Talk:Edward Snowden

"Debate" section

Just leaving notes for future additions: petrarchan47tc 22:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Edward Snowden revelations prompt UN investigation into surveillance 12.2.13. Guardian. By Nick Hopkins and Matthew Taylor.

 Done

• Edward Snowden says he accomplished his Mission to raise national debates. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:23, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done petrarchan47tc 23:31, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 December 2013

Federal court ruling of Judge Pauley

On 27 December 2013, US Federal Judge William H. Pauley III ruled that bulk collection of American telephone metadata was legal. Regarding the ACLU's statutory arguments, the judge wrote, "...there is another level of absurdity in this case. The ACLU would never have learned about the section 215 order authorizing collection of telephony metadata related to its telephone numbers but for the unauthorized disclosures by Edward Snowden. Congress did not intend that targets of section 215 orders would ever learn of them. And the statutory scheme also makes clear that Congress intended to preclude suits by targets even if they discovered section 215 orders implicating them. It cannot possibly be that lawbreaking conduct by a government contractor that reveals state secrets - including the means and methods of intelligence gathering - could frustrate Congress's intent. To hold otherwise would spawn mischief: recipients of orders would be subject to section 215's secrecy protocol confining challenges to the FISC, while targets could sue in any federal district court. A target's awareness of section 215 orders does not alter the Congressional calculus. The ACLU's statutory claim must therefore be dismissed." Regarding the privacy implications and concerns of bulk meta data collection, the judge wrote, "The ACLU argues that analysis of bulk telephony metadata allows the creation of a rich mosaic: it can 'reveal a person's religion, political associations, use of a telephone-sex hotline, contemplation of suicide, addiction to gambling or drugs, experience with rape, grappling with sexuality, or support for particular political causes.' But that is at least three inflections from the Government's bulk telephony metadata collection. First, without any additional legal justification--subject to rigorous minimization procedures--the NSA cannot even query the telephony metadata database. Second, when it makes a query, it only learns the telephony metadata of the telephone numbers within three 'hops' of the 'seed' [a known terrorist associated number]. Third, without resort to additional techniques, the Government does not know who ANY of the telephone numbers belong to. In other words, all the Government sees is that telephone number A called telephone number B. It does not know who subscribes to telephone numbers A or B. Further, the Government repudiates any notion that it conducts the type of data mining the ACLU warns about in its parade of horribles." Judge Pauley also noted in his 54 page ruling that the inclusion of a public privacy advocate's voice in the presentations to the FISC may be needed. The judge wrote: "As FISA has evolved and Congress has loosened its individual suspicion requirements, the FISC has been tasked with delineating the limits of the Government's surveillance power, issuing secret decision without the benefit of the adversarial process. Its ex parte procedures are necessary to retain secrecy but are not ideal for interpreting statutes. This case shows how FISC decisions may affect every American--and perhaps, their interests should have a voice in the FISC."

Trwithe (talk) 16:01, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Is it essential that the entire passage be quoted verbatim? Could it be partly paraphrased, as with the material in the section on Judge Leon's ruling? Dezastru (talk) 16:36, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

This level of coverage is better for the inevitable "NSA rulings" or "Pauley NSA ruling" articles than for Snowden. petrarchan47tc 02:08, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done --Mdann52talk to me! 14:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Needed: Edward Snowden advice on how not to be surveilled

Apparently, Edward Snowden has also dispensed advice (not part of what he has leaked) on how not to be surveilled or otherwise get netted in the NSA surveillance haystack, and it is changing the way many people communicate worldwide.

For instance, see: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance

A section on this aspect of the Snowden case would have to provide the information with a neutral POV, which should not be too difficult. As it is of general interest regardless of the outcome of any criminal proceedings, it bears mention to the general readership. There should be no legal difficulties with this. Danshawen (talk) 03:52, 4 January 2014 (UTC)danshawen

As useful as this material might be, Wikipedia is not a how-to manual. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Start something on Wikibooks. They'll love it. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

It should definitely be mentioned in the article, because almost nobody reads Wikibooks. Wikipedia is not censored, or is it? --85.197.10.39 (talk) 10:27, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Should add link to US spying on Israel

Given the high profile nature of the US-Israel relation, and past stories about Israeli spying on the US, it would be appropriate to add Israel to the list of countries that the US has spied on in the article. From :

"Among allegations aired by Snowden last year were that the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart GCHQ had in 2009 targeted an email address listed as belonging to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and monitored emails of senior defense officials.

...

Greenwald voiced understanding for the Pollard linkage.

"I think you are absolutely right to contrast the Jonathan Pollard case with revelations of American spying on their closest allies within the Israeli government, because it does underlie, underscore exactly the hypocrisy that lies at the center of so much of what the US government does," he said.

" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richesla2 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, there is going to be a lot coming out soon, per Greenwald, about information contained in the leaks regarding Israel. It will be added. petrarchan47tc 08:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

"According to the Washington Post..."

...his passport was voided by US officials "as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America."

This is misleading. The Washington Post in fact says "He said that once the U.S. government voided his passport as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America, he had no other choice." The material between the quote marks appearing in Wikipedia (that is, "as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America") should be attributed to "He", not the Washington Post, when the Washington Post does not use its own voice to state what Wikipedia presents within quotation marks. Changing "Washington Post" to "Barton Gellman" is still misleading because the "He" here in "He said" is neither WaPo nor Gellman but Snowden. It ought to therefore say that according to SNOWDEN his passport was voided by US officials "as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America."

I just deleted this sentence rather than correct it (quotes should not be used at all here since WaPo does not follow "He said" with quotes) simply because the article already has this. We've already got Greenwald claiming that "[Snowden] didn't choose to be there. He was trying to get transit to Latin America, and then the US revoked his passport..." As if that isn't enough, we've also got Harrison claiming that "I was travelling with him on our way to Latin America when the United States revoked his passport, stranding him in Russia." I accordingly don't see the necessity of repeating the claim again at length when the article is already repeating for the third time the claim with Barton Gellman's assertion that Snowden "didn't choose Russia. He was literally changing planes in the Moscow airport when the United States revoked his passport. He was stuck there by that." That isn't enough? You STILL need to add this additional sentence here on top of what Gellman said? What does it say that Gellman doesn't already say in the very next sentence?

Meanwhile, until I just added it today there was nothing that pointed out that the "stranded" narrative has been challenged and contradicted. One can try and call the U.S. official saying Snowden's passport was annulled BEFORE he left Hong Kong a liar (as if a U.S. official is not reliable when it was U.S. officials who took the action) but one cannot deny that this same official has significant agreement re the additional claim that in fact Russia could overlook the absence of a valid passport and allow Snowden to travel on should both Moscow and Snowden so desire. As the legal scholar cited by the Associated Press notes, "Moscow airport is as much a part of Russia as is the Kremlin... Many nations pretend that airport transit lounges are not part of their territory, indeed not under their jurisdiction. As a matter of international law, this is completely false." The idea that Snowden was "stranded" in the airport is a "pretend" fiction created by the Kremlin and then re-propagated by Greenwald, Wikileaks, and Barton Gellman. If Wikipedia is going to in turn re-propagate this "stranded" line, once is enough (you can take your pick of Greenwald, Harrison, and Gellman), and the contradictory statements from U.S. officials and legal experts should be admitted.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

No one has argued against the inclusion of official statements, ever. If I inaccurately attributed a quotation to Gellman when in fact it was Snowden's, you can simply fix it in the text next time, yes? petrarchan47tc 03:40, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Passport

According to Gellman, after his interview with Edward Snowden in December 2013, and to Wikileaks, who was overseeing Snowden's travel from Hong Kong, Snowden was stuck in Moscow due to US' revocation of his passport. This information was left in the article, but is being questioned again.

