The fact that 25-year old contractors were being trusted with its inner workings

[geek tragedy]

shows that the surveillance apparatus has grown too large, unwieldly, and unaccountable.

A program that's too lazy or inept at keeping its own secrets can't be trusted with the secrets of all American citizens.

Make it smaller, make it smarter, make it more accountable, make it more transparent.

[Recursion]

1. If you believe 25-year-old contractors were actually trusted with the inner workings, yes

But, yes, the whole thing is way too big and ponderous.

[geek tragedy]

2. Taking the government at its word that these revelations are an

unconscionable revelation that will compromise national security.

[Recursion]

4. I've been assuming they were talking about the PowerPoint and the warrant

Which is a completely separate question from what Snowden is claiming about his ability to read the President's personal email.

[geek tragedy]

7. I would be very surprised if he wasn't embellishing a little--everyone on earth

embellishes and exaggerates.

[Recursion]

9. OK, so what has he actually presented that you believe?

Has he done more than hand over a PowerPoint (which we have only seen a few slides of) and told some stories?

[geek tragedy]

11. I'm not believing anything at this point, on either side.

When members of the spook apparatus take opposite sides, best to assume both are lying to some degree, the relative degrees to be determined much later.

[sabrina 1]

19. Pretty much what Drake revealed

Today, both Drake and Ellsberg have offered their support, Ellsberg stating that we have been waiting for forty years for him to come along.

Booz Allen's history wrt to our security, is long and extremely controversial. Billions of dollars have poured into that organization and they are angry. Most likely fearing the funds might be affected. Since this is a Republican firm with revolving doors going from 'security contracts' to Congress, anyone who now truststthat our security is in 'safe hands' is seriously deluding themselves.

Drake and his 'co-conspirators' were Bush employees, but they risked everything for their country when they witnessed the abuses that were taking place. Putting country before party.

Republican/Democrat has no place in this very serious debate. This is about the very basis of our democracy and all US citizens and elected officials need now to get on the right side of history.

[DURHAM D]

10. Looks very likely this 25 yo and hundreds of thousands of other folks have access.

"America's OUTSOURCED Spy Force, by the Numbers" -- The Atlantic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022983838

[Recursion]

13. Some access to something, yes.

Full access to every email in the world, like he claims? As a sysadmin, working for the organization that invented the system that lets you keep sysadmins from seeing everything on a system? And access to the full list of every NSA employee and asset? I don't even believe such a list exists.

[DURHAM D]

14. I am not so much interested in what they have "access to" but

my horror is in the number of people, particularly private corporate employees, who have clearance for any access at all.

It obviously is not manageable.

[Recursion]

20. I certainly agree there

The security apparatus is way too big and way too private.

[sabrina 1]

22. Do you know anything about Booz Allen?

[Recursion]

23. Yes, I've subcontracted for them. Shady bastards

Doesn't change my technical complaints about this story.

[sabrina 1]

25. Republican basqards mostly. They have a to lose, billions actually, and are as expected

furious. If they have nothing to hide, they will be forthcoming and will not try to suppress the information released. But they've been in trouble before, and frankly I don't care about these revelations as I do learning that our rights are actually in the hands of these scumbags and that our own tax dollars are paying them to abuse our rights, which they have been accused of before.

This stinks to high heaven that this is where are rights are decided. And please do not tell me they are not. They have a revolving, mostly Republican door between Congress and their business. What a scam it all it is. If this story revealed nothing else to the American people, this alone needs to be dealt with. We did NOT elect these profiteers nor would anyone in their right mind.

This story just gets worse by the minute, regardless of leaks. Our democracy has been sold to contractors, and shady ones at that.

[emulatorloo]

3. But I am not 100% convinced that 25-yo contractors WERE trusted with the inner workings.

Lets see how this plays out.

"Make it smaller, make it smarter, make it more accountable, make it more transparent."

I think we all can agree on that.

[geek tragedy]

5. He's leaked enough to show that he's been given greater access to information

than should have been warranted.

[Recursion]

8. Has he leaked more than the PowerPoint?

That's all he's actually produced so far, and the parts the media have shared with us don't even come close to backing up his stories.

[Marr]

17. Well, isn't that enough?

I've seen several threads here already focusing on what a suspicious loser this whistleblower is; highschool dropout, college dropout, military washout, etc.

If that's all true, then his having just the access he's already proven suggests the surveillance state is so bloated that it's hiring unqualified incompetents. I mean, you can't have it both ways.

[Recursion]

18. Is there anything actually important in the PowerPoint? I haven't seen anything

I've seen a very high-level description of information flow

[emulatorloo]

12. My response is the same as Recursion's

[sabrina 1]

24. Just reading the history of Booz Allen should make people's hair stand on end.

To think our rights are in the hands of this bunch of profiteers alone, regardless of what is revealed, is cause enough for outrage. I'm more concerned about the OLDER Republicans who have gone back and forth from profiteering at Booz Allen to Congress to leading the NSA than about the age of their employees.

