@amerika upon what basis? taleb just asserts it as if fact, although I admit it's a reasonable suspicion to have

@skells

Based on his profile. Instead of escalating up the chain of command, he engineered as destructive a leak as he could. This is a public optics move.

@amerika isn't it precisely a public optics move that's required

@amerika escalating gets you fired and clearance revoked, if not worse

@skells @amerika I'm glad Snowden decided to blow the whistle instead of complaining to his manager. I think the government is way out of line with the spying on it's own people. Snowden and Assange deserve full pardons and a parade imo. Whistle blowers should be treated as heroes when they expose government/corporate corruption or illegal activity not treated like terrorists.

@quasifly @skells

I am glad we know, although nothing came of it precisely because of his method.

You do not simply complain to your manager.

You find the people who are accountable up the chain and write to all of them.

They will fire you, and then whistleblower protection laws kick in.

@amerika @quasifly it's the NSA not a Wendy's

@skells @quasifly

An intense, scrutinized bureaucracy.

@skells @amerika @quasifly

> I'm Special Agent PICKLE RIIIIIIIICK
> Excuse me, sir, this is the NSA, not a Wendy's.

@7 @quasifly @amerika

> I shouldn't be exposed to mean tweets

sir, this is a gulag

@skells @quasifly @amerika I don’t think I could imagine being entitled to ignorance in that way.

@7 @quasifly @amerika well fuck, hellthread ruined, thanks sevv

@skells @7 @quasifly

By definition a hellthread cannot be ruined.

You need to rope in more innocent victims.

@skells @quasifly @amerika Just doing my job, citizen.

@7 @quasifly @amerika @p @thatguyoverthere @sim @11112011 @furgar @Prodigal this goes deeper than, like, you know... there has been changes in the... like, context

@skells @7 @quasifly @amerika @p @thatguyoverthere @sim @furgar @Prodigal
imagem.png

@11112011 @7 @quasifly @Prodigal @p @amerika @furgar @sim @thatguyoverthere

@skells @11112011 @quasifly @Prodigal @p @amerika @furgar @sim @thatguyoverthere this meme aged well

@skells @7 @quasifly @Prodigal @p @amerika @furgar @sim @thatguyoverthere
imagem.png

@amerika @skells If he could have gotten more done through the chain of command I would have been for it. I just assume he would have been shut up some how and the public would not have been alerted.

@quasifly @skells

Unlikely if he was able to reach far enough into the bureaucracy.

Bureaucrats fear coverups at this point, with good reason.

Hollywood loves coverups, but they almost never take the form it uses to portray them.

@amerika @quasifly you get a partial hangout, a mea culpa and nothing changes

which is pretty much what happened

however the public, particularly technically minded members, took what was learned to heart and some mitigating factors were put in place

more generally, does trump run/win in 2016 without snowden and assange's actions?

@skells @quasifly

Once the illegal behavior is brought to light, anyone who continues it is culpable.

Watch the bureaucrats flee.

When you take it public, the organizations defend themselves.

Keep it internal for as long as possible.

@amerika @quasifly bro, these were the orders, this isn't someone shipping in come on the side, this is the agencies raison d'etre

@amerika @quasifly coke*

@skells @quasifly

I do not agree. Illegal activities are taken pretty seriously when discovered.

@amerika @quasifly this spying is legal

@amerika @quasifly patriot act

@amerika @quasifly btw if you're trolling at this point it's god tier work I'm pretty tilted rn

@skells @quasifly

Although I am no fan of this law, it does require some probable cause to be used.

@amerika @quasifly the five eyes just take it in turns to spy on each others citizens

you seem to have a pretty concrete model in your head on how to reform bureaucratic institutions, which I can respect, but it seems to be miles away from the reality on the ground in modern surveillance states

this stuff is perfectly *legal* so there's no need for bureaucrats to run for cover. only radical political reform or asymmetric cypherpunk tactics are likely to change the situation

@skells @quasifly

The question is one of domestic versus international spying.

To spy on US citizens, they still need probable cause.

If that is being abuse, accountability comes into play.

@amerika @quasifly

@skells @quasifly

You either have rule of law, or you do not.

In the meantime, we regularly see agencies getting disciplined.

Snowden behaved like a Russian asset. I'd say Taleb is most likely correct.

It's been a while since I read Snowden's book, but if I remember correctly, the way he alleged the CIA was spying on people was that they would go collect a bunch of public and private information on someone and store it in a database. But they did this in such a way so that no one at the CIA actually saw the data, and thus it was considered legal. It's sort of like if a cop busted down your door and took pictures of everything without a warrant, but the courts said it was legal because he had his eyes closed the whole time.

The issue here is that if someone were to hack into this database and leak all of this private info, it's unlikely the CIA could be held accountable.

Also the CIA is a pretty opaque organization. If someone were to illegally file a warrant based on information from that database, it would be difficult to prove that that was actually the case in court.

@postemples @quasifly @skells

Yet another reason to go embarrass the higherups.

Once you put something on paper, they no longer have plausible deniability, and most of government when abused operates behind that shield.

@skells

No, I do not think so. What is required, in a bureaucratic system, is formulating concrete objections in written communications to the hierarchy above.

@amerika it's not the bureaucratic system that's of concern but the broader democratic society(ies) that are impacted

@skells

Not relevant. Work within the system while you can and you have clean hands.

Does Snowden have clean hands?

@amerika we can go around in circles on this all day, i wouldn't trust the right thing to have been done and Snowden was in a better position than most to understand how they operated

maximum public exposure as fast and hard as possible appears to be the pragmatic solution

anything else is pretty naive imo

@skells

Depends on what your goal is.

My goal would be to make the problem so visible to the organization that it had to address it.

@amerika citizen surveillance was a feature, not a bug

@amerika @skells Snowden is a CIA asset. It's a matter of record he was recruited by and worked for the CIA before moving to the NSA. What a coincidence that he then made the CIA's main competitor for federal money look bad.