This passport issue is a sticky subject, and deserves better coverage in the article. For now, I'll leave some research here. petrarchan47tc 22:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• "The document reportedly allows him to leave the airport transit zone where he arrived June 23 with a revoked U.S. passport, which did not allow him to legally enter Russia or board a flight elsewhere" LATimes

• "Although Snowden was able to stay in Russia, revocation of his U.S. passport has been a crucial weapon to prevent him from crossing an international border for any reason other than to come home to prison in the United States." HuffPo

• "Russian media quoted sources as saying the revocation of his U.S. passport is what's really keeping him from moving on -- preventing him from buying a plane ticket or even leaving the airport and setting foot on Russian soil." Fox

• "Upon his arrival, Snowden did not leave Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. One explanation could be that he wasn't allowed; a U.S. official said Snowden's passport had been revoked, and special permission from Russian authorities would have been needed." Fox

• "...had his U.S. passport revoked before he boarded a flight for Russia" AP

• "Snowden left Hong Kong, where he faced an extradition request from U.S. authorities for Moscow early Sunday morning and is seeking political asylum in Ecuador. It is unclear how Snowden was able to travel to Russia if his passport had been revoked. A U.S. official told the AP that a country could overlook the former contractor's revoked passport if an airline or senior official in a country ordered that Snowden be allowed to travel." Hill

• "The United States, by cancelling his passport, has left him for the moment marooned in Russia," Assange said. Politico

• "Hong Kong officials said that Snowden left the country "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel." "As the HKSAR Government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong," Hong Kong government officials said in a statement. Snowden's U.S. passport was revoked on Saturday, and Hong Kong authorities were then notified -- but the U.S. notification may have occurred after Snowden already had departed the city. The Obama administration was left "scrambling" for answers for how the fugitive former NSA contractor was able to jet to Moscow....despite carrying a passport that can no longer be used" ABC

• "Despite U.S. officials’ insistence that Snowden’s passport was revoked Saturday, the Hong Kong government said Sunday that he left “on his own accord for a third country.” Aeroflot told the Associated Press that Snowden registered for the flight on Sunday using his U.S. passport. Ecuadoran diplomats were at Sheremetyevo International Airport, where Snowden landed aboard an Aeroflot flight about 5:05 p.m. (9:05 a.m. EDT). It was not clear whether they were meeting with Snowden or with others who accompanied him. Snowden did not have a Russian visa, according to several sources, so he was confined to a transit area within the airport. WaPo

• Gellman: "...But Snowden knows his presence here is easy ammunition for critics. He did not choose refuge in Moscow as a final destination. He said that once the U.S. government voided his passport as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America, he had no other choice." WaPo

• "I was traveling with him on our way to Latin America when the United States revoked his passport, stranding him in Russia." — Sarah Harrison, the WikiLeaks advisor who met Snowden in Hong Kong and accompanied him to Moscow on June 23.
• Snowden "was transiting through Russia on his way to somewhere else, and got trapped there by US actions." — Primary Snowden source Glenn Greenwald.
• "He was literally changing planes in the Moscow airport when the United States revoked his passport." — Primary Snowden source Barton Gellman.
• “The United States, by canceling his passport, has left him for the moment marooned in Russia.” — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
• The U.S. went "so far as to force down the Presidential Plane of Evo Morales to prevent me from traveling to Latin America!" — Edward Snowden, in his recent open letter to Brazil. source

Given that "Snowden's U.S. passport was revoked on Saturday, and Hong Kong authorities were then notified" it's actually impossible that "U.S. notification may have occurred after Snowden already had departed the city." Aeroflot flight 213 is scheduled to depart at 10:50 AM Hong Kong time each day (or later). There is only one Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong to Moscow each day. 11 AM Sunday is necessarily after Saturday. Not that this particular point really matters but you evidently think it does given your boldfacing. Recall here what was going on before any of this:

Snowden, [Putin] said, was given a choice about coming to Russia before he flew in from Hong Kong on June 23.

“I’ll tell you something I’ve never said before, hinted at, but never said directly. Mr. Snowden first appeared in Hong Kong and met with our diplomatic representatives [there],” Putin said, adding that he was told about Snowden at that time.

“I asked: ‘What does he want?’ He’s fighting for human rights, for the right to spread information, he is fighting against human rights violations in this area and against violations of the law in the United States…. I said, ‘So what? If he wants to remain with us, he can stay, but then he must stop all activity destroying Russian-American relations.’ He was told that.

Note Putin said in this September 4 interview that he was "told about Snowden" by his diplomats in Hong Kong and decided that "he can stay," but there is no need to arrange a transit visa or other advance permission with Russian diplomats in Hong Kong if one truly intends to just transit: "Russian law does not require you to have a transit visa if you are transiting through one international airport in Russia, whereby you will not leave the customs zone, and will depart within 24 hours to an onward international destination." What would have created a need for special permission, however, would have been an intention to not continue onward within 24 hours! Of course Aeroflot would allow Snowden to register for the flight on Sunday using his U.S. passport if Moscow and Beijing have given special dispensation.
By the way, a blog written by a politician and activist on HuffPo making claims about "crossing an international border" hardly overrides what "a leading authority on international refugee law whose work is regularly cited by the most senior courts of the common law world" has to say about the matter (see previous section). Ditto for Wikileaks and Greenwald. Greenwald has already exposed himself as an unreliable source by declaring on August 28 that the Kommersant story that first reported Snowden's contact with Russian diplomats "was fabricated" and then Putin goes on TV on September 4 to confirm the contact. More generally with respect to "Primary Snowden source[s]", we know from the TIME year-end article that "several people who communicate regularly with Snowden" (that is, primary Snowden sources) know Kucherena has "a knack for misleading the press" (given that it was "according to" these people that most of what Kucherena says "is fiction") yet have conspicuously failed to correct the record when Kucherena's false claims have been spread in the media. These "primary" people have consistently exhibited more interest in Snowden advocacy than in accuracy (although Greenwald calls it "adversarial journalism" against Snowden's enemies in the U.S. government as opposed to pro-Snowden reporting).--Brian Dell (talk) 20:50, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

• Just a note to think about. You know that Hong Kong is 12 hours ahead of us? Do you know what time they were notified and what time this notification finally reached customs at the airport? I'd say there is no way to know one way or the other.TMCk (talk) 23:08, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I am aware of that and that's why I noted that "Sunday" is not 2 AM Sunday in Hong Kong but more like noon. Even allowing for time zones he still left Sunday. But as I said I think this is rather beside the point. On June 24 a State Department spokesman said that "though the Privacy Act prohibits me from talking about Mr. Snowden’s passport specifically, I can say that the Hong Kong authorities were well aware of our interest in Mr. Snowden and had plenty of time to prohibited his travel." "Plenty of time" is plenty of time. Note what else the spokesman said there: "We do revoke passports at the request of law enforcement authorities. We do so expeditiously when the request is received. When the Department of State revokes a passport, that information is shared through databases accessible by law enforcement and various border agencies around the world, including INTERPOL, to prevent persons from traveling on revoked passports." Note that "shared through databases" suggests reaching "border agencies around the world" with electronic speed. Now when did "law enforcement" make the triggering move here? ABC News said "A State Department Operations Center alert said Snowden's U.S passport was revoked Saturday after the Justice Department finally unsealed charges on FRIDAY"

In my view, the U.S. government was trying to work with Hong Kong authorities to get them to turn over Snowden without forcing Hong Kong's hand. WaPo then breaks the story that there are sealed charges against Snowden on Friday, June 21. "After The Washington Post reported the charges, senior administration officials said late Friday that the Justice Department was barraged with calls from lawmakers and reporters and decided to unseal the criminal complaint." So the charges were unsealed Friday (later on Friday "officials" explained why) and State "expeditiously" moved to revoke Snowden's passport. Hong Kong/Beijing promptly realize that with the charges public, Privacy Act notwithstanding people will know the passport has been revoked as well and the "insufficient information" argument will become too unbelievable, so the green light to move on that Snowden/Wikileaks/Kremlin having been anticipating is given.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:58, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• Media seems to say that they don't know either. We have first-hand accounts, and comments from unnamed government insiders. I suppose the best approach would be to lay it all out for the reader without presenting any conclusion. petrarchan47tc 23:21, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

• That's exactly the point I tried to make.TMCk (talk) 23:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

So, you would see a "Passport revocation" (or similar) section dealing with these questions to be reasonable? petrarchan47tc 23:54, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I thought more about such being incorporated into the existing text passage(s?) where the revocation is mentioned.TMCk (talk) 01:15, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Sounds perfect. petrarchan47tc 01:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The highlighted text above has received no objection, yet it has been here, highlighted, since 13 January. Today I added it but it was removed with the edit summary eluding to a White House spokesperson's statement that contradicts the text. I would ask that editors argue on the talk page rather than by removing cited information, and that the WH statement be added to the article rather than used as an excuse to remove content. petrarchan47tc 23:48, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

“The highlighted text above has received no objection” is, in fact, the most false statement I have ever encountered on a Wikipedia Talk page. Here is your highlighted text, from above:

“but the U.S. notification may have occurred after Snowden already had departed the city.”

