Snowden writes: "The suspicionless surveillance programs of the NSA, GCHQ, and so many others that we learned about over the last year endanger a number of basic rights which, in aggregate, constitute the foundation of liberal societies."
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The above is a somewhat long statement that concludes with an equally insightful interview. It's worth working through, even if you need to break doing so into sessions. (Deserving of special attention is what Snowden has to say about the use of misinformation and selective information to disrupt the legal activities of "opponents," and to discredit them in ways that compromise their effectiveness within civil society.)
The piece below is short. It does not repeat but rather supplements what Snowden has to say. I suggest that one finish reading it before proceeding to the comment about "unofficial [aka informal] collaborators."
Nothing will be lost if you decide to read Maass's piece first.
-- Uncle Academic
The NSA Has An Advice Columnist. Seriously.
Peter Maass, The Intercept, 7 Mar 14
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/07/nsa-advice-columnist-seriously/
Sweet: NSA workers complain of having to work on teams infiltrated by "inoffizielle Mitarbeiter."
After you've read the article [as you should do before reading further], ... you may be prompted to wonder whether the NSA supervisors have it in mind that the conduct this encourages on the part of team members is the sort of effect they would regard as healthy were it to spread within the surveilled society at large. It's as if our betters are re-invoking the strategy adopted in the immediate aftermath of WWII, when they scooped up the likes of Wernher von Braun: here they seem to have invited the Stasi to take up residence in the States, the better to "protect the free world" by fostering an atmosphere of mutual suspicion that keeps everyone nicely atomized and in line.
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