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What Happened to the Snowden Archive

88 pointsby 1h agolibroot.org
33 comments
1h agoHN ↗

I think the real answer is the Overton window shifted to accommodate what was previously scandalous,

1h agoHN ↗

I remember when mass surveillance was the worst thing the US government did to its citizens

32m agoHN ↗

It's really never been the worst thing. From MKUltra to Operation Sea-Spray and many, many more.

13m agoHN ↗

What? MKUlta is absolutely not a conspiracy theory.

4m agoHN ↗

Neither of those are theories. Both are well documented and have had public hearings and governmental disclosure.

13m agoHN ↗

The Palmer Raids involved mass detention and deportation without trial. These raids were significant because they happened under Federal authority. US repression certainly involved torture and mass murder previously but mostly done locally (and sure, respond, "that was 'just' done to slaves and indians").

"The individuals captured during the Palmer raids were held in abysmal conditions: at Deer Island, six hundred prisoners were placed in barracks intended to house three hundred, with no heat and dwindling food; many were marched through Boston in chains and handcuffs, showered with the spit and trash of bystanders. In Detroit, eight hundred prisoners were crammed into a windowless corridor with only one working bathroom and no beds. At Ellis Island, hundreds of men were forced to sleep on steel slabs without mattresses."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_raids

12m agoHN ↗

Two dead and few dozen ill doesn't quite sound like the worst thing. Random street cops do that to more people for no good reason in any given year.

58m agoHN ↗

In 2026 these kind of articles must be a bait to receive the latest pegasus-style payload on your honeypot devices.

No matter how many internals are being leaked about five eyes, it's important to realize that there is always someone who benefits from the turmoil and the loss of faith into democratically-supervised institutions.

With technical agencies I'd guess that at least they promoted people based on technical merit and not by how much land ownership their families had 500 yrs ago.

50m agoHN ↗

Be afraid, folks. Don’t read about the man behind the curtain, you’re better off knowing nothing. I’m sure everything is a-ok even without public supervision. Trust the authorities.

38m agoHN ↗

That’s a gross misrepresentation of their point.

18m agoHN ↗

I read the GGP comment several times and I still have no idea what their point is.

Bait… Pegasus… honeypot? What? Decoding: is this indicating you’re ready with the honeypot to detect attempts to compromise you? Still makes little sense.

What democratically supervised institutions are being alluded to?

18m agoHN ↗

the loss of faith into democratically-supervised institutions.

Surely you mean oligarch-supervised institutions.

Our institutions are supervised by representatives elected on the dime of corporate and billionaire benefactors. They pull the strings.

It became a banana republic when money became speech.

55m agoHN ↗

Imagine the abuses the Trump administration is making of US surveillance powers. The market intelligence alone must be netting him billions.

40m agoHN ↗

Given what he does in public, I'm not sure there's any limit to what they're all doing in private.

Buy stocks in paper-shredder companies.

54m agoHN ↗

Eh, the outrage never really materialized into anything worth continuing the leaks. Look at the Epstein files. "They" can just wait it out.

21m agoHN ↗

The difference is the epstein files have been massively overhyped and imagination has led sense.

Real content in the files has caused serious trouble to the moron formerly known as "Prince Andrew" and to Peter Mandelson. This content wasn't some massive pedo consipracy but more common or garden finance sleaze - providing govt. inside info that could be used for trading profits.

Seems Epstein was a more commonplace sleazy creep into young prostitutes getting him into age of consent trouble in some states but not others. This more than some cia/mossad front of blackmailing the powerful with horrific acts done to children.

But absolutely all of it should be dug through, read, understood and prosecuted on the basis of actual evidence of any and all crime. What's there seems less good for selling clickbait-y podcasts or using as an emotional cudgel in politics. Hysteria rarely works out in a positive way.

18m agoHN ↗

Epstein was primarily a money man, but you’ll notice that this gets zero coverage. I guarantee there’s a lot of serious dirt there that will never see the light of day.

It’s almost better for the people involved if the public keeps focusing on the most outrageous aspects of the story. (And it is quite outrageous, and terrible, to be fair.)

5m agoHN ↗

This more than some cia/mossad front of blackmailing the powerful with horrific acts done to children.

IDK, the CIA/mossad pedophile part seems significant.

I don't think ordinary people upset at young girls being exploited for the purpose of blackmailing people are being 'naive' or something. Sure, it all pales in comparison to genocide X foreign land but people getting riled by that stuff too.

3m agoHN ↗

Worth noting that anything that could possibly called the "The Epstein Files" were not released and this how the situation is understood by the public.

51m agoHN ↗

Snowden saw what evil things the USA was doing (spying on everyone!), and he put his career and life on the line to fight for what was right.

And now he lives quietly in Russia.

/S

44m agoHN ↗

The term "responsible disclosure" may no longer have any meaning.

"Irresponsible disclosure" for the short term may be equivalent to "responsible disclosure" for the long term.

There must be some pretty dark stuff yet to be disclosed, and/or some pretty overt threats for those relatively fearless journalists to close ranks. The "Assange example" may have done its job perfectly.

35m agoHN ↗

Not just Assange, basically everyone involved except maybe Poitras took a hit. Appelbaum was driven out of his work with Tor (and from public life) after a smear campaign, Greenwald had to shift to alt media, and Snowden had to flee the country. Other journalists and editors “moved on” from their work with the papers.

Snowden did ask them not to get into any direct military secrets that were in the leaks, so that could explain some of the restraint.

36m agoHN ↗

Considering Snowden was a psyop, there probably was never any Archive.

No real one, at least.

Not like we were told.

You seriously believe he's still just happily living in Russia? Today?

That's insane.

21m agoHN ↗

You seriously believe he's still just happily living in Russia? Today?

I mean, Bashar al-Assad is. If he can escape thousands of highly-motivated revenge campaigns to see him strung up like Gadaffi, I can believe in Snowden sipping tea from his dacha.

4m agoHN ↗

Snowden promotes zcash and distrusts monero.

If that's not enough proof that he's a government plant, I don't know what else to tell you.

11m agoHN ↗

Living? Probably. Happily? Probably not.

17m agoHN ↗

This article linked back to the intercept's snowden archive articles [0], and while this article paints the Intercept in a bad light it lead me to reading a couple of these.

While I heard many of the headlines the reporting is very in depth, including a bunch of smaller details worth poking into. I'd recommend people who are interested and who haven't done so yet to just read a couple of these.

[0]: https://theintercept.com/series/snowden-archive/

8m agoHN ↗

Snowden got into action because he believed that the US was fundamentally good and needed to get back on track. Over the past 12 years, in the US and around the world, this belief completely vanished. Whatever remains in the archive no longer holds any valuable news.