The Question of Edward Snowden

William Binney, the mathematician who conceived the NSA’sStellar Wind surveillance program in late 2001—thus laying the foundation for the subsequent programs of NSA data collection—tells how he quit the agency for reasons of conscience similar to Snowden’s when he realized that the government was turning its powers inward to spy on Americans.

.. Finally, Jacob Appelbaum, a freelance critic of surveillance, is seen in his element as an educator and agitator, wondering how it is that so many people associate freedom with privacy, while the same people accept the idea that privacy has been abolished.

.. His use of the English language is simple and precise—an entirely different medium from the bureaucratic sludge of Alexander and Clapper, and different, too, from the emollient nothings spoken by President Obama when he told us, “Nobody is listening to your telephone calls.”

.. Snowden is often called a “fanatic” or a “zealot,” a “techie” or a “geek,” by persons who want to cut him down to size. Usually these people have not listened to him beyond snippets lasting a few seconds on network news. But the chance to listen has been there for many months, in two short videos by Poitras on the website of The Guardian, and more recently in a full-length interview by the NBC anchorman Brian Williams. The temper and penetration of mind that one can discern in these interviews scarcely matches the description of fanatic or zealot, techie or geek.

.. At the same time, Snowden goes further than many who call themselves libertarians. He believes that the American government has no more right to spy on private individuals in other countries than it does to spy on citizens of the United States.

.. At the same time, Snowden goes further than many who call themselves libertarians. He believes that the American government has no more right to spy on private individuals in other countries than it does to spy on citizens of the United States.

.. The undeclared subject of Citizenfour is integrity—the insistence by an individual that his life and the principle he lives by should be all of a piece. Something resembling an aesthetic correlative of that integrity can be found in the documentary style of Laura Poitras. Her signature is honestly marked in Citizenfour with the briefest of narrative passages and quotations from e-mails. Her camera sits still for minutes at a time, without the jumped-up authenticity of the hand-held technique.

 

William Binney (U.S. intelligence official)

After he left the NSA in 2001, Binney was one of several people investigated as part of an inquiry into the 2005 New York Timesexposé[11][12] on the agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program. Binney was cleared of wrongdoing after three interviews with FBI agents beginning in March 2007, but one morning in July 2007, a dozen agents armed with rifles appeared at his house, one of whom entered the bathroom and pointed his gun at Binney, still towelling off from a shower. In that raid, the FBI confiscated a desktop computer, disks, and personal and business records.

.. During interviews on Democracy Now! in April and May 2012[14] with elaboration in July 2012 at 2600’s hacker conference HOPE[4] and at DEF CON a couple weeks later,[15]Binney repeated estimates that the NSA (particularly its Stellar Wind project[16]) had intercepted 20 trillion communications “transactions” of Americans such as phone calls, emails, and other forms of data (but not including financial data). This includes most of the emails of US citizens. Binney disclosed in an affidavit for Jewel v. NSA[17] that the agency was “purposefully violating the Constitution”.[6] Binney also notes that he found out after retiring that the NSA was pursuing collect-it-all vs. targeted surveillance even before the 9/11 attacks.