Why Edward Snowden is not a Whistle-Blower

[Camikaze]

I haven't been following this story closely, so could someone just tell me, how do we know that this thing isn't illegal? Because NSA counsel said it wasn't? Because they shopped around for the right judge (I don't know about the US, but in Australia, programs/warrants that allow for too much judge-shopping are unconstitutional on the basis of the separation of powers)? If it's secret, I'm guessing that means no higher court has actually reviewed it.

 

[Perfection]

Doesn't that include the Chinese? Along with a long list of nations that don't have our best interest at heart?

Why yes, it does.

You made it seem like he's targeting the Chinese, that the point was to tell them. No, the point was to tell the world at large.

If what the government was doing was illegal, I'd agree.

It's not if it's illegal that matters, it's if it's wrong.

The whole point of being a whistleblower is acting via legal means to expose illegal behavior. Otherwise, all he is is nothing more than a security breach and criminal.

I disagree, a whistleblower is one who exposes unethical behavior, not necessarily illegal. And I don't see why it must be through legal means.

 

[kramerfan86]

I haven't been following this story closely, so could someone just tell me, how do we know that this thing isn't illegal? Because NSA counsel said it wasn't? Because they shopped around for the right judge (I don't know about the US, but in Australia, programs/warrants that allow for too much judge-shopping are unconstitutional on the basis of the separation of powers)? If it's secret, I'm guessing that means no higher court has actually reviewed it.

Its legal because its law I suppose, whether or not its constitutional is what is questionable. Like you said since it was a just revealed secret program it certainly hasnt gone through the judicial review process.

 

[Agent327]

Indeed. So at present it might be both illegal and unconstitutional - or neither. Interestingly, the President hasn't been defending the legality of the program.

You also choose your government. Your point?

Hmmm...

Not really. You hire one and pay taxes to pay for the other. Both are technically working for you.

...which is beside the point.

You mean 9/11. But there have been other big attacks on US targets all over the world. Khobar Towers. US Embassy attacked across the world (which are seen as sovereign US soil).

They're not "seen as" US soil, they are. Same as Gitmo.

And fwiw, I don't think its such a great idea to continue to allow them to kill our people indiscriminately across the world.

Like with drones, you mean?

Doesn't that include the Chinese? Along with a long list of nations that don't have our best interest at heart?

Most nations - if not puppet states - have their own interest at heart.

If what the government was doing was illegal, I'd agree.

Then it should be investigated whether it is legal or not.

The whole point of being a whistleblower is acting via legal means to expose illegal behavior. Otherwise, all he is is nothing more than a security breach and criminal.

Which, presently, is unknown.

 

[Berzerker]

That wasn't the government keeping that information from them. Hell, the government wasn't even sure what was going on when it was happening.

"we" already knew terrorists wanted to use hijacked planes as bombs, the people on those first 3 planes didn't

 

[Janusi]

There is a separate issue apart from the goverment spying on everybody and keeping it a secret. It's also giving private companies access to all this information without any guarantee that it won't turn around and sell it to whoever they, or a single employee like Snowden, want.

People like Mobboss might be comfortable having the government know every intimate detail of his life, but how about having this information out on the free market where it can be bought?

 

[Lord Baal]

There is a separate issue apart from the goverment spying on everybody and keeping it a secret. It's also giving private companies access to all this information without any guarantee that it won't turn around and sell it to whoever they, or a single employee like Snowden, want.

People like Mobboss might be comfortable having the government know every intimate detail of his life, but how about having this information out on the free market where it can be bought?

So the US government's problem with Snowden giving the information to the Chinese is that he's undercutting them? The Chinese were already working out a payment plan for information on US consumers? I like it.

 

[peter grimes]

If you were a mobile phone customer from any of the large telecoms, YES - You were 'spied' on, depending on how you want to define it.

The companies themselves have already stated publically this simply isn't the case, didn't they?

Source?

The link I posted to the actual text of the FISC warrant indicates otherwise.

That was revealed in the first leak: a copy of the FISC warrant that compelled Verizon Wireless (I was a customer at the time, as was my wife) to turn over the data on every single customer's phone records. Everyone makes a big deal that they weren't actively listening in to the conversations, but that really doesn't matter because they have a way to get that info.

