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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow to be a Rogue Superpower
http://www.nationofchange.org/how-be-rogue-superpower-1374033286Its hard even to know how to take it in. I mean, whats really happening? An employee of a private contractor working for the National Security Agency makes off with unknown numbers of files about Americas developing global security state on a thumb drive and four laptop computers, and jumps the nearest plane to Hong Kong. His goal: to expose a vast surveillance structure built in the shadows in the post-9/11 years and significantly aimed at Americans. He leaks some of the documents to a columnist at the British Guardian and to the Washington Post. The response is unprecedented: an international manhunt (or more politely but less accurately, a diplomatic full court press) conducted not by Interpol or the United Nations but by the planets sole superpower, the very government whose practices the leaker was so intent on exposing.
And thats just for starters. Lets add another factor. The leaker, a young man with great techno-savvy, lets the world know that hes picked and chosen among the NSA files in his possession. Hes releasing only those he thinks the American public needs in order to start a full-scale debate about the unprecedented secret world of surveillance that their taxpayer dollars have created. In other words, this is no document dump. He wants to spark change without doing harm.
But heres the kicker: he couldnt be more aware of previous whistleblower cases, the punitive reaction of his government to them, and the fate that might be his. As a result, we now know, he has encrypted the full set of files in his possession and left them in one or more safe places for unknown individuals -- that is, we dont know who they are -- to access, should he be taken by the U.S.
In other words, from the time Edward Snowdens first leaked documents came out, it was obvious that he was in control of how much of the NSAs secret world would be seen. It would be hard then not to conclude that capturing him, imprisoning him, trying him, and throwing away the key is likely to increase, not decrease, the flow of those documents. Knowing that, the Obama administration and the representatives of our secret world went after him anyway -- after one man on a global scale and in a way that may not have a precedent. No thought of future embarrassment stopped them, nor, it seems, did they hesitate because of possible resentments engendered by their heavy-handed pressure on numerous foreign governments.
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How to be a Rogue Superpower (Original Post)
xchrom
Jul 2013
OP
Laelth
(32,017 posts)1. k&r for exposure. n/t
-Laelth
RC
(25,592 posts)2. Finally a real world post about what Edward Snowden did and why and what the US government is
actually doing.
And not some more bullshit supporting the spying as somehow good, necessary and legal by some so called "Democrats" here on DU.
And not some more bullshit supporting the spying as somehow good, necessary and legal by some so called "Democrats" here on DU.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)4. a superpower is by definition rogue nt
WillyT
(72,631 posts)5. K & R !!!