with Wal-Mart - because selling massive quantities of Chinese goods is much, much worse as far as providing 'aid and comfort'. We should then toss all the electronics companies in jail - for providing 'aid and comfort' to China in the form of Foxconn jobs. The list goes on and on.

I don't disagree....but how many people are willing to admit that THEY THEMSELVES are directly part of the problem?

If people were actually willing to do so without ego and enter a virtual 12 step program for the politically lazy and come out the other end cleansed of their addictions(ignorance, greed, apathy, etc) we would have nothing to worry about and have all of our problems completely solved in the 2014 & 2016 election cycles.

The bigger the economic/social ecosystem expands from a tiny village to a nation of 325 million the easier it gets to blame others.

It will be interesting to see how Mass Media portray Snowden over time.

What I hope to see is:

Snowden actually acting altruistically(More Mandela and less Chinese Spy:this remains to be seen/proven) to justify open support from reputable sources

Snowden putting together a high quality legal/PR team to shape the message proactively and inside the US government's OODA loop

Snowden turning himself in to fight it

Reputable internet based personalities and properties converge in persistent support for Snowden

---------

If cop killers with smoking guns in Philadelphia can receive considerable public/celebrity support, then I would think Snowden has potential to be shaped as a digital Mandela.....even if his motivations as stated, weren't exactly self-less.

But freedom fighter and martyr portrayals of near sainthood are rarely if ever accurate......people are flawed.

"Saints" don't ride waves, "surfers" do.

[jk]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

Here's an interesting writeup on how this vacuuming of mass data can be used:

http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives...d-paul-revere/

great piece, i recommend people go to the link to see the illustrations.

[astonas]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

great piece, i recommend people go to the link to see the illustrations.

Yep. And don't forget to check out the more recent paper listed in the footnote for an update:

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/f.../ps269/han.pdf

Between the two papers, one has to wonder if anyone even thought about the impact on the first amendment's right of free association, when designing these programs:

The Free Press Clause protects publication of information and opinions, and applies to a wide variety of media. In Near v. Minnesota(1931) and New York Times v. United States (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protected against prior restraint—pre-publication censorship—in almost all cases. The Petition Clause protects the right to petition all branches and agencies of government for action. In addition to the right of assembly guaranteed by this clause, the Court has also ruled that the Amendment implicitly protects freedom of association.

The general freedom to associate with groups according to the choice of the individual, and for the groups to take action to promote their interests, has been a necessary feature of every democratic society. Because freedom of association necessarily recognises pluralistic sources of power and organisation, aside from the government, it has been a primary target for repression by all dictatorial societies. In the United Kingdom, all forms of "combination" were prohibited and criminal, particularly worker organisations, until the Combination Act 1825. After this, it was still not until the Companies Act 1856, the Trade Union Act 1871 and the Criminal Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 that companies and then trade unions became generally lawful. In Germany, a similar set of repressive laws were put in place against both trade unions and social democrat organisations by the Bismarck government under the Sozialistengesetze (the "Socialist Acts") in 1878. These remained in force until 1890. In 1933, trade unions were once again prohibited by the Fascist dictatorship of Hitler's National Socialist party, and the existing unions were nationalised and combined into a single government controlled German Labor Front. After World War Two, free trade unions were quickly resurrected and guaranteed by the German Grundgesetz. In the United States, trade unions were classified by various state courts, at various times, as being in restraint of trade. Under the Clayton Act 1914 trade unions were given a general freedom to organise and to act collectively to secure collective agreements, however further hurdles were put in place until the National Labor Relations Act 1935 created a comprehensive labour code.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

I am hopeful that Snowden is acting somewhat altruistically......BUT:

I wonder why he didn't hopscotch across US/Canada to Iceland, his reported final destination if he's looking at exile?

Or maybe New Zealand, due to the very recent debacle surrounding the US push for Megaupload/Kim Dotcom arrest/prosecution that fell apart which included a GCSB/5 Powers intelligence component, if he was only looking for a temporary harbor.

Although it would be easier to ring-fence onward destinations from NZ if he intended to remain in exile.