It was also explained that only foreign data overseas was what was actually used in this program. Not mom and pops down on the farm.

Again, that's not what I've heard. Every single phone call whether domestic or domestic/foreign.

As for what rights are being trampled? I'm not a lawman - but didn't the Supreme Court rule that every citizen has an implied right to privacy? And there's a lot of chatter about violations of the 4th amendment - I think that's about illegal search and seizure…

The data you are referring to isn't exactly private - I mean the phone companies have it don't they? Of course they do. Is there a particular reason you trust Verizon with it as opposed to the government?

The contract I signed with Verizon specifies the circumstance under which they are allowed to share the details of my communications - legal action by law enforcement is the only case where they said they would share it. It's private data in the sense that I can't simply call up Verizon and get my brother's phone records. Nor can you (unless you work at the NSA, that is )

As much as I'm annoyed by commercial control over this stuff, it's entirely beside the point of the FBI and NSA sorting, storing, and scraping this data.

But that may not be important here, because for me the issue is government over-reach and intrusion into our private lives - regardless of whether or not these programs stand pass a legal test. Why do they need the phone records of every single call that I make if I'm not connected in any way to any investigation? Doesn't that smack of extreme intrusion?

Let me ask you a quick question. Do you shred your phone bills or do you just toss them into the trash or recycle bin?

I went paperless about 10 years ago - before that we shredded everything. But that's irrelevant, because this discussion is about the NSA - not identity theft. So let me ask you again, do you not find this to be an unreasonable intrusion? I do.

My point being, in the modern age, complete privacy is a myth. The information you are already so paranoid about 'falling into the wrong hands' is already out there in far more peoples hands than you realize, often probably by your own action.

You're clever I wasn't claiming an impossible standard of complete privacy that all at once has been compromised. Yet again, my point is that this is overly broad intrusion by the government against people's private lives, intrusion that's not connected to an investigation - that's my problem here. It's slightly annoying that you keep dodging this central issue, and mischaracterize my position.

I heard a good analogy on the radio the other day, in response to people saying 'Well, I don't have anything to hide, so what's the big deal?'

How would you feel if two FBI agents knocked on your door every day, took a look around, and asked you to hand over your phone records, just because. Sure, they claim to have a warrant, but you're not allowed to see it. Sure, you're not under investigation, but if you were they wouldn't be allowed to tell you that (), and sure, you're free to go any time.

I'd tell them to go get it from my phone provider and stop bugging me so much.

Exactly. You would tell them to do it the legal way. But here we have secret laws overseen by a secret court that seems to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for collecting data on nearly every citizen in the country.

Do you still think no rights are being trampled here?

I don't have any presumptions that what I do on the grid/net is in any way truly private.

Silly me, thinking that phone records email could only be handed over to the government as part of a criminal investigation. My bad.

I wonder if your position would be different if it turned out that the NSA was only targeting gun owners.

 

[JollyRoger]

I haven't been following this story closely, so could someone just tell me, how do we know that this thing isn't illegal? Because NSA counsel said it wasn't? Because they shopped around for the right judge (I don't know about the US, but in Australia, programs/warrants that allow for too much judge-shopping are unconstitutional on the basis of the separation of powers)? If it's secret, I'm guessing that means no higher court has actually reviewed it.

There is a dedicated court (that is secret in the sense that we so not see its work product) tat approves the warrants. This is a step up from the Bush administration that was bypassing this court and operated the program without warrants.

 

[peter grimes]

When the story broke in 2006(?) that the phone companies were handing over customer data wihtout warrants, Congress promptly passed a law to excuse the government's and telecom's intransigence.

It's not a crime if it's legal,

 

[Formaldehyde]

The Obama administration views media leaks as espionage. And you can go to prison for not snitching on anybody who seems unhappy or otherwise might be a security risk. After all, our agricultural and Peace Corps secrets must not be divulged to a hostile foreign power through the media:

WASHINGTON — Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans’ phone records, the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions.

President Barack Obama’s unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of “insider threat” give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.

