Edward Snowden and NSA spying

I haven’t known what to make of Edward Snowden, the well-paid contractor who revealed the extent of the NSA’s spying on Americans. Is he a civilian version of Cpl. Bradley Manning, the Army analyst whose release of thousands of secret documents put Wikileaks in the news? I don’t think so. Manning isn’t a whistleblower; he didn’t seem to know or care what he was releasing, he just wanted to release it. There was no greater good he was serving other than himself. I still think Manning should be punished for his deeds.

Where does that leave Snowden? After all, he also broke his oath to keep secrets, too, and unlike Manning he was getting paid handsomely to keep those secrets. Also, the type of NSA collection he exposed first appeared in the press way back in 2006 (or perhaps even a year earlier). Is one guilty of revealing a secret if what one reveals isn’t a secret anymore?
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NSA spying flap extends to contents of U.S. phone calls

Remember how Glenn Greenwald speculated that the NSA was capable of listening to the contents of phone calls? It turns out to be true.

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls, a participant said.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed on Thursday that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.”

If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.

I had heard rumors of an AT&T facility in Kansas that transcribed millions of phone calls. Supposedly AT&T’s voice recognition software was highly developed for this purpose. Can’t find anything about it online, though, and not sure where I learned of it.

Also, read the Washington Post’s story on the NUCLEON program.

via NSA spying flap extends to contents of U.S. phone calls | Politics and Law – CNET News.