Here is my January 14 reply, from above:

“it's actually impossible that 'U.S. notification may have occurred after Snowden already had departed the city'.... Not that this particular point really matters but you evidently think it does given your boldfacing."

“It's impossible” is “no objection”? Are you kidding me? You then go on to edit war over this, instead of replying to me here on the Talk page. In an edit summary I refer you back to my January 15 comments where I call attention to what the official State Department spokesman said on June 24, and here you say I was "eluding" (sic) to a WHITE HOUSE statement! Can we agree, first of all, on the importance of reading what other editors have written?--Brian Dell (talk) 01:40, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's review the substance here:

Note that the ABC News story here says “whether the U.S. embassy was able to tell Hong Kong in time before Snowden fled, or whether the Chinese officials simply were eager to wash their hands of him and let him go, remains unclear”. ABC News doesn't know for sure, but acknowledges as the second possibility that notice was timely and that the Chinese simply ignored the notice. Subsequent to the ABC News story we have that daily press briefing at the State Department that I've noted earlier. There spokesman Patrick Ventrell states that “we’re just not buying that this was a technical decision by a Hong Kong immigration official. This was a deliberate choice”. Ventrell then says he will “walk you through all the broader frame of what we do with passports here at the State Department” and when he does so, he notes that notification would not involve going through the “U.S. embassy” (ABC News probably should have said State Department or “consulate” as there is no U.S. embassy in Hong Kong) as it is more automatic, being “shared through databases accessible by law enforcement and various border agencies around the world, including INTERPOL, to prevent persons from traveling on revoked passports.” Ventrell then says that there was “plenty of time to prohibited his travel.... this is not a technical sort of immigration paperwork kind of matter taken at the Hong Kong level.” If that isn't enough, Ventrell then directly addresses the question of media reporting that assigns any blame for Snowden's being in Russia on the U.S.:

“– there’s been a little bit of confusion. And I just want to be very clear here. There was some media reporting that somehow the State Department had dropped the ball or we didn’t proceed as we needed to on this case, and I just want to outright reject that, that we have very much done our duty and done what’s necessary in expediting any processes that we have an involvement on. And certainly in terms of our diplomatic communication and the channel that we provide to some of these governments has been very active. So I just want to reject some of that reporting. Obviously, because of the Privacy Act, there’s some restrictions on how much I can say, but it has been frustrating to some of us to watch some news reporting implying something in that direction which is simply not true.”

So the State Department is quite clear here (Ventrell earlier said that what "the Privacy Act prohibits me from talking about [is] Mr. Snowden’s passport specifically"), and since the State Department is the entity that revoked Snowden's passport and knows when that happened, who is in a position to say State should not be relied on concerning this point?

The ABC News story should be paired with what State said rather than have the ABC News story alone, but I believe it is still misleading to have ABC paired against State because it is far from clear ABC intends to contradict State. The ABC story was written without the benefit of access to the later press briefing at State. It is quite possible that at the time ABC just assumed that if Snowden got away the U.S. must have moved too slowly. Most important, however, is ABC's acknowledgement that it is possible “Chinese officials simply were eager to wash their hands of him and let him go”

Yes, you can set it up as a “he said, she said” with a cite to ABC for “he said” and a cite to State for “she said” but there is a good argument for calling such an opposition WP:SYNTH. It's putting the material together in such a way as to try to suggest, yet again, that it's the U.S. government's fault that Snowden is in Russia as opposed to the "fault" of Snowden and/or Russia and/or China. The truth is more like "he said possibly A, maybe B, she said absolutely not anything but B (and she's in a better position to know)." ABC's report is too hedged to have a black/white contrast with State here, and is certainly too tenuous to support the added weight of being highlighted in the lede.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:25, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Brian, I do find that you can be fair and not impossible to work with. Thank you. I apologize that I missed your objection. If it contains WP:SYNTH, however, it won't fly. I have to ask that you try to give shorter summaries here that are heavy on WP:RS, instead of long blocks of text. The passport situation seems not to be clear to anyone. But I think it's time to leave this up to the community. Would you feel keen to start an RfC about what can be said from the sources? You have my blessing to go ahead and file. petrarchan47tc 04:00, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

• It appears Snowden has helped us out. He made comments today explaining his side of the story. I'll add that to the body. Maybe we don't need an RfC. petrarchan47tc 05:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I object to changing "however, Putin acknowledged" to "media reported that Putin stated". See WP:WEASEL. There are no grounds to water this down by moving from a direct statement to an indirect statement. To quote the Washington Post, "Putin CONFIRMED that Russian officials had been in touch with him while he was still in Hong Kong." That means keeping the link to what was confirmed (the Kommersant story), not trying to sever that link. THIS is a true "he said" versus "she said" situation. See also USA Today, which says the same thing: "Putin also gave the first OFFICIAL CONFIRMATION that Snowden had been in touch with Russian officials in Hong Kong before flying to Moscow on June 23". Please note the video there on the USA Today website. You can see Putin there being interviewed by AP International Editor John Daniszewski. There are no grounds here for injecting a "reportedly" or something like that here. That Putin acknowledged Snowden met with Russian officials in Hong Kong is as solid as you can get.--Brian Dell (talk) 06:50, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

The question is what would be the question to pose to RfC. The unsealing of the charges on Friday, June 21 set two things in motion at the same time: the revocation of Snowden's passport and Snowden's departure from Hong Kong. I don't believe Snowden won the race here but even if he did, what difference would that make? The U.S. clearly did not want him to travel onward from Hong Kong to anywhere, such that Snowden's claim that "the State Department decided they wanted me in Moscow" doesn't hold water no matter what angle you approach from. A former federal prosecutor has noted that "the decision to unseal the criminal charges Friday, possibly prompt[ed] Snowden to flee." And indeed, that's what happened, according to this BBC story, although the BBC suggests Snowden was pushed as opposed to having jumped:

...Mr Ho said he had a meeting with officials last Friday [June 21], which yielded no answers.

Somewhere around that time, a message was delivered to Mr Snowden through one of his supporters, purportedly by a person who claimed government status. Mr Ho said that person urged Mr Snowden to leave, and assured him that he would not be arrested if he left his safe house. ...
By this time, the US had made public the charges against Mr Snowden. He was feeling the heat.
Mr Ho said Mr Snowden at first intended to leave Hong Kong for Moscow on Saturday night. For some reason, perhaps because Mr Ho had made no progress with the Hong Kong official, he hesitated.

But by Sunday, Mr Snowden was ready to leave.... Mr Ho now believes the message delivered to Mr Snowden asking him to leave came from the Beijing government.