Government documents reviewed by McClatchy illustrate how some agencies are using that latitude to pursue unauthorized disclosures of any information, not just classified material. They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.

“Hammer this fact home . . . leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States,” says a June 1, 2012, Defense Department strategy for the program that was obtained by McClatchy.

The Obama administration is expected to hasten the program’s implementation as the government grapples with the fallout from the leaks of top secret documents by Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who revealed the agency’s secret telephone data collection program. The case is only the latest in a series of what the government condemns as betrayals by “trusted insiders” who have harmed national security.

“Leaks related to national security can put people at risk,” Obama said on May 16 in defending criminal investigations into leaks. “They can put men and women in uniform that I’ve sent into the battlefield at risk. They can put some of our intelligence officers, who are in various, dangerous situations that are easily compromised, at risk. . . . So I make no apologies, and I don’t think the American people would expect me as commander in chief not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed.”

As part of the initiative, Obama ordered greater protection for whistleblowers who use the proper internal channels to report official waste, fraud and abuse, but that’s hardly comforting to some national security experts and current and former U.S. officials. They worry that the Insider Threat Program won’t just discourage whistleblowing but will have other grave consequences for the public’s right to know and national security.

The program could make it easier for the government to stifle the flow of unclassified and potentially vital information to the public, while creating toxic work environments poisoned by unfounded suspicions and spurious investigations of loyal Americans, according to these current and former officials and experts. Some non-intelligence agencies already are urging employees to watch their co-workers for “indicators” that include stress, divorce and financial problems.

“It was just a matter of time before the Department of Agriculture or the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) started implementing, ‘Hey, let’s get people to snitch on their friends.’ The only thing they haven’t done here is reward it,” said Kel McClanahan, a Washington lawyer who specializes in national security law. “I’m waiting for the time when you turn in a friend and you get a $50 reward.”

The Defense Department anti-leak strategy obtained by McClatchy spells out a zero-tolerance policy. Security managers, it says, “must” reprimand or revoke the security clearances – a career-killing penalty – of workers who commit a single severe infraction or multiple lesser breaches “as an unavoidable negative personnel action.”

Employees must turn themselves and others in for failing to report breaches. “Penalize clearly identifiable failures to report security infractions and violations, including any lack of self-reporting,” the strategic plan says.

The Obama administration already was pursuing an unprecedented number of leak prosecutions, and some in Congress – long one of the most prolific spillers of secrets – favor tightening restrictions on reporters’ access to federal agencies, making many U.S. officials reluctant to even disclose unclassified matters to the public.

The policy, which partly relies on behavior profiles, also could discourage creative thinking and fuel conformist “group think” of the kind that was blamed for the CIA’s erroneous assessment that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction, a judgment that underpinned the 2003 U.S. invasion.

“The real danger is that you get a bland common denominator working in the government,” warned Ilana Greenstein, a former CIA case officer who says she quit the agency after being falsely accused of being a security risk. “You don’t get people speaking up when there’s wrongdoing. You don’t get people who look at things in a different way and who are willing to stand up for things. What you get are people who toe the party line, and that’s really dangerous for national security.”

Obama launched the Insider Threat Program in October 2011 after Army Pfc. Bradley Manning downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents from a classified computer network and sent them to WikiLeaks, the anti-government secrecy group. It also followed the 2009 killing of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, by Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, an attack that federal authorities failed to prevent even though they were monitoring his emails to an al Qaida-linked Islamic cleric.

An internal review launched after Manning’s leaks found “wide disparities” in the abilities of U.S. intelligence agencies to detect security risks and determined that all needed improved defenses.

Obama’s executive order formalizes broad practices that the intelligence agencies have followed for years to detect security threats and extends them to agencies that aren’t involved in national security policy but can access classified networks. Across the government, new policies are being developed.

There are, however, signs of problems with the program. Even though it severely restricts the use of removable storage devices on classified networks, Snowden, the former NSA contractor who revealed the agency’s telephone data collection operations, used a thumb drive to acquire the documents he leaked to two newspapers.

“Nothing that’s been done in the past two years stopped Snowden, and so that fact alone casts a shadow over this whole endeavor,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the non-profit Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. “Whatever they’ve done is apparently inadequate.”

