What Did Clinton Mean When She Said Snowden Files Fell Into the “Wrong Hands”?

[KoKo]

Did She Mean Us? The Public?

Dan Froomkin

Hillary Clinton asserted at Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden “stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands.”

She seemed to be darkly intimating that the information Snowden gave to journalists in Hong Kong before he was granted asylum in Moscow also ended up with the Chinese and/or Russian governments.

But that conclusion is entirely unsupported by the evidence; it’s a political smear that even the most alarmist Obama administration intelligence officials have not asserted as fact.

As Snowden has repeatedly explained, after turning over copies of the heavily encrypted files to reporters, he destroyed his own before he left Hong Kong.

He did not take the files to Russia “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest,” he told the New York Times in 2013. “There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,” he said.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times newspaper ran a front-page story in June asserting that Russia and China had “cracked the top-secret cache of files” that the paper, citing anonymous sources, claimed Snowden had brought with him to Moscow. But the story was thoroughly debunked and a video clip of the reporter acknowledging that “we just publish what we believe to be the position of the British government” went viral.

Clinton’s comments on Snowden were flawed in more than one way. She also insisted, incorrectly, that he could have accomplished his goals by going through normal channels.

“He could have been a whistleblower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that,” she said

.

But Snowden, as a contractor, was not covered by whistleblower protections. He did try going through established channels, but he said his concerns fell on deaf ears. And the response to his leaks has made abundantly clear that no one in his chain of command was the least bit interested in going public with the information.


https://theintercept.com/2015/10/14/what-did-clinton-mean-when-she-said-snowden-files-fell-into-the-wrong-hands/

[Skinner]

1. I admire Edward Snowden very much.

And I think he is knowledgeable enough to know whether Russia could have accessed the documents in his possession. But I am skeptical of his claim that there is a zero percent chance that they did. He has a very strong incentive to hope that they did not.

[GeorgeGist]

3. So you discount Snowden's claim that he destroyed his files before leaving Hong Kong?

[Skinner]

4. I hadn't heard that claim. (nt)

[onehandle]

2. Snowden went to China. They got all of the files.

Snowden went to Russia. They got all of the files.

Did he give them to them? Dunno, but they got them, one way or another.

We are talking about two giant spying oriented mega-military countries that have done this stuff for many, many decades.

Whether it was through technology or chemistry or a combination, they have the files.

No serious person could say otherwise.

[stonecutter357]

5. I think Snowden is a Russian spy..,...

[KoKo]

6. Any Links to Evidence of That?

Would certainly like to read it....

[stonecutter357]

8. It may have been a James Bond Marathon.

[KoKo]

9. Okay...that would definitely do it.....

Perfectly understandable.

[struggle4progress]

7. The Chinese press reported at the time that while in Hong Kong

Snowden had identified for the Chinese certain US intelligence targets there

We further know he spent some of his time in Hong Kong at the Russian embassy, and an entirely reasonable guess would be that he provided information to the Russians similar to the information he provided to the Chinese

Anybody who rubs two brain cells together will understand that we won't easily sort out exactly what Snowden did or did not tell the Chinese, or what they may or may not have learned from his or from his materials, since it would not be in their interest to let anyone know that; an entirely similar remark applies to the Russians; and, of course, it also applies to the US

Nothing in the record can help us much as we try to decide if Snowden is merely an American idealist; an anti-government ideologue; a gutsy covert Chinese, Russian or US intelligence agent; some sort of double or triple agent; and so on

Froomkin is smart enough to know all that, so he is writing click-bait, rather than pointing towards any useful facts or insights

[cprise]

11. Do you have references to that?

[struggle4progress]

13. A number of folk here posted articles at the time:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101681889
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101666112

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=576788
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=576804

[cprise]

14. Snowden showed the HK press that civilians and universities were being spied-on

That's very different than handing over data about military operations.

We're not even at war with China. And if you look at US foreign policy and propaganda regarding Hong Kong, you'll notice that Snowden is acting on the US government's own assertions about HK society.

Snowden said he was releasing the information to demonstrate “the hypocrisy of the US government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure, unlike its adversaries”.

That hit piece by Fred Kaplan claims Snowden said stuff in the interview that is not there (re: a supposed statement from Snowden saying he would send documents to all countries where NSA is operating). So I'm not sure if Kaplan is lying, paranoid, or what.

Also, Snowden's claim that he handed the only copies of the cache over to the three WESTERN journalists who met him in the hotel still checks out. As a technician who is familiar with cryptography myself, his security claims are credible and the majority of the tech community appears to be on his side as well.

The arguments here against Snowden are specious.