Think Cheney and money and controversy all the back.

This is about money, billions of dollars worth for this 'contractor'. What a scam it all is, there is money in collecting the data of the American people, listening to it, storing it, whatever, it is all about money. We have been duped, but some of us already knew that. Hopefully now more people will wake up and put an end to this ponzi scheme that uses fear to collect billions in Tax Dollars.

I had a feeling it was about money, they never really get excited about anything else. Assange was about Bank disclosures, which they did manage to stop, not about the war logs or the cables. Drake was about money too, not about security as the dismissal of the case demonstrated.

Terror, what a windfall for monetary predators it has been, from the 'security apparatus to the mining of date'.

It truly is an outrage. This whistle blower needs protection from these traitors, and it seems he will get it. Iceland has announced its willingness to shelter him should he request it. Getting hime there safely however, considering his enemies, Bolton, Cheney et al, will be a problem.

[arely staircase]

6. this ^^^

nt

[Marr]

15. I think this kind of explains the increasingly harsh crackdown on whistleblowers.

The government is naturally developing a fixation on protecting itself from exposure, because it knows the tools it's using to violate the privacy of citizens can be easily turned against government itself by some random drone in their bloated surveillance hive.

[geek tragedy]

16. an enterprise based on the premise that there should be no secrets

will itself fail to remain a secret

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Hung on their own petard. They hired Snowden who, thankfully, blew the whistle.

The irony is delicious.

[liberal N proud]

26. There used to be strict security clearances for people who worked with sensitive data

Those clearances looked at integrity as well as other key background characteristics. Age was not so much part of it as was the integrity/character of the candidate.

Maybe the problem is the use of a contractor and not a government official.

[rightsideout]

27. I had a Top Secret clearance in my 20s

In the DC area alot of 20 somethings have Secret Clearances.

There are alot of college kids that get hired by the Federal Government out of college. Some even intern during High School then go on and get a job after they graduate. By that time you are in your early 20s with a Clearance. I got mine while I was still in college working for a Navy contractor. I was 22 at the time. It's the norm. At one time in my family my Dad, sister and I all had Secret Clearances. I also dated a girl who had a Clearance at the NSA. My wife has one now. My clearance was deactivated when I changed contractors and worked on unclassified work for NASA. So in the DC area it's the norm. Heck, my daughter while interning at a government biology lab last year was trained to work with Level 3 pathogens which includes E-Coli and Salmonela. At 19 she handling pathogens in a govt lab, supervised, of course. So young people, at least in the DC area which is a hub of government jobs are given alot of responsibility to handle sensitive material. You're considered an adult and trained to handle the material. There are procedures everyone has to follow whether you are 20 or 60.

[sabrina 1]

30. So what's all the fuss then about Whistle Blowers? If everyone and their dog can

get Top Secret Clearance, clearly leaking isn't much of a concern to begin with, is it?

[bowens43]

28. so basically you are arguing

that we need to hire people less likely to blow the whistle on gross violations of civil rights?

[Recursion]

29. I'm starting to think this access he claimed wasn't at BAH. He contacted Greenwald before he started

at BAH.

He could be talking about his time as an actual NSA employee.

[sabrina 1]

31. Someone needed to infitrate Booz Allen long ago. It would have been great if our

Congress or Director Of Intelligence, wait, he is a former Booz Allen CEO, so forget that, had followed through on previous problems with this Security Profiteering Corp they should probably be shut down.

So we are privatizing our 'security' now. How many non Americans are profiting from all this 'security' and why can the huge Government Agencies we have constructed, like Homeland Security to the job?

And who is overseeing these 'shady' (good word btw) Corporations who are monitoring US Citizens to whom they are apparently not accountable at all?

[Recursion]

32. Don't even get me started about contract oversight

But personnel oversight in the places I worked was pretty good: there were always military personnel there whenever we were doing anything.

No idea how broadly that applies.

[sabrina 1]

33. I can believe it. But handing over our rights to private contractors in the first place?

The sheer stupidity of thinking that people whose main function is to profit would be so ethical that we could trust them with our Constitutional Rights against Billions of Dollars? I must have missed when this became possible.

We did NOT elect these people, they have taken no oath to protect our rights that I am aware of. Not to mention the disturbing names I see on their list of CEOs. I would never vote for any of them, yet, here they are, deciding what our rights ought to be, based on THEIR bottom line. No wonder this country is being propagandized into thinking we need to give up some rights to feel safe. Because if we don't, they don't make money.

I had a feeling all along that most of this had more to do with money than security. Now I have no doubts about it, and frankly it should not have taken a whistle blower to raise multiple red flags about this. Ron Wyden was trying, but restricted by his position. I want Congressmembers like Wyden to be freed from any restrictions that are preventing them from explaining their deeply held concerns about the Security business. We have a right to know what they are doing.