U.S. history is replete with cases in which federal agencies missed signs that trusted officials and military officers were stealing secrets. The CIA, for example, failed for some time to uncover Aldrich Ames, a senior officer who was one of the most prolific Soviet spies in U.S. history, despite polygraphs, drunkenness, and sudden and unexplained wealth.

Stopping a spy or a leaker has become even more difficult as the government continues to accumulate information in vast computer databases and has increased the number of people granted access to classified material to nearly 5 million.

Administration officials say the program could help ensure that agencies catch a wide array of threats, especially if employees are properly trained in recognizing behavior that identifies potential security risks.

“If this is done correctly, an organization can get to a person who is having personal issues or problems that if not addressed by a variety of social means may lead that individual to violence, theft or espionage before it even gets to that point,” said a senior Pentagon official, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

Manning, for instance, reportedly was reprimanded for posting YouTube messages describing the interior of a classified intelligence facility where he worked. He also exhibited behavior that could have forewarned his superiors that he posed a security risk, officials said.

Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst sentenced in 1987 to life in prison for spying for Israel, wasn’t investigated even though he’d failed polygraph tests and lied to his supervisors. He was caught only after a co-worker saw him leave a top-secret facility with classified documents.

“If the folks who are watching within an organization for that insider threat – the lawyers, security officials and psychologists – can figure out that an individual is having money problems or decreased work performance and that person may be starting to come into the window of being an insider threat, superiors can then approach them and try to remove that stress before they become a threat to the organization,” the Pentagon official said.

The program, however, gives agencies such wide latitude in crafting their responses to insider threats that someone deemed a risk in one agency could be characterized as harmless in another. Even inside an agency, one manager’s disgruntled employee might become another’s threat to national security.

Obama in November approved “minimum standards” giving departments and agencies considerable leeway in developing their insider threat programs, leading to a potential hodgepodge of interpretations. He instructed them to not only root out leakers but people who might be prone to “violent acts against the government or the nation” and “potential espionage.”

The Pentagon established its own sweeping definition of an insider threat as an employee with a clearance who “wittingly or unwittingly” harms “national security interests” through “unauthorized disclosure, data modification, espionage, terrorism, or kinetic actions resulting in loss or degradation of resources or capabilities.”

“An argument can be made that the rape of military personnel represents an insider threat. Nobody has a model of what this insider threat stuff is supposed to look like,” said the senior Pentagon official, explaining that inside the Defense Department “there are a lot of chiefs with their own agendas but no leadership.”

The Department of Education, meanwhile, informs employees that co-workers going through “certain life experiences . . . might turn a trusted user into an insider threat.” Those experiences, the department says in a computer training manual, include “stress, divorce, financial problems” or “frustrations with co-workers or the organization.”

An online tutorial titled “Treason 101” teaches Department of Agriculture and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees to recognize the psychological profile of spies.

A Defense Security Service online pamphlet lists a wide range of “reportable” suspicious behaviors, including working outside of normal duty hours. While conceding that not every behavior “represents a spy in our midst,” the pamphlet adds that “every situation needs to be examined to determine whether our nation’s secrets are at risk.”

The Defense Department, traditionally a leading source of media leaks, is still setting up its program, but it has taken numerous steps. They include creating a unit that reviews news reports every day for leaks of classified defense information and implementing new training courses to teach employees how to recognize security risks, including “high-risk” and “disruptive” behaviors among co-workers, according to Defense Department documents reviewed by McClatchy.

“It’s about people’s profiles, their approach to work, how they interact with management. Are they cheery? Are they looking at Salon.com or The Onion during their lunch break? This is about ‘The Stepford Wives,’” said a second senior Pentagon official, referring to online publications and a 1975 movie about robotically docile housewives. The official said he wanted to remain anonymous to avoid being punished for criticizing the program.

The emphasis on certain behaviors reminded Greenstein of her employee orientation with the CIA, when she was told to be suspicious of unhappy co-workers.

“If someone was having a bad day, the message was watch out for them,” she said.

Some federal agencies also are using the effort to protect a broader range of information. The Army orders its personnel to report unauthorized disclosures of unclassified information, including details concerning military facilities, activities and personnel.