Does anyone really disagree that the Chinese made a political decision to let, or tell, Snowden go after reading this Washington Post article in full?
Note also that "Assange appears to have had a strong role in obtaining the travel document for Snowden, dated 22 June..." Why would Assange work out a travel document for Snowden dated Saturday, June 22? Because Snowden's passport was revoked that day and Assange knew it! Note that Assange lies to the New York Times, saying the document was issued Monday, June 17, but the document itself was later leaked with an issue date of June 22. Assange said he was "uncertain" whether Snowden could travel from Moscow to Ecuador with the document ("Different airlines have different rules, so it’s a technical matter whether they will accept the document" said Assange) but this of course just generates an "airline rules" excuse for Snowden stopping, for good, in Moscow. If “He left Hong Kong with that document", as Assange says, of what importance is the status of his passport? "Doc was for HK exit" tweeted Wikileaks, not necessarily to get him to Ecuador. Note that Assange told Rolling Stone: "While Venezuela and Ecuador could protect him in the short term, over the long term there could be a change in government. In Russia, he's safe, he's well-regarded, and that is not likely to change. That was my advice to Snowden, that he would be physically safest in Russia."
Snowden was ready to skedaddle that very evening, June 22, were it not for the fact that the carrier for that Saturday night flight, which leaves after midnight, is Cathay Pacific (Snowden's Aeroflot ticket must have been bought quite late, he wasn't even planning to go until after the developments of Friday, June 21, was going to fly on Cathay Pacific very early on Sunday the 23rd, and then ends up going on the Aeroflot flight near mid-day on the Sunday.) In the case of Aeroflot, we read in that first link that "The minute Aeroflot got the information that a certain person by the name of Snowden is about to buy a ticket, this information would be immediately transferred to the quote-unquote competent authorities. It would be a political decision to give him a ticket or deny him a ticket."--Brian Dell (talk) 06:28, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

TL:DR. I really can't deal with these long blocks of text - since you asked if I was willing to read it, I thought I'd better be very clear - no. Very short summaries, and reliable sources supporting what you say, will be read. petrarchan47tc 21:53, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

It is a long block of text because it is a long argument, extracting quotes from several different sources. If you were inclined to ever give my editing the benefit of the doubt, something shorter would suffice. If you wouldn't insist on edit warring with me, I would not have to write anything on this Talk page at all! I'll add that if it were black and white which sources were reliable and which are not there wouldn't be much disagreement here would there? I don't believe Wikileaks and Russian sources are generally reliable when it comes to Snowden but I haven't attempted blanket removal of claims cited to them because the question of reliability is nuanced and should be assessed on a case-by-case basis if there is a dispute. Whoever disagrees with me deserves my attention in this way.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:16, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

"seat reserved to fly on June 24 through Cuba"

I think "he had a seat reserved to fly on June 24" is too definitive. Note the following from the Guardian's June 23 timeline:

10.18am BST

The New York Times has managed to speak to an Aeroflot reservations agent who said Snowden's ticket to Moscow was one-way and didn't include any onward travel. Snowden was travelling with one other person, called Harrison, the agent said.

Snowden had already been in the air for half a dozen hours at 10:18 BST, such that we are not talking about a situation whereby Snowden still had time to add on an onward leg before leaving Hong Kong. So how did Reuters come to report that Snowden had booked a seat for an onward flight the next day?

10.37am BST

Interfax, the Russian news agency, is saying Snowden is set to fly on to Cuba. It's citing Aeroflot sources as saying there is a ticket in the American's name for a Moscow to Cuba flight, Reuters reports.

This brings me to the Reuters cite this bio is currently using for "he had a seat reserved to fly on June 24". That Reuters story is more than two months later and is primarily about Fidel Castro declaring that Cuba was not involved in Snowden failing to board an onward flight to Havana. The having the onward reservation was incidental to Reuters' August story and so for that little bit Reuters just dropped its earlier June elaboration that its source was a Russian news agency. In other words, this August 28 Reuters story does not indicate that Russian news agencies don't remain the ultimate source for all claims that Snowden had an onward ticket.

11.06am BST

It's possible Cuba could also be a staging point, according to Russian news agencies.

While both Interfax and Itar-Tass are now saying Snowden is booked on a Monday flight from Moscow to Havana, the latter is also citing an unnamed source as saying the American will then go on from Havana to Caracas in Venezuela.

Note that the additional information in the NYT snippet was that Harrison was on board, something subsequently confirmed, whereas ITAR-TASS says Snowden was moving on to Venezuela, something that not only hasn't been confirmed but conflicts with reports Snowden was Ecuador bound.
Now it's true that the claim Snowden's ticket to Moscow didn't include any onward travel isn't on the New York Times website any more. But the ready explanation for this is is that when other media outlets subsequently started saying there was an onward booking, the NYT took the conservative route of not standing in contradiction to other reports on the particular point when the NYT couldn't independently corroborate its own Aeroflot source. But the NYT DOES say this: "Russian news services reported that Mr. Snowden would take a Monday afternoon flight to Cuba, prompting a late rush for tickets from the horde of journalists gathered at the airport. But others dismissed it as a ruse to put the news media and others off Mr. Snowden’s trail." That the NYT should wish to raise the possibility that the onward ticket to Cuba is a mere "ruse" is significant. I believe that Wikipedia should follow the NYT's example here and, at a minimum, say that the onward reservation is according to Russian media.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:55, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

If you are mainly saying "let's attribute this to Russian media as the NYT did", then I agree 100%. If I've missed nay other points, let me know succinctly. petrarchan47tc 21:49, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'm saying. But if I JUST said that, somebody would complain when I replaced Reuters, saying I replaced material cited to a generally reliable source (which would be true). I wouldn't have had to say anything at all had @Binksternet not reverted me here with the complaint that my source preferences were politically biased. So I have explained why I think the NYT is the BETTER source to use here. Now if you would just concede that analyzing competing sources on a Talk page like this does not constitute WP:original research....--Brian Dell (talk) 02:38, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Tweaking marginal stuff from leaked media reports on Snowden is probably playing into hands of Intelligence handlers

A couple of competitive Wiki editors are swapping edits on Snowden's passport revocation and related public tidbits. Russian and other intelligence agencies involved behind the scenes in all this do not face the same constraints on public sourcing as Wikipedia. Snowden's undisclosed location in snowy Russia is known to media and various intelligence and law enforcement officials but is not published. It will become public someday and should be a case study for an after action repot of how far off Wikipedia edie are. Meantime, there is no need to sweat the small stuff of what is public and what Ms. Harrison and her friends want us to believe.Patroit22 (talk) 03:56, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

This should be down your alley. Perhaps you can use it to somehow generate a specific edit recommendation. Absent a specific edit recommendation, however, "This is not a forum for general discussion... Please limit discussion to improvement of this article"--Brian Dell (talk) 06:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC);

Brian. I made a pertinent suggested edit to limit what appears to be edit wars over marginal public media reports that fit the classical spy management use of fellow travelers. All to deep for discussion here and nerve published in main stream media. Enuf said.Patroit22 (talk) 03

49, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

"...thinks it’s a parasite from the local water..." ("U.S. official(s)" wanting to kill Snowden)

Is this not getting WP:UNDUE, detailing some anonymous person's assassination fantasy? The State Department position on these threats is that they have “no place in our discussion of these issues.” Wikipedia evidently disagrees, as there is currently a huge place given over to going on about these threats. Kucherena and Snowden certainly want to make hay out of these threats, with Snowden elevating these people to "officials" (a term Webster applies to those who have "a position of authority") despite the official "totally inappropriate" from the State Dept spokesman, and Wikipedia is becoming tendentious if it is continually turning over its platform to extended self-serving statements. "Doing the right thing means having no regrets." This is encyclopedic?

