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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 28 2014, @03:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the checking-the-checkers dept.

RT is reporting that the FBI have raided the home of a second Intelligence Agency whistleblower.

Investigators recently raided the home of the individual, according to a report published on Monday this week by journalist Michael Isikoff. They had a federal warrant to identify the source of classified documents recently published by The Intercept.

The Intercept was founded to continue reporting on information provided by Snowden, and to provide aggressive and independent adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues, from secrecy, criminal and civil justice abuses and civil liberties violations to media conduct, societal inequality and all forms of financial and political corruption. The editors include Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, key journalists involved in the original Snowden reporting.

Also reported at Business Insider and The Verge .

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Ask SoylentNews: What Happened to the "Second Snowden"? 10 comments

The fifth NSA whistleblower, or the second Snowden if you prefer, has disappeared without trace as far as my limited Google-fu can tell. The raid reported in the link was conducted by the FBI in late October, but there has been no reporting since of what they found or any subsequent arrests. Is anyone in Soylent-world more aware of what's going on in this case?

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  • (Score: 1) by Stuntbutt on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:14PM

    by Stuntbutt (662) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:14PM (#110889)

    You can go about your business.
    Move along.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:37PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:37PM (#110896)

      And don't forget, they hate us for our freedoms.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by tathra on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:40PM

      by tathra (3367) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:40PM (#110897)

      disclosure of classified info is still a crime [cornell.edu], but whistleblowers are supposed to be protected. [wikipedia.org] apparently SCOTUS has degraded the whistleblower protection act so much that it basically doesn't exist.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Tuesday October 28 2014, @05:12PM

        by zocalo (302) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @05:12PM (#110903)
        There really ought to be a clearly defined difference between being a whistleblower (and thus qualifying for legal protection that entails) and disclosing classified information to the public/media in situations like this. What seems to be lacking is a way for potential whistleblowers to raise concerns about classified matters without falling into traps like this; perhaps if the chain of command doesn't work or isn't appropriate, then it should be possible to have a frank discussion with a suitable political representative (Senator/Congresscritter) without any legal comeback?

        Well, unless the state of paranoia is such that the government no longer trusts itself, anyway. Oh, wait...
        --
        UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by tathra on Tuesday October 28 2014, @05:27PM

          by tathra (3367) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @05:27PM (#110908)

          the inspectors general are supposed to investigate misconduct and ensure that people are adhering to the rules, but in this case congress is writing unconstitutional laws, and thats what are being followed. it they could be taken to court, they'd immediately be voided for being unconstitutional, but due to the classified nature, nobody can prove standing in order to get them before the courts.

          federal inspectors general, like all federal employees, take an oath to defend the constitution, so they should be ensuring that not only are people following the rules, but that the rules themselves are constitutional, so that may be where the real failure lies. there needs to be some kind of independent authority to call out shit like this for what it is, to be able to say, "i dont care if nobody can prove standing, this needs to go before the courts", but since that'd immediately put an end to this kind of shit, it'll never happen.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:01PM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:01PM (#110921) Journal

            That's the clearest, most succinct summary of the situation I've yet heard. It is a fatal flaw that is unravelling the rule of law in this country. But, I'd warrant, it's not the only one. Corporate personhood is another such. When corporations enjoy not just legal personhood, but super-legal personhood, while suffering none of the penalities for misbehavior that natural persons do, then you have social behemoths running amok, trampling mere mortals wherever they tread.

            There has been other connective tissue in America that has so far held things together, like civil society and individual austerity measures, but real incomes have been on a straight downward trend for 30 years. Eventually, as my old economics professors would say, "markets must clear."