The Peace Corps, which is in the midst of implementing its program, “takes very seriously the obligation to protect sensitive information,” said an email from a Peace Corps official who insisted on anonymity but gave no reason for doing so.

Granting wide discretion is dangerous, some experts and officials warned, when federal agencies are already prone to overreach in their efforts to control information flow.

The Bush administration allegedly tried to silence two former government climate change experts from speaking publicly on the dangers of global warming. More recently, the FDA justified the monitoring of the personal email of its scientists and doctors as a way to detect leaks of unclassified information.

But R. Scott Oswald, a Washington attorney of the Employment Law Group, called the Obama administration “a friend to whistleblowers,” saying it draws a distinction between legitimate whistleblowers who use internal systems to complain of wrongdoing vs. leakers, who illegally make classified information public.

There are numerous cases, however, of government workers who say they’ve been forced to go public because they’ve suffered retaliation after trying to complain about waste, fraud and abuse through internal channels or to Congress. Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA official, was indicted in 2010 under the Espionage Act after he disclosed millions of dollars in waste to a journalist. He’d tried for years to alert his superiors and Congress. The administration eventually dropped the charges against him.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, declined to answer how its insider threat program would accommodate a leak to the news media like the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that showed how successive administrations had misled the public and Congress on the war.

“The danger is that supervisors and managers will use the profiles for ‘Disgruntled Employees’ and ‘Insider Threats’ to go after legitimate whistleblowers,” said the second Pentagon official. “The executive order says you can’t offend the whistleblower laws. But all of the whistleblower laws are about retaliation. That doesn’t mean you can’t profile them before they’re retaliated against.”

Greenstein said she become the target of scrutiny from security officials after she began raising allegations of mismanagement in the CIA’s operations in Baghdad. But she never leaked her complaints, which included an allegation that her security chief deleted details about safety risks from cables. Instead, she relied on the agency’s internal process to make the allegations.

The CIA, however, tried to get the Justice Department to open a criminal case after Greenstein mentioned during a polygraph test that she was writing a book, which is permitted inside the agency as long as it goes through pre-publication review. The CIA then demanded to see her personal computers. When she got them back months later, all that she’d written had been deleted, Greenstein said.

“They clearly perceived me as an insider threat,” said Greenstein, who has since rewritten the book and has received CIA permission to publish portions of it. “By saying ‘I have a problem with this place and I want to make it better,’ I was instantly turned into a security threat,” she said. The CIA declined to comment.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss with a slightly different veneer.

 

[kramerfan86]

Honestly at times I think Obama is worse that the old boss. The old boss at least didnt blatantly claim to be the opposite of what he was.

 

[Ironsided]

Proper hero Snowden. If the Norwegian Nobel comity ever regain their marbles he could share the peace price with Bradley Manning.

 

[peter grimes]

Snowden ... could share the peace price with Bradley Manning.

... and Obama

 

[Ironsided]

NATO man it's a poison.

 

[MobBoss]

Add up every terrorism death in the history of the country, its still probably less than the amount of people we manage to kill ourselves in automobile accidents every couple of years.

And we have laws aimed at punishing those that do this out of negligence as well. You're point it simply immaterial to the discussion at hand.

Once again, really dont see it as nearly a big enough problem to justify so much nonsense.

You may not; but other people certainly do.

Its also cute you keep buying the "foreign targets only" line. The most recent leaks the guardian has reported show that they play a bit for fast and loose with that line than they tend to be claiming.

Or is that merely hazy reporting meant to get your paranoia working to sell the story?

Thus far, i'm buying that line because its the only line being proven. Like I said previously, if it is indeed being used as they say, and not being used on US soil, then none of your rights are being 'violated' despite your disparate need to believe they are.

And no on crazed americans being a bigger threat? Are you kidding me? Well over 10,000 Americans a year are victims of homicide. Tell me, how many Americans were killed by foreign terrorists last year?

Simply another effort at a red herring on your part. The cost of such attacks go further than simply the number of lives lost.