I might add here that it's an assumption that all of the words attributed to Snowden in that Q&A were handpicked by Mr Snowden himself. Snowden once wrote a 1000 word essay that Glenn Greenwald knew was indeed entirely by Snowden and Greenwald thought it "Ted Kaczynski-ish" and would not go over well with the public. We've now got someone who writes like he could rival Greenwald in sophistication. I'm reminded of that purported Snowden statement of dubious authenticity issued last summer that was "written in fluent Assangese".--Brian Dell (talk) 00:22, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I could add "no one knows whether Snowden was actually the person physically typing in the responses" to the article and cite that to NBC News, but I should hope we could agree that the better approach is to minimize our use of material attributed to Snowden without confirmation it is in fact Snowden's words to when it's necessary/appropriate to note a point of fact is disputed. "Doing the right thing means having no regrets" etc is really just polemics and removing that does not leave the reader less informed about the facts or possible facts.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I think it's not undue, actually it is a subdued version of what is being reported in media, which is that some wanted to put "a bullet in his head". If media wasn't going into detail about the assassination ideas, we wouldn't have the right to here either. But Kucherina's statement required context, and as you can see I did not go into detail initially. However, the reader needs to understand what Kucherina is complaining about regarding "real threats". petrarchan47tc 21:43, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Note: I did end up trimming the section whilst leaving enough detials for context. petrarchan47tc 23:00, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I understand that someone wants to put "a bullet in his head." But given that there may be hundreds of millions of people around the world with an opinion on Snowden, it's hardly news that a few people were found with extreme opinions. So why did Buzzfeed report this? How about because Buzzfeed wanted to do a story advising readers that while "the New York Times has called for clemency.... In intelligence community circles, Snowden is considered a nothing short of a traitor in wartime" and these "chilling" fantasies are given as examples? Where's your evidence that the threat is "real"? It's not in Buzzfeed, which also reported that "There is no indication that the United States has sought to take vengeance on Snowden... And the intelligence operators who spoke to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity did not say they expected anyone to act on their desire for revenge." The official State Department spokesperson then went on the record to note that there is absolutely zero chance a hit would ever be approved, never mind threatened, by someone actually in charge. Kucherena jumps on the Buzzfeed story to say his client needs more Kremlin-supplied security, private security won't do. Well of course he does. He isn't going to miss an opportunity to play up how much his client is being persecuted by a wrathful U.S. government seeking to maintain its power. It also serves the notion that Snowden wouldn't be safe outside the embrace of Mother Russia and must accordingly remain there. Disseminating anti-American propaganda is his job. But that doesn't mean we have to nod along with him. He really should be ignored as an unreliable source, or at a minimum the doubts about his credibility given to the reader, but I recall you arguing at length for deletion of any reference to the TIME story calling him "misleading" and that suppression continues to reign as I decided to not edit war over it. I might add that freesnowden.is has not been established as a reliable source either. You cite to this website, but note that the domain is registered to Assange and hosted on Wikileaks servers. Its reliability is therefore no higher than that of Wikileaks.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:58, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

This reads more like a rant than a talk page discussion. This statement, "It also serves the notion that Snowden wouldn't be safe outside the embrace of Mother Russia", makes me question whether you are capable of maintaining a neutral POV. Probably best to save phrases such as "the embrace of Mother Russia" for personal opinion rather than talk page space. Gandydancer (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you have anything to say about the article has opposed to me? See the top of this page: "Please limit discussion to improvement of this article." Of course I don't have a "neutral" POV. To quote from policy: "Problems arise when editors see their own bias as neutral". I'm a national security conservative, which in turn means that I'm going to be consistently on the short side of consensus given the libertarian majority on Wikipedia unless my position is so strong that people ideologically opposed to my point of view feel compelled to concede it. For many of those inclined to dispute my editing, unless a weight equivalent to the Library of Congress is dumped on them they'll continue to insist I have failed to present enough evidence and argument for them to stop edit warring.---Brian Dell (talk) 01:30, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

@Gandydancer I'll make another observation here about this particular statement of mine you find so objectionable. In an Associated Press wire we find "He said Kucherena's statements about concerns for Snowden's safety do not hold water." Who is "he"? Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and security analyst who frequently contributes to Index on Censorship. Soldatov is then quoted "We are all perfectly aware that Snowden, who has just received asylum, does not face any danger in Russia... This is a just a pretext." Since @Petrarchan47 refuses to accept that Kucherena has been using the latest threats as a pretext, my questioning that is directly relevant to the editing dispute.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:56, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Please stop POV pushing and OR-ranting. I am not arguing that this is big news, the media is doing that. It was widely reported that Snowden is seeking extra security, and why. That is what this paragraph is about. As I have said, I only added the details from Buzzfeed so that his lawyer's statement made sense. This isn't a paragraph about an article. If there was no fallout from the article, it wouldn't have been mentioned here. If you wish to pull quotations from the Buzzfeed piece, that would be a separate section - but it would also be undue unless the bits highlighted were discussed elsewhere. That is how I see it, anyway. Others may feel to weigh in. [I am officially 100% EXHAUSTED by Bdell555.] petrarchan47tc 00:21, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

My pushing back against your POV pushing is of course perceived as POV pushing to you. There is ranting here all right, but it is you ranting about being "100% EXHAUSTED". I have to write huge reams of text here to support all of my editing because you refuse to concede anything at all to my editing judgment unless you are buried in a mountain of evidence forcing you to concede the wisdom of my edits. I am exhausted by the unremitting and continual intransigence of yourself and your allies here but given your inclination to appreciate where those who don't agree with you are coming from, would it have ever occurred to you that all sides are exhausted here? You recently went to a notice board about another article, inviting others to weigh in and the response you got over there was "Brian Dell seems to be making the better argument". I have been continually referring to sources and providing arguments for why some sources are more reliable than others and why certain edits should be undertaken to render the article more neutral. You have to do due diligence to do a good job at that, due diligence you dismiss as original research instead of bothering to engage with it on a point by point basis. It's your dismissal of the importance of taking care that led to errors like your false statement that "The highlighted text above has received no objection" and your misattributing what the State Department said to the White House, just to take two examples.

With respect to the technical argument you seem to be trying to make for reverting me, your preferred version doesn't include "put a bullet in his head" despite the fact that the primary source for Kucherena's remarks is Russian news agencies and there we see Kucherena say "It's gone as far as some officers, who earlier served in special forces, saying they are ready to kill Edward." Now which threat came from someone who served in the Special Forces? Why, that would be the "I would love to put a bullet in his head" guy. I could add here that this same guy speaks of "having to do it in uniform", a qualifier that doesn't exactly add support to the contention the guy is a "real" risk to disobey orders and go rogue.--Brian Dell (talk) 01:15, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes Brian, you are exhausting. You said it yourself: "I have to write huge reams of text here to support all of my editing". There is a name for that, please see WP:TE, and please stop it. Gandydancer (talk) 01:36, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tendentious editing applies to article editing, not Talk page editing (except for formatting issues). There is also a name for what you are doing, which is repeatedly reverting another editor without discussing the edits at issue on the Talk page. It's called WP:Edit warring.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:02, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

That "Mother Russia" comment cements my impression that Bdell555 is not here to represent the topic neutrally. The attitude I'm seeing is classic WP:BATTLEFIELD, including edit summaries that sound like a line-in-the-sand challenge: "You want to hear from me less? Then stop fighting my editing at every turn. If you are going to insist on an edit war, I am [g]oing to discuss until the warring stops." Let's have shorter discussions of sourcing and wording, please. Binksternet (talk) 02:34, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I now see that when you reverted my replacing a Reuters cite with a NYT cite, you didn't even look at the content that you were reverting, you just saw that I had mentioned the Guardian and FOX in my last two edit summaries (which was to a different part of the article) and on that basis alone you rolled back all three of my edits to the last version by Petrarchan47. So in other words I wasted my time defending that change on this Talk page because you might not have had any objection at all had you realized what you were doing! My mistake for assuming you had a good faith objection to the edit itself as opposed to the editor, I suppose. This is what I mean by "hearing from me less": this Talk page could have been shorter had you directed your attention to the article.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:18, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Bdell555, looking at the last 24 hours you've already broke 3RR. So much for edit warring.TMCk (talk) 02:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Can you provide the diffs that prove this? I address this sort of attitude towards 3RR on my Userpage. Please do take your complaint about me to a noticeboard so we can get more people involved here. Currently, the new entrants to this thread are unwilling or unable to take a look at the EDITS here as opposed to the EDITOR.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:31, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

