Catch-2013: Where Are The Snowdens Of Yesteryear?
Edward Snowden has spilled his guts. Sick of the odious deal we've made to preserve freedom by letting ourselves be watched all the time, the former CIA guy and Booz Allen Hamilton contractor has decided not to fly any more data collection missions for the NSA. He turned his back on the whole damned mess and started running, and now he's hiding in a luxury hotel in Hong Kong, hoping that he won't be disappeared by the shadowy men who keep reminding us all, "We got your pal, buddy. We got your pal."
Here's hoping Snowden has access to horse chestnuts, an angry prostitute who can pound his head with her shoe, and especially a tiny yellow life raft with a little blue plastic oar. He's going to need them if he hopes to make it to Sweden.
Also, it looks like maybe Snowden may not have really thought through that " Hong Kong hearts free speech so they will protect me" idea so well. Rep. Peter King (R-Irish Republican Army) wants Snowden extradited, and Fox News "security analyst" Ralph Peters wants him dead:
“I mean, we need to get very, very serious about treason. And oh by the way, for treason -- as in the case of Bradley Manning or Edwards [sic] Snowden — you bring back the death penalty.”
Nice to see that Fox's go-to guy on national security seems to be unaware that the death penalty for some federal offenses never went away. Snowden's best hope is to go into the hospital, where there's a much lower death rate.
Now that we know who leaked the PRISM story, the conversation can shift to the really important question: Is Edward Snowden a hero, a self-aggrandizing famewhore, or a traitor? Really, there's no reason he can't be all three! He is a regular Daniel Kim Benedict Ellsberg-Kardashian-Arnold. Maybe now we won't have to debate making any changes to our national security / universal surveillance state, the tangled entrails of which Snowden has spilled all over the place for us to gaze on in horror, while the 4th amendment has been replaced by a neatly typed note saying "What's Good for Booz Allen Hamilton is Good for America"
And everybody has a share.
[ Guardian / WaPo / The Instruction Manual/ Illustration: "Hot Plot" by "MadHotaru"]
It's not what you do, it's who you do. Isn't that how it goes?
Seriously. This is your new aristocracy. People in positions of wealth and power through their circumstances of birth, regardless of their ability.
There is a certain class of narrowly brilliant people for whom school holds little interest and who therefore tend to lack academic credentials. They're far from unheard of in the IT sector - the founders of Tumblr and blip.tv, for example, are both high-school dropouts.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if the intelligence community actively sought such people - their lack of interest in following the expected paths and rules most people in society follow could be a valuable trait.