Amazon page blurb aside, I don't understand why this question comes up so often.
Even during the initial revelations, people who wanted to downplay the topic regularly pointed out that Snowden was "just a system administrator, not an intelligence agent" and attempted to debate whether he worked directly for the government or only for a contractor. It baffled me, because that doesn't even seem relevant to his claims.
The "government employee" issue would only matter if the authenticity of the leaks was disputed; the various PRISM and XKEYSCORE slideshows were never even challenged, so who cares? And "only a system administrator" sounds backwards to anyone who actually knows what sysadmins do. Dismissing him as a maintainer instead of an architect is a weird sideshow, since his role was mostly important as an answer to the question "how did he get undetected access to so many different files?"
It's a tactic to undermine an opponent. They want to classify him as a minor part of the machine, hoping to discredit his revelations in the process ("why would you listen to anyone with that little of experience and importance"). It's a reverse appeal to authority.
It coming up again of again when Snowden is discussed is part of either controlled or natural occurring propaganda, a talking point of the regime. The one bringing it into this thread is a new throwaway account, go figure. One way or another, directly or indirectly, you are seeing the "controlling public discussions" part of what intelligence agencies do in action here :)
That's an excellent point. Using the "only a sys admin" example was pretty weak. I just chose it quickly as one example of his trustworthiness level from the report. A better example would be that Mr. Snowden claims he began collecting files after James Clapper's testimony, but in fact he began 8 months earlier (third point in the Executive Summary, page iii).
My main takeaway form the report is that Mr. Snowden was misleading/dishonest about elements of his past and motivations. Read the report for other examples of his misrepresentations, mainly that he never reported his suspected abuse of government programs via established internal process and he took and shared material on much more than the programs he was concerned about.
The discussion of the programs themselves is certainly much bigger. I view these programs as the nuclear weapons of our age. It was inevitable that they would be created (with similar capabilities in the hands of other governments and corporations), and there is always the risk of misuse. While the US Government is not the ideal owner of these tools, I generally trust the USG more than other countries and corporations.
The problem with intelligence agencies is that you rarely hear of their successes, and almost always hear of their failures.
> A better example would be that Mr. Snowden claims he began collecting files after James Clapper's testimony, but in fact he began 8 months earlier (third point in the Executive Summary, page iii).
His claim was that testimony was the "breaking point" on the decision to leak, not download files, and soon after he agreed to publicly be named the source.
>mainly that he never reported his suspected abuse of government programs via established internal process and he took and shared material on much more than the programs he was concerned about.
It's his word vs theirs on whether he raised the issue before deciding to leak. And he knew there was a ton of unrelated data in what he leaked, that was why he privately gave it to reporters and didn't publicly post it.
As far as I know, none of the documents leaked by Mr Snowden have been found untrustworthy or fabricated. Digging in his past for inconsistencies and speculating about his motivation seem little more then a weak attempt at character assassination. What exactly are your goals in this discussion?
Even during the initial revelations, people who wanted to downplay the topic regularly pointed out that Snowden was "just a system administrator, not an intelligence agent" and attempted to debate whether he worked directly for the government or only for a contractor. It baffled me, because that doesn't even seem relevant to his claims.
The "government employee" issue would only matter if the authenticity of the leaks was disputed; the various PRISM and XKEYSCORE slideshows were never even challenged, so who cares? And "only a system administrator" sounds backwards to anyone who actually knows what sysadmins do. Dismissing him as a maintainer instead of an architect is a weird sideshow, since his role was mostly important as an answer to the question "how did he get undetected access to so many different files?"