This "you are exhausting" talk is destructive, non constructive, and is contrary to the spirit of the project. Anyone who is too "exhausted" to address the good-faith concerns of their fellow editors ought to take a good long wikibreak, and consider focusing their efforts on less controversial subjects. That goes for all of you. Yes, including you, Petrarchan. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Mr. F, if you consider these contributions to be concerns worth your time, I implore you to respond to them and to help me. (And thank you for the advice, though I already have a doctor ;) petrarchan47tc 20:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:VOLUNTEER --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:45, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Let me be more specific, I implore you to point out what exactly good faith concerns you see? I can't sift through it, and it is tiring. You have apparently sifted through theses concerns, and maybe could show me what I'm missing with regard to article improvement. Thanks, petrarchan47tc 20:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Fleischman, we can do without your advice. Why go around trying to stir up trouble? Gandydancer (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Stay civil, assume good faith, and lay off the personal attacks. I haven't done any "sifting" and no one has presented any evidence of bad faith by anyone. If you two can't take my very simple suggestion to refrain from the "I am completely exhausted by you" and the "I can't sift through so-and-so's comments because they are tiring" comments, then you truly do need to take a break. Is that such an unreasonable suggestion? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:37, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidently Petrarchan47 wants to double-down on this, preferring to heighten the supposed U.S. government threat to kill Snowden even more in the article instead of addressing the many objections given above. This "threat" as Petrachan47 wishes to present it is an unfounded conspiracy theory. Buzzfeed clearly cited the threats in order to give examples of how angry some people in the intelligence community are at being betrayed, as opposed to revealing a previously unreported assassination plot brewing inside the government. That Snowden and Kucherena have misrepresented the Buzzfeed story by treating it as the latter in no way compels Wikipedia to do likewise. This does not mean ignoring the Buzzfeed story but it does mean not drawing on it selectively to mislead readers. Petrarchan47's effort here is of a piece, editing Wikipedia to insert the opinions of Sibel Edmonds. In fact Edmonds is a conspiracy theorist, a signer of the "9/11 Truth Statement" who went on the show of conspiracy theorist monger extraordinaire Alex Jones to declare that "The evidence points to a massive government cover-up." Jones asked her "if 9/11 was an inside job" and "Do you think the evidence is leaning towards that?" to which she replies "... I would say yes." Of course when editing Wikipedia Petrachan47 describes Edmonds solely a a "whistleblower" as opposed to "9/11 Truther." The time Wikipedia devotes to Wikipedia:Fringe theories must be subject to the appropriate WP:WEIGHT.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Please stop, bdell555. You must know by now that your POV is fine, but cannot be used to spin articles and it has no place on an article talk page. If Sibel is called a truther rather the a respected whistleblower, you'd have a point. And this isn't an invitation to go smear her wiki bio as you did Russ Tice originally. I am sick of cleaning up after you, and am not going to read your original research conspiracy crap on this talk page. You can't seem to keep it simple short and sweet because your points simply aren't supported by RS. petrarchan47tc 18:54, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Allow me to quote from Wikipedia:Edit_warring since you continue to misrepresent that policy: "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions, rather than trying to resolve the disagreement by discussion." You continue to evade the call to discuss because the discussion is not "short and sweet" enough for your tastes. Where in the policy is party A advised to tell the party B that party A is "not going to read" B? The issue here is both complex and detailed. If you don't have the time to engage it, you don't have to as long as you also cease edit warring. If my points are not supported by RS and sound analysis of their reliability then point out where and why. With respect to just who is pushing "conspiracy" theories here, I've asked to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard to weigh in on that.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

You wanted help from the noticeboard, you've got it. Now please, kindly Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass before you get even more wound up and wind up needing a time-out. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you have anything substantive to say about the Wikipedia edits being disputed here, Hector? Please DO seek my getting banned as doing so might involve more editors and perhaps one of them will decide to get into the weeds here and address what is supposed to be the issue here, which is the editing of this article.--Brian Dell (talk) 20:13, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Upcoming interview

For those who are interested:

On 26 January 2014, Snowden will be giving a 30-minute pre-recorded interview on German TV. As far as I know, this will probably be his first television interview and it it's going to be a rather long one, so there may be new information that could be included in this article. -A1candidate (talk) 22:48, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Ich habe in vielen jahren nicht Deutsch studium... petrarchan47tc 23:04, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

• Interview preview - NSA engaged in economic spying, claims Showden Deutsche Welle; 26.01.2014; permalink

• Interview in English

• Transcript

The Snowden-Interview in English

• From NDR - Norddeutscher Rundfunk, a public radio and television broadcaster in northern Germany: https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en

Restoring talk page section & the definition of TL:DR

Too long: Didn't read referred to entries, not sections, on this talk page. It is not OK to remove an entire section using this excuse, especially when it serves to hide a concerted effort to POV push. (It is concerning that this effort to smear 'whistleblowers' extends to other articles as well, and that even after going to the BLP noticeboard, I receive no help in restoring a neutral biography to the Pedia.) petrarchan47tc 19:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

The original section is still there. Brian's last rv. only removed his last resp. which is ok.TMCk (talk) 20:12, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

You know, you're right... (and maybe I do need a break). petrarchan47tc 20:14, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually s/he did remove the entire section--I restored it. Gandydancer (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Were I to say more here than just that I never take removing another's comments lightly I'd be adding yet more talk to talk about the Talk page.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:57, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

…...Magnificent Clean-keeper-Can you explain to Wiki novices like me what this means? Brian and petrachant47 seem to be making edit after edit on points that do little to making the entry a neutral biography and there seems to be an attempt to delete rather short talk sections while the whole talk page drones on and on with their bickering. Thanks for any explanation. Patroit22 (talk) 22:11, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Nothing unusual. It's called wiki-editing :)) TMCk (talk) 00:59, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's look at an example of what we have to do here at Wikipedia by looking at today's news. It's been reported that Snowden said "If there's information at [the German multinational] Siemens that's beneficial to U.S. national interests — even if it doesn't have anything to do with national security — then [U.S. intelligence]'ll take that information nevertheless." Now do we just add that to this biography of Snowden? An NSA spokesman has e-mailed the Washington Post to say that "The [Defense] department [which the NSA is a part of] does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber." The BBC has named a former White House official who insisted last October that "the US does not engage in industrial espionage... If it was for industrial purposes, it would be basically a violation of US policy." Should Wikipedia just repeat Snowden's claim and note that U.S. officials dispute it? That's usually the simplest and safest approach but that sometimes isn't the best because 1) it treats both claims as equally credible and 2) to some extent the two sides may be talking past each other: have they both defined "industrial espionage" in the same way such that it's a true he said/she said? Our mandate is to allow readers to make the most informed decision possible about whom to believe, which may be both, subject to not spending too much of the article space on the matter.

With respect to (1), to date I have been more sceptical of the factual accuracy of statements attributed to Snowden than Petrarchan47. Here, when I see Snowden state in the same interview, "These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower" I find it remarkable how "neatly and suspiciously" Snowden's statements serve Russia's purposes. See my controversial "Mother Russia" comment above.

With respect to (2), I would note that nuance and precision matters because in other countries many companies are government-directed, blurring the line between state and private institutions. And as US DNI Clapper has said, "We collect this information for many important reasons: for one, it could provide the United States and our allies early warning of international financial crises which could negatively impact the global economy. It also could provide insight into other countries' economic policy or behavior which could affect global markets. [But] What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of – or give intelligence we collect to – US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line." If the definition is providing U.S. private business with government intelligence data for commercial gain, I would argue that the U.S. does not do it, for various reasons. Does Snowden's claim clearly assert that the U.S. does do this?