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
            • (Score: 5, Interesting) by tathra on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:23PM

              by tathra (3367) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:23PM (#110927)

              real incomes have been on a straight downward trend for 30 years.

              its gotten so bad that even businesses are worried [huffingtonpost.com] about it. i'm not sure anything can stop that death spiral at this point, but fuck those companies, they deserve to go bankrupt for not paying their workers a living wage.

              the middle class was what made America a global superpower. a selfish, greedy oligarchy will always cause its own destruction. maybe now that some of the people with money are seeing that, things might be ok if we avoid complete collapse, but we need to find some way to not only put the protections necessary to keep markets free back in place but to ensure that they can't be removed again. its the same thing for money in politics, going back to public campaign funding is important, but over a couple generations the restrictions will just be removed again, so there needs to be some way to ensure that certain rules can't be removed or degraded. sadly, even having such things in the constitution wouldn't be enough since the constitution has been continually eroded over the past 40 years, and it'll just happen again.

              i suppose collapse and rebirth is unavoidable, until we can find some way to prevent people from rewarding sociopathy and greed, and keep those kinds of people out of positions with power over the public.

              • (Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:22PM

                by pnkwarhall (4558) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:22PM (#110954)

                (FTLA)

                DineEquity:

                If our customers’ disposable income available for discretionary spending is reduced … our business could experience lower sales and customer traffic as potential customers choose lower-cost alternatives,

                Burger King:

                We believe that our sales, guest traffic and profitability are strongly correlated to consumer discretionary spending, which is influenced by general economic conditions, unemployment levels, the availability of discretionary income, and, ultimately, consumer confidence

                What complete corporate shite... yeah, fuck those companies, and fuck their shareholders.

                --
                Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
                • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:32PM

                  by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:32PM (#110958) Journal

                  Sorry, but you are wrong. They do believe that. But there is a form of the tragedy of the commons in action, where when any individual company offers fair recompense, it is less profitable than its competitors, so it goes out of business. The ones left are the ones that pay the least, and they really *don't* dare to pay more, unless their competition is also forced to pay more.

                  Please note that this is true even for the companies that are very profitable. The stock market will penalize them if the aren't profitable ENOUGH.

                  --
                  Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
                  • (Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday October 28 2014, @09:24PM

                    by tathra (3367) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @09:24PM (#110981)

                    and thats exactly why minimum wage laws (which should be equivalent to the living wage in that area) are important. no matter what you're dealing with, as soon as one actor starts to act unfairly to gain an edge without being punished, others will have to as well just to remain relevant, and eventually everyone will have to act that way just to have a chance. rules and regulations, and punishments for those that cheat, are important for preventing selfish actors from ruining things. once it starts, its pretty much a guaranteed one-way ticket to failure, even if it takes a couple generations.

                  • (Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:26PM

                    by pnkwarhall (4558) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:26PM (#111000)

                    The stock market will penalize them if the aren't profitable ENOUGH.

                    Maybe you missed the part where I said "Fuck their shareholders (too)." No company is forced to become publically traded, and I would argue that, for the majority of companies, the reasons to do so are profit-oriented as opposed to quality- or growth-of-service oriented. (It's the "cash out" reward after growing a business.)

                    I'm probably arguing way over my head here, but it seems to me that an influential economic system based on rewarding short-term speculation and ever-increasing, cancer-like growth -- the stock market -- would have some negative effects on the underlying, human-based, infrastructure. Maybe, just maybe, there are some problems with the current system dominated by entities way larger than they ever should have become.

                    In the land of behemoths, people are crushed without mercy.

                    --
                    Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
                    • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday October 29 2014, @02:22AM

                      by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @02:22AM (#111039)

                      I'm probably arguing way over my head here, but it seems to me that an influential economic system based on rewarding short-term speculation and ever-increasing, cancer-like growth -- the stock market -- would have some negative effects on the underlying, human-based, infrastructure.

                      Bingo! Unfortunately, since 1980 the U.S. has returned more towards a laissez-faire economic system and the world has tended to follow suit. This was the predominate economic policy in the decades prior to the Great Depression and it always works the same way. You have booms fuelled by speculation in which a few do extremely well, most stay in too long and end up holding the bag when the boom collapses, as such things always do. The aftermath is always a recession. Boom, bust, recession, an endless cycle. The very wealthy like this, they can usually weather the busts and have the means to pick up assets for pennies on the dollar when they end. When a boom takes in too many, as the real estate boom of the 2000's did, you run the risk of causing a full blown depression and only the proper government intervention can mitigate the results.

