Where the Leakers Go

~ Laura

ImageI’m fascinated with Edward Snowden. Here’s what I’m reading this morning:

Edward Snowden, The N.S.A. Leaker, Comes Forward. 

Can Edward Snowden Stay in Hong Kong? New Yorker

Edward Snowden comes forward as source of NSA leaks, Wash Post

He doesn’t seem to be a Julian Assange, does he?

Code name “Verax”: Snowden, in exchanges with Post reporter, made clear he knew the risks. Wash Post

OK, this guy is sounding more like an ass.

A Tale of Two NSA Leaks, New Republic

Published by Laura

8 thoughts on “Where the Leakers Go”

  2. Honestly, I’m still working on the fact that somebody with a GED is making 200,000 dollars a year as a government contractor — as we contemplate the cost of college.

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  3. Yes, that’s one of the things I wanted to learn. Hadn’t understood, for example, that Booz Allen was mostly a government contractor. I also think we need to know the outlines of the programs, find myself and vaguely reconsidering use of cloud services.
    I don’t actually care if he’s an “ass”, ’cause that makes the whole thing even worse, that asses are proved to be involved in the intimate details of these surveillance programs.

    There’s a great Rumpole book by John Mortimer based on my main worry about government surveillance: “Rumpole and the Reign of Terror .” In it someone uses the program to get what they want out of the system (in ways completely unrelated to government secrecy).

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  4. Computer skills are very valuable in the marketplace. (I know I’ve pointed this out before.) The capacity to keep an IT system running and secure is more valuable than the skills average college graduates possess.

    Computer programming skills are not (yet) a basic requirement for a high school or college degree. Many of the people who can learn programming skills easily find their way into the field. There’s a podcast on iTunes from a Stanford computer professor, in which he points out how very employable his graduates are.

    All these super-secret systems depend upon skilled workmen to run. Those workmen may not share the leaders’ values. As a matter of fact, they probably don’t share the leaders’ values, just because they are much younger and a different type of person. (More pizza at midnight and Dungeons & Dragons, less photo-op and student council.)

    If I recall correctly, the first leaks from the Swiss banks were compact discs sold by disgruntled employees. In the modern age, is secrecy impossible? Plus, there’s the open question of, how many computer systems contractors are working for other entities?

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  5. “In it someone uses the program to get what they want out of the system (in ways completely unrelated to government secrecy).”

    I guarantee this is already happening.

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  7. the Boozers said his salary was a mere $122,000.
    http://www.boozallen.com/media-center/press-releases/48399320/statement-reports-leaked-information-060913

    Still that means I’ve gone horribly wrong somewhere, an undergrad degree in math and a graduate degree in CS, yet I’m still making less than this young man who didn’t graduate HS. Clearly I need to move to a government contractor job. I’m just glad our government is saving so much money by outsourcing its security functions.. say, wait a minute..

    As Dan Sinker observed on twitter,

    “When I go to the Washington Post to learn about gov data tracking, I’m hit by *fifty* commercial data trackers. ”
    It’s true the government can throw you in jail, but the commercial data trackers can destroy your credit score, which will put you in the gutter just as effectively.

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  8. I have a lot of problems with all the commercial data trackers too. But, they can’t imprison me or send a drone to my house (yet).

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