http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance

It's beyond my comprehension how the three branches of the federal government could cooperate in secrecy. Not a single voice of dissent within the system???

That guy has MAJOR balls.

No doubt and only three months there to boot. Winning a competitive procurement is hard enough as-is.

Back on topic, assuming what he is saying is true, which I tend to think is the case, though he may only have viewed fragments of it, why is it that the NSA gives so much access to a contractor working with a company for three months? Do they not have a list of "key personnel," which is often a section in a Gov't contract, or was the requirement only for a level of classified access (secret, top secret, NATO secret, etc.) but with a specific person not mattering? Bradley Manning also had a ton of access and he was like a 23 year old private with possible mental illness.

In any event, glad he helped shed light on this. If programs like PRISM and the phone records sweep are indeed not discriminating in terms of specific persons being targeted, but rather glean data from all users to form patterns, why did this have to be secret?

And thanks to him, counter-intelligence industry, on both private and government levels around the world, may be booming again. Booze Allen Hamilton can surely share the wealth.

More from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/code-name-verax-snowden-in-exchanges-with-post-reporter-made-clear-he-knew-risks/2013/06/09/c9a25b54-d14c-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html

Foreign Policy:
The risky legal strategy behind Edward Snowden's flight to Hong Kong
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/06/10/the_risky_legal_strategy_behind_edward_snowdens_flight_to_hong_kong


Reuters:
In Hong Kong, ex-CIA man may not escape U.S. reach
http://news.yahoo.com/hong-kong-ex-cia-man-may-not-escape-021732453.html


Wall Street Journal:
Hong Kong baffled by Snowden's hideout choice
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/06/10/hong-kong-baffled-by-snowdens-hideout/


Hong Kong newspaper SCMP:
Iceland cannot grant asylum to Snowden unless he's there, ambassador says.
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1257654/iceland-cannot-grant-asylum-snowden-unless-hes-there-ambassador-says


RTHK and The House News (in Chinese):
According to Senior Counsel Ronny Tong Ka-wah, the US-Hong Kong extradition treaty has certain grey area; it excludes the case of political offenses. And there has been no precedent in Hong Kong regarding this. He believes, since Hong Kong has no laws regarding theft of state secrets to correspond to the US equivalent, extradition cannot be sought on those grounds.

http://thehousenews.com/politics/%E6%B9%AF%E5%AE%B6%E9%A9%8A-%E6%B8%AF%E7%BE%8E%E5%BC%95%E6%B8%A1-%E4%B8%8D%E6%B6%89%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB%E7%BD%AA/

http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/expressnews/news.htm?expressnews&20130610&55&927669


The Guardian:
Whistleblower may have bought time by holing up in Hong Kong, but long-term prospects are uncertain

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-china-hong-kong

BAH stock price was down 2.6% today. The market reacted rather calmly to what seemed like a "crisis".

In the long term, trust in US tech companies by global webcitizens around the world will likely be tainted by this info surveillance crisis.

Can't find the link now, but it looks liked Snowden and Glen Greenwald were in contact prior to Snowden working for BAH, by about a month.

The assessment of technical risk for any competitive contract it bids will be hugely against them for at least the next year across all DOD and 3-letter agency contracts it bids and even on sole-source contracts, it will get hammered down in profit. Its OPSEC program will face intense scrutiny and probably will be subject to audit and probably voluntary releases.

He gon' die.

Because they sort of knew that the massive capability of the secretive system and the ease with which so-called non-discriminating data pool could be abused by individuals with access would not pass the public's scrutiny?

Stock price is often a precursor of what will happen to the underlying company. Maybe the damage has not been realized yet in BAH's case. Well I was just trying to make a connection.

I think he's safer as he's in the sunlight now.

Until we never hear from him again.

Even so he took a big risk and really made people realize not to trust Government.

Well...
I appreciate what he did, but did we really need him to help people realize that idea.
No, but it was an important step in exposing how two faced the government has become since 2001. I am thankful he got this information out in the public though segmented pieces of it were previously out in the open. Hopefully he has more information to divulge to further illustrate the capabilities of the surveillance tools he had access too.

Before the media and the govt labelled people who accused the government of doing such things as conspiracy theorists.

Now it is true.

What else is the US govt doing, I imagine they are likely torturing people as before, who would know.

Revealing himself like this was the smartest thing he could have done. This way, the attention on the world is on him and he probably won't just "disappear" and might actually get a fair trial even if the US gets him back.

Bloomberg just published a story about thousands of US firms working closely with the government, providing sensitive information (not including private communications of their customers) and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html

Such relationship can give disincentives for firms who do not voluntarily cooperate with the government.

He's hiding in Hong Kong.

I don't even know what the hell this story is about. But if it pisses off the USA, then I'm sure he's a nice bloke. Hong Kongians seem to like him...more than Jackie Chan, at least.

His surname is a Doves song.

I vaguely remember the band. But "There Goes the Fear" was a song on my MP3 playlist.

Reuters:
Iceland received informal approach over Snowden seeking asylum

Iceland keeps world guessing on Snowden asylum push

Washington Post:
U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage in leaks about NSA surveillance programs

A little history about the Espionage Act:



http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-06-21/u-dot-s-dot-said-to-charge-snowden-in-nsa-surveillance-disclosures#p1

Reuters:
Snowden in a 'safe place' as U.S. prepares to seek extradition

Washington Post:
No clear answers why Snowden remains free despite U.S. request for his arrest


If the U.S. government has asked Hong Kong to detain Snowden on a provisional arrest warrant June 14, Hong Kong will have to comply under the bi-lateral extradition treaty agreement. It appeared Snowden was not detained or in police protection. Could it be because (1) HK police were not able to locate him, or (2) HK is still in negotiation with the US?

And today, Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post reported Chinese mobile phone companies and one of China's major internet backbone networks were targets of US hacking, according to information provided by Snowden. The leak, I believe, is a politically calculating move by Snowden. As with his previous claim about the US hacking internet backbone network and civilian computers in HK, it strengthens his case for the unlikelihood of receiving a fair trial in the US and at the same time rallies public opinion behind him.