                      I'm not sure what we can do to end this, perhaps requiring investments to be held for a fixed time before they can be resold would spur genuine investment in future success rather than just trying to game the markets for short term profits and a quick escape with the loot. I heard someone suggest the bank bailout after the housing crash should only be for individual depositors up to the FDIC insurance amount. The short term results would not have been pretty and I doubt the American consumer would have had the stomach for such a thing, let alone the politicians, but in the end we might have destroyed the cancer that is destroying the middle class.

              • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:52PM

                by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:52PM (#111007) Journal

                until we can find some way to prevent people from rewarding sociopathy and greed

                That's the crux of the matter. We're never going to be rid of greedy sociopaths. But we can consciously work toward system designs that punish, not reward greedy sociopathic behavior. Allowing those people to run the show is an extremely bad idea that's not going to turn out well for anyone, including them. So that's a good place to start. Let's design a selective process that expressly works to weed those people out. The system design also has to acknowledge, and work to defuse, the fact that the sociopaths have begun to work in concert to reward each other to everyone else's detriment.

                --
                Washington DC delenda est.
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 28 2014, @08:28PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 28 2014, @08:28PM (#110970) Journal

              Corporate personhood is another such.

              No, because corporate personhood is based on the US constitution and a model of corporate law that is around a century and a half old. That's rule of law. As to your accusation of "super-legal personhood", corporations aren't actually people, don't actually get any rights that they shouldn't have in the first place, and can't commit crimes no matter what clueless laws are in place. And members of a corporation who commit crimes aren't shielded by the corporation.

              What I consider most mystifying about the concerns of corporation personhood are that the concerns have nothing to do with corporate personhood. Dilution of responsibility? That's a feature of any bureaucracy. Burning other peoples' money on risky propositions that you wouldn't touch if it were your own money? Feature of any group that handles other peoples' money. Rich people bribing politicians? Been happening since there was wealth.

              There has been other connective tissue in America that has so far held things together, like civil society and individual austerity measures, but real incomes have been on a straight downward trend for 30 years. Eventually, as my old economics professors would say, "markets must clear."

              Supply of labor for the global economy has increased, I would estimate from about a billion people to five or six billion people. That means real incomes go down for the developed world and go up considerably in the far larger developing world, which means that globally real incomes have been on a increasing trend for at least sixty years!

              Rather than adapting to this change in supply of labor, developed world countries have routinely harmed their positions such as creating expensive social safety nets or punishing employers (with higher costs and regulatory burdens). That chokes off supply, even if the employer were to try to employ as many people as they can at the highest wages they can. So what happens when supply grows by a factor of 5 and demand is constricted? "Markets must clear."

              It also results in growing national debt. For example, the average debt [oecd-ilibrary.org] of OECD countries was 74% of the respective country's GDP in 2010. But sure, let's blame corporations even though they aren't the way out of control parties.

              As I see it, the real problem for more than a century now is that a lot of pretty ignorant people have decided to use the power of government to do things which allegedly help other people and make society better. Sure, I grant some of those things have. But for the most part, they do not. This urge to solve the world's problems with other peoples' money has led to the current state of affairs and the long term inability of societies to fix various problems and the growing inefficiency and cost of some of the remarkable institutions of the modern world such as academia or modern health care.

              • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 29 2014, @12:25AM

                by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @12:25AM (#111019) Journal

                corporate personhood is based on the US constitution and a model of corporate law that is around a century and a half old. That's rule of law.

                So because slavery was also the law of the land for about 100 years of the USA (and longer, when you consider the state laws that preceded the adoption of the Constitution), we were wrong to reverse that and all the body of case law that grew from it? When a mistake is a mistake it ought to be corrected, no matter how many lawyers have made a living from building case law around it.

                corporations aren't actually people, don't actually get any rights that they shouldn't have in the first place, and can't commit crimes no matter what clueless laws are in place. And members of a corporation who commit crimes aren't shielded by the corporation.