So, given this background, what do you think Wikipedia should do with Snowden's comment here?--Brian Dell (talk) 04:45, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia should do what it always do. Write about both sides, and let the reader determin how credible each statement is. If we make a decision about the credibility of one or the other statement, we have to invoked the WP:Verifiability policy, and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable source. ECHELON#Examples of industrial espionage is to me enough to challange any statement from NSA which claim that they do not commit acts of industrial espionage. Belorn (talk) 10:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

We don't "always" just "write about both sides" if one side is a WP:FRINGE view. WP:Verifiability is indeed an issue here, but primarily with respect to some of the remarks that have been attributed to Snowden. Is freesnowden.is a reliable source? Is there anything to back up Snowden's allegations of industrial espionage (if he's that's clearly what he's alleged) beyond the fact he alleged it? I don't find those examples you call attention to very convincing. U.S. intelligence exposes Saudi and Brazilian officials taking bribes, and this leads to missed contacts for the foreign bribe payer. Exposing Airbus' and Alcatel's corruption is hardly equivalent to stealing their technology and handing it over to their private U.S. competitors. The bottom line is that Wikipedia should not be pushing the POV that what the U.S. has been doing is the moral equivalent of what the Chinese/Russian/French have been doing unless reliable sources support that contention.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Caprarescu accuses CIA and SRI of staging the case of Edward Snowden

I propose to add the following text as the last paragraph of chapter "Reaction" before section "Debate":

Bogdan Alexandru Caprarescu published a document called "The Secret Organized Crime" in which he accuses an international criminal organization composed of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), and presumably other secret services of many crimes including the staging of the case of Edward Snowden. In the same document Caprarescu witnesses that CIA and SRI read the thoughts of people and control the bodies of people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bogdan.caprarescu (talk • contribs) 12:06, January 29, 2014‎

I appreciate your bringing this to a talk page, rather than just inserting it, but we're not going to include your conspiracy theories in any of the articles you've been trying to edit. It's self-published, self-promotion, soapboxing, not supported in reliable sources, among other issues. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:12, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not done Welcome to Wikipedia! Unfortunately the content you're proposing violates several of Wikipedia's policies and cannot be added. Most importantly, material must be verifiable using published reliable sources such as newspapers or other media with editorial review. The sources you cite aren't reliable because they appear to be self-published. In addition, based on your username you appear to be engaged in self-promotion, which is not allowed. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:16, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Typo

Typo in sentence (reference number 371): Glascow should be Glasgow? Scratchmarc (talk) 21:01, 29 January 2014 (UTC)scratchmarc

Fixed, thanks. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:05, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Pls review Bdell555's edits

In a posting on an unrelated noticeboard, I found this user to be propagating a very gross violation of BLP, accusing a notable living person of being a "truther", although that assertion was not backed up by the article text. The passion with which Bdell brought to his statement suggests his passions are running high.

I have no reason to believe Bdell would knowingly propagate falsehoods, but having caught one error on a different BLP article, and having noticed the same user was involved in a lot of passionate editing here at this BLP article, I'd like to encourage people to just do a quick double-check of Bdell's contributions-- just to "check his work" and make sure it meets the high standards we set for our articles.

Bdell555, if you read this-- it's often easiest to edit articles where your passions are least inflamed. NPOV is easiest to achieve when you're genuinely neutral. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd asked for a review here for edits related to another NSA whistleblower, to no avail. Thank you for helping to call attention to this. petrarchan47tc 20:04, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd say it was to some "avail", since someone chimed in to say "Brian Dell seems to be making the better argument", something everyone here could have seen had you not selectively omitted that in your diff here, petrarchan47. And on that note, I'd also ask Hector to henceforth direct his readers to the "unrelated noticeboard" when accusing other editors of "very gross violation"s so that readers can decide for themselves whether the editor you accuse is guilty as charged. In this case, it is in regard to Sibel Edmonds on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Given that another editor there is of the view that Edmonds is "absolutely a 9/11 conspiracy theorist" if I'm guilty of gross violations I've got company. Besides that, I never, in fact, ever edited Edmonds' BLP making it a bit difficult for me to have actually committed an "error on a different BLP article"! And do rest assured that my edits are already receiving very critical and skeptical treatment around here, Hector. In fact, as I've noted before on this Talk page, my work is not infrequently reverted without it even being read (that is, my work is reverted simply because I wrote it).--Brian Dell (talk) 21:23, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Can someone please provide a diff showing where Brian Dell accused someone of being a "truther?" --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:43, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Sibel_Edmonds.27_allegations_of_coverups_by_the_media_and_U.S._government petrarchan47tc 02:40, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I already pointed everyone to that discussion, Petrarchan. I just did it in such a way that when the noticeboard turns over, people can still find the discussion by using the search box. In that discussion I did point out Sibel Edmonds has signed the 9/11 "Truth Statement" and appeared on the Alex Jones Show to agree with Mr Jones that "the evidence is leaning towards" "an inside job". Note, however, that even if, with no small indulgence, we assume that making these observations constitutes "a very gross violation of BLP", according to Hector I made the "error on a BLP article", not on some other Wiki page. Yet I never made any edits on that BLP. This is just a "smear campaign" against me, if I may borrow a term of art from Petrarchan47.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

My understanding was that Hector was referring to your editing at Russ Tice, which was indeed a smear job - when every reliable source presents his being fired after whistle-blowing as obvious retaliation, or at least suspicious, you decided to present to the world a biography of a living person whose beginning paragraph details his being fired, and the result of an NSA psychological evaluation. You decided to wikilink "psychotic" and gave no indication that there were ever questions about this firing (there was indeed a Pentagon investigation into it) nor did you share any response from Tice or anyone else who had commented - only the official government line. That is a smear campaign. petrarchan47tc 06:21, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Every clause in your statement here can be refuted but I will decline to do so here simply because this Talk page is supposed to be about Edward Snowden, not someone else. I will note, however, that you took that other BLP to the BLP Noticeboard and the only third party input you received was that "Brian Dell seems to be making the better argument".--Brian Dell (talk) 04:21, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

A talk page comment about someone being a "truther" (without directly including the name of the person being referred to) is a "very gross violation of BLP" that merits a complete review of the editors contributions? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I think Hector has reason to be concerned, and my post just above with regard to edits made at Russ Tice shows very clearly an anti-whistleblower POV being used to attack pages of living people. I also think Hector put it a bit more mildly in a way that makes sense: "just do a quick double-check of Bdell's contributions-- just to "check his work" and make sure it meets the high standards we set for our articles". Bdell555 has spoken disparagingly about whistleblowers publicly, but sees nothing troubling about making major edits to their pages, indeed focusing on them. Normally when one is found to have made tendentious edits and has made public statements like some he has made, it is considered a normal course of action to check on the work. Do you care to comment on these edits made to Russ Tice? petrarchan47tc 22:21, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

You and Hector have every right to be concerned about whatever you want -- but a gross violation of BLP this is not. And your constant accusations of POV-pushing are tendentious and grossly hypocritical. Glass houses, all that. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:28, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

A "normal course of action" to some might appear to be WP:HOUNDING ("singling out of one or more editors... in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work") to others. Why did I add the opinion of whistle-blower Frank Snepp to this article if I thought whistleblowers in general were unreliable and their opinions not worthy of notice? Perhaps one person's whistleblower is another person's conspiracy theorist and distinguishing who is who requires a case-by-case assessment.--Brian Dell (talk)

Mike Masnick / Techdirt

The article cites Techdirt on multiple occasions. Note that Techdirt has been discussed on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard in the past and the view was that what we have here is a blog. A review of recent headlines would also suggest a blog, e.g. "Microsoft And IBM: If Patent Office Can Do A Quick Review Of Our Crappy Patents, You'll All Die In A Car Crash", "Congressional Moral Panic Over The Fact That Prostitutes Now Use Twitter", "UK Continues Its War On Innovation And The Public, At The Urging Of The Major Labels". I don't believe "United Kingdom Continues Its War On The Public" is the sort of title you'd find in an authoritative, less tendentious source. It is, however, what one would expect in a blogpost.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:40, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The full response from the RS noticeboard was that it could be used. Well TechDirt is a blog, although it's a blog that has received "Best of the Web" awards from Business Week and Forbes according to their web site. If Sanger has gone out of his way to pick on TechDirt, and if that fact is newsworthy (and I'm not saying that it is), then I think it's appropriate to include what TechDirt has to say.