[struggle4progress]

19. You're free to make your various assumptions. But in China, as in the US,

some university research has been closely related to military capabilities

Moreover, how full and accurate an account was provided, by the South China Morning Post, should be regarded as a question to which the answer is unclear: the paper has ties to the Chinese government. In the world of espionage and counter-espionage credible mixtures of information and disinformation are probably quite common

Almost nobody admires spying. Whether any major country will desist from the practice is a different question. Intelligence has critical military importance; and when war actually erupts, opportunities for intelligence gathering are diminished. The days of Gentlemen do not read each other's mail probably ended long before Polish cryptographers explained to the British their successes with the German enigma machines in 1939, but it was certainly gone by the end of WWII. So whether or not we are at war with China, it seems clear that espionage and counter-espionage between the countries will continue

I've spent most of my life distressed by US foreign policies, but I expect I might well have been equally distressed by the foreign policy of another government had I lived elsewhere. Snowden seems to be a bright young man, with some computer skills but -- no real background in international relations

I don't see anyway to determine whether he's a libertarian idealist, overflowing with a sense of his own righteousness; a dupe of some foreign government; a Chinese, Russian, or US agent, or double agent, or triple agent -- and I'm not so readily convinced by people who are certain they know the truth

[cprise]

20. Ah, its "those Chinese" so the whole affair should be looked at

with prejudice. Hmmm.

The argument doesn't work in reverse (since US universities also have some military-related projects as do many, many civilian corporations) because then we should just call the whole of global civilization 'military' and therefore fair game. So the justification (weasel-like though it is) doesn't work in the first place either.

There is also a LOT of propaganda now about "Chinese" incursions, while most western incursions are portrayed as "criminals". Clearly, the former must be one single organism with nefarious intent. It was already prevalent in our press several years ago when independent IT researchers were showing more cyber threats emanating from the US (what the comparative status is now, I'm not sure).

Meanwhile, Snowden's and Poitras' account of the data hand-off and flight schedule holds up to scrutiny without the inconsistencies that are found in his detractors' stories. Their account doesn't change, while some critics determined to find an incriminating angle contort themselves into liars.

Despite the recklessness of the scale and outsourcing of their spy operations, its also worth noting that our government did assess him as trustworthy. They just didn't anticipate that his prerogative to protect the Constitution might take precedence.

[struggle4progress]

21. Now you're imagining I said things that I never said

[cprise]

22. Let me re-phrase: You implied universities are targetted

because (Chinese or American) they have some relationships with the military.

But that only explains a motivation for spying on them, not a justification. And it isn't justified because we can't treat the world's civilians like a bunch of Palestinian schools or Doctors Without Borders hospitals that are considered possible targets. And also not justified, of course, because of US claims to moral uprightness and adherence to international law.

I would not begrudge anyone who came to this issue fresh and started out having suspicions about Snowden. But grabbing at straws (and running with them) after years just strains credibility. He's been talking to people pretty consistently all this time and still not left any clues of an ulterior motive. His main crimes are that US whistleblower status was not available (to him as a contractor) and was a trap anyway, and that US allies were not trustworthy destinations.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Glenn's anti-Hillary vendetta marches on...

She at least deserves some credit for standing up against the established groupthink narrative and saying what needs to be said...Of course I already know firsthand what happens to anyone who dares not to believe that Snowflake is the Jesus of the Information Age

[cprise]

12. Clinton is using Bush neocons to set M.E. policy

Her supporters have even less credibility on foreign policy than Clinton has on securing information.

[Blue_Tires]

15. Which is still more credibility than Greenwald and his Clinton derangement syndrome

Funny that Hillary has been the *only* candidate from either party that Greenwald ever writes/tweets about, and it is always unilaterally negative...

[cprise]

16. What a coincidence, Greenwald also railed against Bush2. And IIRC

the anti-Snowden camp here used to try to smear both Greenwald and Snowden as libertarian-right wingers... which is preposterous if you look at their writing on social and economic issues.

A passionate claim conveniently forgotten.

There is such a thing as libertarian-left.

[Blue_Tires]

17. Bush 2 was seven fuckin' years ago

A couple of years earlier Glenn was railing against immigrants, commies, and anti-war peaceniks

https://twitter.com/Wilson__Valdez/status/654779753971384320


Glenn's politics shift to whatever is the most lucrative and trendy...

[cprise]

18. Then what's Hillary's excuse for being a war monger in 2015?

Glenn was anti-war then, and he is now. His opinion of the "far left" may have changed, but that pales in significance.

The "lucrative and trendy" quip is risibly deranged: After 13 years of whistleblowers getting muzzled or prosecuted with scant attention from the public... it was neither trendy nor lucrative.


Hillary switched switched her stance on Iran and Keystone XL aaaand TPP within days or weeks of her first debate.

And need I go into gay marriage? Or NAFTA?

What. A. Joke.

She is riding on celebrity and gullibility.

[Blue_Tires]

23. Glenn wasn't anti-war then...Read his 05-06 stuff

As for the Hillary question, you'll have to ask her that..

And for the last time, there is no "war" on whistleblowers... If there were, we'd be seeing a lot more kidnappings, poisonings, and 'accidental' shootings like they have in other countries I won't name...