-----------

His choice of Hong Kong, while canny in a geopolitical sense, could also be a big risk in terms of court of public opinion.

His background is interesting.

He left high school, but eventually gained a GED.

He spent 4-5 months in the Army attempting direct entry SF selection, but left without completing any coursing due to self described injury(waiting for 2nd hand feedback about him to pop up eventually).

Worked as security guard for OGA.

Worked in some IT capacity for OGA.

Worked as IT contractor(several contractors?) to OGA.

Earned a reported $200k as contractor.

Mentions what sounds like a HUMINT source recruitment in Switzerland, could be watercooler discusson.

Mentions diplomatic credentials and having provided proof.

His strange mix of incomplete education and life experience seems like a considerable outlier compared to pretty much everyone I know who work in that community, including in the 99% of less than exciting, non-hollywood stereotype roles they perform.

Maybe the case of Christopher Boyce might also be relevant here as I'm speculating based on where he lived in his younger years and his mention of family that he may have a few family members who are in the community.

[astonas]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

I thought the name sounded familiar, looking it up gives:

http://everything2.com/title/Where+a...+yesteryear%3F

Let's hope it's not foreshadowing:

http://ecmd.nju.edu.cn/UploadFile/21...tructure22.doc

although:

To capitulate to Cathcart would be to kill the spirit, to deny the distinction between man and other forms of garbage. Yossarian cannot do this even though it would insure the physical safety he has pursued so zealously, for he has finally learned the secret embedded in the entrails of all the Snowdens: men and women must protest against the forces that would render them garbage or they are indeed nothing more than droppable, burnable, buryable matter.

There could be worse ways to interpret the coincidence.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

I thought the name sounded familiar, looking it up gives:

http://everything2.com/title/Where+a...+yesteryear%3F

Let's hope it's not foreshadowing:

http://ecmd.nju.edu.cn/UploadFile/21...tructure22.doc

Might be worth watching Catch-22 again....I haven't watched that film in about 15-20 years.

Although I'm no fan of Woody Allen, Sleeper was on recently.

I reckon it might be worth watching Brazil too........hopefully sublime mediocrity will save us from ourselves.

[astonas]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

Might be worth watching Catch-22 again....I haven't watched that film in about 15-20 years.

I was just looking for the book. The critical summary I just posted in my edit reminded me of what I suspected; Snowden's name is eerily exact to its instructive role in the novel, enough so that it almost seems too close a fit to be real.

Snowden is a member of Yossarian's flight during a mission, and acts as catalyst for the fundamental change in Yossarian's mentality and outlook. After their plane takes heavy anti-aircraft fire, Snowden is mortally wounded and it is Yossarian who attempts to come to Snowden's aid by treating his visible wounds with bandages and sulfanilamide powder. Snowden's death leaves a lasting impression on Yossarian.

Any chance it's an alias?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

I was just looking for the book. The critical summary I just posted in my edit reminded me of what I suspected; Snowden's name is eerily exact to its instructive role in the novel, enough so that it almost seems too close a fit to be real.

Any chance it's an alias?

I'm wondering if Snowden's disclosed career and accomplishments isn't quite real either.

Something just doesn't seem right.

His education/work background is a REAL outlier to be making the money and working the jobs he claims or alludes to.

A significant outlier.....even if he had the bonifides of family working within the same community(which I suspect)

[astonas]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

I'm wondering if Snowden's disclosed career and accomplishments isn't quite real either.

Something just doesn't seem right.

His education/work background is a REAL outlier to be making the money and working the jobs he claims or alludes to.

A significant outlier.....even if he had the bonifides of family working within the same community(which I suspect)

I suppose it could be. But part of me also knows that Catch-22 is required reading in high schools in a lot of states, and if an impressionable kid happens to have the same name as a key character, he might get the idea that he was meant for that role, and seek it out.

Call it "narrative causality," perhaps?

Even if his was an unlikely fit for his background, persistence and drive can go a long way. And being a sysadmin is often seen as the grunt work of computing by the "real" computer scientists who would populate the NSA, so his resume doesn't seem that big a stretch to me.