I haven't been following this story closely, so could someone just tell me, how do we know that this thing isn't illegal? Because NSA counsel said it wasn't? Because they shopped around for the right judge (I don't know about the US, but in Australia, programs/warrants that allow for too much judge-shopping are unconstitutional on the basis of the separation of powers)? If it's secret, I'm guessing that means no higher court has actually reviewed it.

I don't think any of us commenting on it here really know the exact truth of that. From this wiki on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

Government officials have disputed some aspects of the Guardian and Washington Post stories and have defended the program by asserting it cannot be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the United States, and that the program receives independent oversight from the executive, judicial, and legislative branches. [15][16] President Barack Obama stated that "this is not a situation in which we are rifling through, you know, the ordinary emails of German citizens or American citizens or French citizens or anybody else" and that the NSA's data gathering practices constitute "a circumscribed, narrow system directed at us being able to protect our people."[17]

Here is how the program works and its oversight:

On June 8, 2013, the Director of National Intelligence issued a fact sheet stating that PRISM "is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program", but rather "an internal government computer system" used to facilitate the collection of foreign intelligence information "under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1881a)."[10] Section 702 provides that "the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence may authorize jointly, for a period of up to 1 year from the effective date of the authorization, the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information."[57] In order to authorize the targeting, the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence need to obtain an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) pursuant to Section 702 or certify that "intelligence important to the national security of the United States may be lost or not timely acquired and time does not permit the issuance of an order."[57] When requesting an order, the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence must certify to the FISA Court that "a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information."[57] They do not need to specify which facilities or property will be targeted.[57]

After receiving a FISA Court order or determining that there are emergency circumstances, the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence can direct an electronic communication service provider to give them access to information or facilities to carry out the targeting and keep the targeting secret.[57] The provider then has the option to: (1) comply with the directive; (2) reject it; or (3) challenge it with the FISA Court.

If the provider complies with the directive, it is released from liability to its users for providing the information and is reimbursed for the cost of providing it.[57]

If the provider rejects the directive, the Attorney General may request an order from the FISA Court to enforce it.[57] A provider that fails to comply with the FISA Court's order can be punished with contempt of court.[57]

Finally, a provider can petition the FISA Court to reject the directive.[57] In case the FISA Court denies the petition and orders the provider to comply with the directive, the provider risks contempt of court if it refuses to comply with the FISA Court's order.[57] The provider can appeal the FISA Court's denial to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and then appeal the Court of Review's decision to the Supreme Court by a writ of certiorari for review under seal.[57]

You made it seem like he's targeting the Chinese, that the point was to tell them. No, the point was to tell the world at large.

No, I made it seem like he is in Hong Kong and is talking directly to the Chinese about what he disclosed, which is entirely the truth.

It's not if it's illegal that matters, it's if it's wrong.

'Wrong' being a rather ambiguous state that will differ among many people. I'd much rather leave such issues to the courts to decide with any finality.

I disagree, a whistleblower is one who exposes unethical behavior, not necessarily illegal. And I don't see why it must be through legal means.

Disagree all you want, the truth of the matter remains he isn't a whistleblower by any factual definition of the word.

And as for such issues, in general unethical almost always translates into illegal regardless.

Its legal because its law I suppose, whether or not its constitutional is what is questionable. Like you said since it was a just revealed secret program it certainly hasnt gone through the judicial review process.

It's actually run by a judicial review process.

Indeed. So at present it might be both illegal and unconstitutional - or neither. Interestingly, the President hasn't been defending the legality of the program.

Oh really? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57590025/obama-defends-narrow-surveillance-programs/

President Obama on Wednesday continued his administration's defense of the controversial NSA surveillance programs at the center of an ongoing national debate, arguing that the data-gathering methods under scrutiny are "narrow" in focus and that their intelligence has helped saved lives.

Mr. Obama, speaking alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a trip to Berlin, echoed his administration's recent defense of the programs, contending that "this is not a situation in which we are rifling through, you know, the ordinary emails of German citizens or American citizens or French citizens or anybody else" but rather "a circumscribed, narrow system directed at us being able to protect our people."

"As a consequence, we've saved lives," Mr. Obama said.

Like with drones, you mean?

Drone launched attacks, are by their very nature, quite discriminating. It's kinda the entire point.

