On Sat, 21 Sep 2019 16:42:02 -0400 John Young <jya@pipeline.com> wrote:
Possible, probable, likely, Snowden's initiative and exile is a sophisticated disinfo op developed in response to the rise in leaks (real and bogus) of sensitive information by the new-fangled internet -- itself a fabulously successful disinfo op to foster the notion of public empowerment (concealing data harvesting), along with heavily promoted tools like PKC, anonymity and Tor which Snowden is avidly promoting despite shortcomings in all of them which has burned and imprisoned of not a few believers.
I have to admit, such a hypothesis is at least partially plausible. So is snowden still following CIA's orders? Another explanation is that regardless of snowden's half hearted attempt at throwing a wrench, gpvcorp just followed a predefined path. Even without more disinfo and fake public empowerment by snowden, the increase in govcorp power was bound to happen.
Looked at this way the Snowden affair does not differ much from a number of legacy and current decoys, implants, insertions, double-crosses which are ancient bread and butter spy cuisine, quite a few decades old before redacted disclosures (orchestrated leaks), others ostensibly never to be revealed so long as useful in fattening "national security journalists". NSA and CIA have seldomed reaped such enriching budget increases by Snowden's "treason" short of cold/hot war and terrorism.
I guess that's true to some degree. No doubt some 'contractors' and 'experts' can point at the snowden affair as a good excuse to spend a few more trillions in 'national security'.
Snowden's book is pretty banal, as even he admits. So too are his tweets and public appearances. Nothing like the feverish disclosures of the burgeoning hyperbolic leak-privacy-journalism industry, a la WikiLeaks and emulators. Citizen 4 was much better, slick, artful, dramatic. Corny, as were, are, WikiLeaks, its fandom and DoJ dawdling prosecution.
When will Snowden no longer be useful to the spy-journalism industry for recruiting, publicity and funding? What will be done with cooling stars like Snowden, Manning, Assange and those leeching off their dimming shine?
Pardons for the novas if they live, followed by tours and security consultancies, or unnamed stars incised in marble, website memorials in FOI, if they die. Or most likely, medical issues, isolation, last wills, then carted on guernies, natsec press alerted for photos, autopsies inconclusive.