central_va: “Snowden could of done all of this anonymously ala “Deep Throat”. He outed himself for the 15 minutes of fame.”
Perhaps, but I find the information more reliable now that I know who released it. I also believe him when he says system administrators see far more than a typical employee. A system administrator is privy to the most sensitive internal workings and traffic on a network.
I think the government would have had an easier time letting this blow over if the whistleblower wasn’t known. “Government sources” doesn’t carry as much weight as “Edward Snowden, NSA system administrator.”
Look, a lot of civilians at Verizon knew what was happening, There are two sides to the information equation. The Verizon employees/management that facilitated this are also culpable. Verizon could have just told the Federal Govt to shove it.
Most people don't know the difference between flat files, relational databases and cube storage. They don't realize that, on the home database, a lot of personally identifiable information is embedded in the cell phone number (which is also the account number). They don't realize that a data manager with the appropriate authorities can drill down to that data.
Most people defending the program reference court rulings issued during a more primitive time where a line of data was all that there was. I am not convinced that from numbers, to numbers, time and duration are the real metadata being collected. I am not convinced that PII isn't being mined. That PII when combined with other readily accessible information can create a personal profile on a person that the government has no right to.
For me the weekend raised more questions than it provided answers...
He told us nothing new,but brought great attention to the issue! Is Ed Snowden his real name? Does he still work for the CIA under cover ?
Are they trying to force 0 to play his hand?