Then it should be investigated whether it is legal or not.

The ACLU has filed a suit on it. Let's see how it goes.

Source?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

Microsoft: "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it."[26]

Yahoo!: "Yahoo! takes users' privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network."[26] "Of the hundreds of millions of users we serve, an infinitesimal percentage will ever be the subject of a government data collection directive."[27]

Facebook: "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law."[26]

Google: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a backdoor for the government to access private user data."[26] "[A]ny suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users' Internet activity on such a scale is completely false."[27] Although a backdoor is not needed[28] by Google for it to be able to grant the NSA that kind of access. Since Google is owner of its own servers, it can direcly give access to its servers.

Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."[29]

Dropbox: "We've seen reports that Dropbox might be asked to participate in a government program called PRISM. We are not part of any such program and remain committed to protecting our users' privacy."[26

Again, that's not what I've heard. Every single phone call whether domestic or domestic/foreign.

Here are the actual numbers involved as reported by the companies themselves:

In response to the publicity surrounding media reports of data-sharing, several companies requested permission to reveal more public information about the nature and scope of information provided in response to National Security requests.

On June 14, 2013, Facebook reported that the U.S. Government had authorized the communication of "about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range." In a press release posted to their web site, Facebook reported, "For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000." Facebook further reported that the requests impacted "between 18,000 and 19,000" user accounts, a "tiny fraction of one percent" of more than 1.1 billion active user accounts.[36]

Microsoft reported that for the same period, it received "between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal)" which impacted "a tiny fraction of Microsoft's global customer base".[37]

Google issued a statement criticizing the requirement that data be reported in aggregated form, stating that lumping national security requests with criminal request data would be "a step backwards" from its previous, more detailed practices on its site transparency report. The company said that it would continue to seek government permission to publish the number and extent of FISA requests.[38]

Seems more than a bit shy of 'every single phone call' doesn't it?

As much as I'm annoyed by commercial control over this stuff, it's entirely beside the point of the FBI and NSA sorting, storing, and scraping this data.

Actually, I'm more annoyed by the commercial implications because it results in far more disruption of my private life in the form of sales calls, junk mail, etc.

I went paperless about 10 years ago - before that we shredded everything. But that's irrelevant, because this discussion is about the NSA - not identity theft. So let me ask you again, do you not find this to be an unreasonable intrusion? I do.

It hasn't occurred on US soil, and its a mere fraction of what everyone is alleging, and it certainly hasn't affected me personally in any way, shape for form....so unless some information comes to light that its actually far in excess of that, no, I don't think its unreasonable at all. As I said before, the government has an expectation of pursuing this kind of electronic information for security reasons. The fact that they are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing shouldn't be shocking.

Exactly. You would tell them to do it the legal way. But here we have secret laws overseen by a secret court that seems to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for collecting data on nearly every citizen in the country.

FISA courts and what they do haven't been secret, and have even been discussed in these forums previously (at least I seem to recall we have on warrantless searches involving FISA before).

I wonder if your position would be different if it turned out that the NSA was only targeting gun owners.

My position would be different if they were simply doing it on US soil, regardless of who they would be targeting. But they aren't.

 

[cardgame]

Wikipedia: "a whistleblower is any person who exposes misconduct or alleged dishonesty"

I'd say that applies.

'Wrong' being a rather ambiguous state that will differ among many people. I'd much rather leave such issues to the courts to decide with any finality.

Oh, I suppose you don't consider it wrong that the Chinese skin animals alive because it's legal over there?

I think that's wrong.

 

[MobBoss]

Wikipedia: "a whistleblower is any person who exposes misconduct or alleged dishonesty"

I'd say that applies.

I'd say it doesn't. This has proven to be neither misconduct nor dishonest thus far. In fact, the only criteria for Snowden doing what he did was he simply didn't agree with the program.

Oh, I suppose you don't consider it wrong that the Chinese skin animals alive because it's legal over there?

Do they skin red herrings too?

 

[cardgame]

You're the one equating legality with ethics here, I think my question is relevant

 

[ParkCungHee]

Especially since, at this point, American law is irrelevant to Edward Snowden.