Please list the exact claims sourced to TechDirt that you find problematic. petrarchan47tc 06:12, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that blog sources are not automatically not acceptable sources. That is a misunderstanding. I'd like to see where it is used as well. Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 21:39, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that "The Fact That The US Intelligence Community So Readily Admits To Fantasies Of Killing Ed Snowden Shows Why They Can't Be Trusted" in particular should be removed from this article. Is this blogpost title an indisputable fact or someone's opinion? Note that there is no original reporting in this blogpost, just opinion on other reports, and in this particular area the author has no particular expertise. I would also note here that Masnick's political POV on this issue and related ones like copyright is especially extreme.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:56, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

UK demands smashing the Snowden/Guardian drive

Headline: Smashing of Guardian hard drives over Snowden story 'sinister', says Amnesty

• http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/21/smashing-snowden-hard-drives-sinister
  • Quote: "Rights campaigners say pressure on Guardian to destroy drives containing material from whistleblower poses threat to freedom."

Can this go in the article? — Probably, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 02:50, 1 February 2014 (UTC) Can someone put this in?

Headline: CHILLING VIDEO SHOWS JOURNALISTS DESTROYING SNOWDEN HARD DRIVES UNDER WATCH OF INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS

• http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/01/chilling-video-shows-journalists-destroy-snowden-hard-drives-under-watch-of-intelligence-officials/

This article has video and pictures of the computer components. FYI, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 23:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Feedback from an NSA employee

There's a related discussion at Talk:Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013–present)#Feedback_from_an_NSA_employee that may be of interest to editors here.

-A1candidate (talk) 03:12, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I've copied the beginning answer here (with more to come), as the information is pertinent to this article: petrarchan47tc 22:03, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The editors of the US Guardian, the New York Times, as well as Barton Gellman from the Washington Post - all of whom received a large portion of the Snowden docs - spoke at the Columbia School of Journalism on January 30. You can view the panel discussion here. What I gathered, and can share from memory FWIW, was that all of the editors who received docs agreed with Snowden's demand that nothing released would hurt the US, but that it be solely in the public interest. The Guardian editor went into detail about this process: literally combing though, line by line, any pending report with the sole purpose of determining whether it would do harm, and whether it would benefit the public. Barton Gellman stresses that all of the news organizations have worked directly with government officials with every revelation to help make these determinations. He said as always, when reporting on matters of national interest, government officials are consulted before a story goes to print. He said the Post may not always choose to suppress a story based on the gov't recommendations, but they often do. Do listen to these people in their own words tell the story of this release.

• Is the media acting as a filter? Yes, absolutely. Snowden is involved with none of this process.
• Do the media have everything from Snowden? Snowden has nothing, he has given all of his copied documents to the press.
• How do they decide what to report? This is well-covered in the video. (It's a very interesting story.)

Per Glenn Greenwald

"Snowden "had only sought to alert people that information they thought was private was being exploited by US intelligence agencies...Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States...But that's not his goal".

From a review of the Columbia panel:

"Noting varying degrees of government pressure on both sides of the Atlantic, Guardian US editor Janine Gibson and New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson stressed that respecting the right of news organizations to report on sensitive materials was in the government's interest as well, since otherwise the material would simply find its way out in a completely haphazard way without regard for any journalistic responsibility, which was also the outcome Edward Snowden hoped to avoid."

Whether the media has everything is disputed, as the media has not acknowledged holding 1.7 million documents collectively. See Jesselyn Radack challenging the 1.7 million number as "coming from the government."--Brian Dell (talk) 05:02, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

New bio from the Guardian

I don't have time to go through it, but there's plenty to look at here: How Edward Snowden went from loyal NSA contractor to whistleblower Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:53, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 February 2014

In the Sam Adams Award section, the link links to Samuel Adams the founding father... instead of Samuel A. Adams the CIA whistle blower for Vietnam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A._Adams 24.185.103.162 (talk) 03:35, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

fixed --Kmhkmh (talk) 03:44, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Alternative Christmas Message

Re. this edit, at least a summary of the message is needed, with or w/o quotes. The edit summary reads: "an award is not a platform for extensive quoting of subject's POV statements", but the message (not an award BTW) is about giving an individual a platform for their POV, isn't it?TMCk (talk) 02:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

"the address focussed on the importance of privacy and the need for an end to government surveillance" looks sufficient to me. The article is already quite lengthy.--Brian Dell (talk)

Well, space/length is not an issue here and I think a little bit more than what is given now is warranted. But talking about length, the part about who "filmed, edited and produced" it is of no importance/value and can go. Let's wait and see if this is getting some further input and go from there.TMCk (talk) 04:25, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Consideration for University of Glasgow rectorship

I removed the paragraph about Snowden being considered for the University of Glasgow rectorship, since it doesn't seem particularly notable that he's being considered it (as opposed to actually receiving it). This change was reverted by Petrarchan47 with the summary: "sorry, dr. F, you'll need consensus to remove this (and the ret, but we will start here)." This is not a proper basis for a reversion, or put another way, this was an insufficient edit summary. If you want to revert something you should explain why; otherwise the reversion is just a vote (and we don't vote). Right now we seem to have a consensus of 1. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:46, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I should have said "see you at talk", because that what I meant, as you can see by the time stamp in the section below. I saw an indication recently that you consider me impossible to work with, and I hope you aren't bringing some personal issues here to this artifice.

You can see the edit history of the article to see that multiple editors felt the Glasgow nomination was highly noteworthy and took part in updating the article. Your "it's no big deal" may be US centricity as work. It was seen as a big deal in Europe, from what I understand. petrarchan47tc 05:57, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with DrFleischman. It isn't particularly notable. Capitalismojo (talk) 13:06, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Seeking consensus on recent content removal

Recent changes saw the deletion of Snowden's Glasgow nomination, the Nobel nom (which makes number four), and much more. Please review the changes by comparing the versions prior to Dr. F, and just after. I've replaced the Glasgow section, as it was the work of three or four people, so has consensus. The Nobel is the same story, but I wanted to allow others to weigh in. I am still in disagreement about Dr F's removal this summer of the section about Snowden's White House petition (which has now over 150,000 signatures and remains ignored). Dr F singlehandedly decided that needn't be mentioned here - and I see a similar pattern repeating. Other wiki pages have White House petitions, unquestionably. Is this an anti-Snowden decision? This editing doesn't make sense otherwise.

I would like to get a group consensus about whether we should ignore the Nobel noms, the White House petition, and the Glasgow nom. petrarchan47tc 05:50, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I think there is no simple yes or no to that. Though I don't necessarily support te removal, the poster one further up is correct in asking for reports one the notable/reliable media. Another thing si that nominations and considerations are a bit of grey area. There are certainly case where nominations are considered noteworthy per se (like Academy Awards nominations), but nobel prize nomination are a bit iffy imho. There are often "odd" nominations, that are no always mentioned in the biographies of the concerned persons (at least my personal impression). Btw. the coverage by notable/reputable/reliable media doesn't have to be English, in particular since there is a lot of non English media coverage in "affected" countries. An important petition with media coverage currently missing is for instance one in Brazil ([1], [2], [3],[4], [5] ), which is one of the largest out there (over 1 million (Brasilian) signatures by now).--Kmhkmh (talk) 07:22, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Each of those additions should be dealt with individually. Kmh makes good points. Capitalismojo (talk) 13:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Interveiw from ARD Cencured in USA ?

It's a french info (from here), I don't know if it's right ... --:-) 5 février 2014 à 15:13 (CET) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smily (talk • contribs) 14:15, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't ad the retranscription in the article : so I post it here Retranscription disponible en anglais (FreeSnowden.is) ...We'll see it's realy censured. --:-) 5 février 2014 à 15:19 (CET)