                Corporations commit crimes all the time. And they shield their members from prosecution all the time. Let me pick one recent example, one of my personal favorites from the past *5* years, and cite the massive money laundering that HSBC did on behalf of Iran, Terrorists, and Mexican Drug Cartels [forbes.com]. Yes, that's as reported by that communist rag, Forbes Magazine. No one at HSBC was held personally responsible for those huge, massive crimes. If you can look those kinds of facts in the face and yet write what you wrote, then you're either not paying critical attention to the world around us or you are willfully attempting to mislead others.

                Supply of labor for the global economy has increased

                No, it really hasn't. Yes, the population of the world has grown. But it didn't suddenly jump from 1 billion to 6 billion. What did happen is that interested parties have been successfully dismantling barriers to global capital flows which various international and trading bloc regulations meant to variously (selfishly) protect domestic or regional markets or (virtuously) ensure a level playing field for all; and that's very much a legacy of Bretton Woods. What mostly has not happened is that labor opportunities to jump national and regional bloc borders have not kept pace, such that the much more liquid capital has been able to exploit illiquid labor markets. For example, many Americans who have lost their jobs because the company they worked for outsourced them to India might not mind too much if they could follow those jobs to India and live an opulent lifestyle, albeit at a lower dollar cost to the company, thanks to the gain in purchasing power parity. But they can't. There's almost no such thing as Americans being able to parachute in anywhere around the world and work freely because local labor laws won't allow it. In other words, money is now free to jump borders without any restriction, but people can't. Paying a snake head to smuggle you into India, possibly dying along the way, possibly getting picked up by local fuzz, being lynched by angry locals, etc is a far greater "barrier to entry" or "transaction cost" for labor movement than the milliseconds it takes for billions of capital to move from one account to another.

                This urge to solve the world's problems with other peoples' money

                As opposed to *not* solving the world's problems with other peoples' money? Because that's exactly the feast we've all been invited to the last ten years. Wall Street banks took trillions of "other peoples' money" to solve their problems when they fucked up, and the rest of us didn't even get a t-shirt. But your language and intonation do give us a window into the ideological source of your denial. That helps the rest of us understand where you're coming from. It does not, however, obscure or cure the obvious, factual, downward slide the vast majority of humanity has been on these last three decades.

                But that's OK. Stick your head in the sand. Eventually, markets will clear.

                --
                Washington DC delenda est.
                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 29 2014, @12:12PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 29 2014, @12:12PM (#111105) Journal

                  So because slavery was also the law of the land for about 100 years of the USA

                  So is driving on only one side of the road and laws against murder.

                  Let me pick one recent example, one of my personal favorites from the past *5* years, and cite the massive money laundering that HSBC did on behalf of Iran, Terrorists, and Mexican Drug Cartels [forbes.com].

                  If that's the best you can come up with in five years of discussion, then maybe you ought to move on. The obvious point here is that people did that not some legal fiction with the label HSBC. HSBC could have been any other sort of business and still get away with that just as much as it did in the story, making it irrelevant as an example on that basis alone.

                  Supply of labor for the global economy has increased

                  No, it really hasn't. Yes, the population of the world has grown. But it didn't suddenly jump from 1 billion to 6 billion.

                  So in 1950, there were calling centers in India and massive industrialization in China? Nope. To understand the world of the past 60 years, you do need to realize that globalization has connected billions of people economically to the global economy (as well as growing a few more billion people). Between the isolation of the communist world and the lack of infrastructure in the Third World, most of humanity was cut off from the global economy in 1950. That has since changed for the better.

                  For example, many Americans who have lost their jobs because the company they worked for outsourced them to India might not mind too much if they could follow those jobs to India and live an opulent lifestyle, albeit at a lower dollar cost to the company, thanks to the gain in purchasing power parity.

