General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: In support of Glenn Greenwald [View all]JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Let's say Snowden is a whistle blower on Domestic Surveillance. Fine. Let the planning for the parade commence.
But before we hold the actual parade ... as a "whistle-blower", what was Snowden's intent in (a) taking lots of information unrelated to Domestic Surveillance, and then (b) leaking it.
Why did he do that?
Conspiracy Theory:
Let's say you are a foreign government and you want to steal information about US foreign intelligence activities. You want to know their approaches, methods, and even actual information.
And naturally, you don't want to get caught.
What if you could get someone inside to steal lots of THAT foreign surveillance information, along with other information (most of it already known) about US Domestic Surveillance efforts.
Then, you leak the Domestic Surveillance stuff as if THAT was the primary goal of stealing the bulk of information.
You, the foregn government, get all kinds of excellent info about how the US performs foreign surveillance, AND you avoid getting caught doing so. You get away clean. Snowden takes the fall.
Meanwhile, the US has to deal with the leaked info on Domestic Surveillance.
I've yet to have anyone who supports Snowden and Greenwald explain why they took, released, and continue to release, info unrelated to domestic surveillance.