                  Or the US could make itself a better place to employ people. Large scale unemployment is a sign of poor economic, legal, and social policies.

                  As opposed to *not* solving the world's problems with other peoples' money?

                  Yes. Not "solving" the problems can actually work better for two reasons: first, no central body is competent to solve these problems and too many use the opportunity to pursue interests irrelevant or even counterproductive to solving global problems (note the considerable corruption that often follows attempts to solve problems), and second, most of the global problems are actually local or regional problems which can be solved at that level, if the location or region should ever choose to do so.

                  For example, the US got into two recent, very expensive (or lucrative, depending on your point of view) wars because of global terrorism and its attempts to solve those problems. The current NSA spying scandal is also a consequence of that.

                  It does not, however, obscure or cure the obvious, factual, downward slide the vast majority of humanity has been on these last three decades.

                  Nonsense. Most of the world is not in that slide. This is a typical, self-inflicted, provincial first world problem. I find it telling that people are more concerned about some abstract business law than they are about glaring examples of tyranny or poverty.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @01:35AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @01:35AM (#111030)

                Supply of labor for the global economy has increased, I would estimate from about a billion people to five or six billion people. That means real incomes go down for the developed world and go up considerably in the far larger developing world, which means that globally real incomes have been on a increasing trend for at least sixty years!

                So what happens when supply grows by a factor of 5 and demand is constricted? "Markets must clear."

                Now that's interesting. It seems like you're suggesting that we somehow have five times as many people producing the same amount of product because there's been no change in demand. Which would be odd, because historically, when people work together the total productivity increases faster than then number of people. Historically, economic growth has not been a zero-sum game, but has always allowed both parties to walk away from the deal better off than they would be otherwise. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's one of the central tenets of a market economy.

                You're clearly the expert though, so if you're sure that the only way to raise the standard of living in China and India is by sacrificing the standard of living in the US and Europe, then I guess that's just an inevitable sacrifice we have to make to the greater good.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 29 2014, @12:17PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 29 2014, @12:17PM (#111107) Journal

                  It seems like you're suggesting that we somehow have five times as many people producing the same amount of product

                  Doesn't seem that way to me. And you might want to consider why the developed world collectively is having such trouble with what should be a positive sum game.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by davester666 on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:19PM

          by davester666 (155) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:19PM (#110926)

          How well has it worked out now that Congress was forced to admit the members knew a great deal more about how invasive the NSA has been in all our lives and how the public wants it to change, and yet have been unable to limit what the NSA is doing at all.

          You could have that discussion with the suitable representative, but expect to be asked to accompany the agents after about 15 minutes.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:35PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:35PM (#110933) Journal

    USG will keep a tight grip on Snowden 2.0. They won't want him/her becoming a celebrity. Maybe they will give Snowden 2.0 the Manning 1.0 treatment (solitary confinement).

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:21PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:21PM (#110953)

      the Manning 1.0 treatment (solitary confinement, under humiliating and torturous conditions, without trial, for several years, in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments).

      Expanded on that for you. I think it's important to emphasize exactly what we're dealing with here.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday October 29 2014, @04:31AM

    by Pav (114) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @04:31AM (#111055)

    Ummm... the media can't count? Snowden came AFTER J. Kirk Wiebe, Thomas Drake and Bill Binney, though I guess "Fifth NSA whisteblower" doesn't have enough angular momentum. BTW, is the Citizenfour documentary named for the fact that Snowden was the fourth whisteblower? Perhaps this latest spin is to help us forget that number along with the three baby-boomers who conservative people generally relate to better. It would also be inconvenient for us to develop the impression that these views are widely held within the NSA.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @01:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @01:01PM (#111124)

      BTW, is the Citizenfour documentary named for the fact that Snowden was the fourth whisteblower?

      The documentary is named Citizenfour because that's how Snowden identified himself before outing himself. Why he chose that moniker I do not know.