Yet another Hacker News

What happened to the Snowden archive

174 points EXHades 3 hours ago 76 comments

cocodill 2 hours ago | parent

If you leak it, leak it everywhere!

Barbing 1 hour ago | parent

IIRC he tried to find people he could trust to redact in a way that would protect US national security interests.

anotherhue 2 hours ago | parent

I think the real answer is the Overton window shifted to accommodate what was previously scandalous,

motionlessveloc 35 minutes ago | parent

This is part of it. Previously governments felt the need to hide skullduggery, but the Trump admin doesn't even bother to pay lip service to this, so to the public revelationa about whatever the Obama admin was up top don't really register. And the political polarization where the mere word "Obama" gets half the population for thing at the mouth doesn't help.

All that said, it doesn't explain the total radio silence we've seen for years now.

ericyd 2 hours ago | parent

[flagged]

jdiff 2 hours ago | parent

It's really never been the worst thing. From MKUltra to Operation Sea-Spray and many, many more.

all2 2 hours ago | parent

Those are all conspiracy theories. ;)

DubiousPusher 1 hour ago | parent

What? MKUlta is absolutely not a conspiracy theory.

esseph 1 hour ago | parent

They are saying it tongue-in-cheek, and even added an emoji for additional emphasis of that point.

c0nducktr 1 hour ago | parent

I'm assuming the winking emoji was used to indicate sarcasm.

riddley 1 hour ago | parent

Neither of those are theories. Both are well documented and have had public hearings and governmental disclosure.

joe_the_user 1 hour ago | parent

The Palmer Raids involved mass detention and deportation without trial. These raids were significant because they happened under Federal authority. US repression certainly involved torture and mass murder previously but mostly done locally (and sure, respond, "that was 'just' done to slaves and indians").

"The individuals captured during the Palmer raids were held in abysmal conditions: at Deer Island, six hundred prisoners were placed in barracks intended to house three hundred, with no heat and dwindling food; many were marched through Boston in chains and handcuffs, showered with the spit and trash of bystanders. In Detroit, eight hundred prisoners were crammed into a windowless corridor with only one working bathroom and no beds. At Ellis Island, hundreds of men were forced to sleep on steel slabs without mattresses."

Edit: Down voted without comment after being upvoted. I seldom reply but this is an exception - cowards!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_raids

jojobas 1 hour ago | parent

Two dead and few dozen ill doesn't quite sound like the worst thing. Random street cops do that to more people for no good reason in any given year.

N_Lens 1 hour ago | parent

The level of desensitisation…

Dylan16807 1 hour ago | parent

Not really? It's just trying to make an honest ranking.

bflesch 2 hours ago | parent

In 2026 these kind of articles must be a bait to receive the latest pegasus-style payload on your honeypot devices.

No matter how many internals are being leaked about five eyes, it's important to realize that there is always someone who benefits from the turmoil and the loss of faith into democratically-supervised institutions.

With technical agencies I'd guess that at least they promoted people based on technical merit and not by how much land ownership their families had 500 yrs ago.

iamnothere 2 hours ago | parent

Be afraid, folks. Don’t read about the man behind the curtain, you’re better off knowing nothing. I’m sure everything is a-ok even without public supervision. Trust the authorities.

Forgeties79 2 hours ago | parent

That’s a gross misrepresentation of their point.

fn-mote 2 hours ago | parent

I read the GGP comment several times and I still have no idea what their point is.

Bait… Pegasus… honeypot? What? Decoding: is this indicating you’re ready with the honeypot to detect attempts to compromise you? Still makes little sense.

What democratically supervised institutions are being alluded to?

godwinson__4-8 44 minutes ago | parent

They are talking about tradeoffs.

It's perfectly coherent to anyone who understands a) what a state is and b) not all states are equally bad. States are by their nature, necessarily violent. Their primary purpose is to prevent lethal intergroup violence and blood feuds. One doesn't do this merely by asking nicely. This is where the violence comes in. At some level this tradeoff is baked into every human, as with most pack animals. It's why so much of violence is posturing - ie creating off-ramps to bad trades.

The bait/honeypot part should be the least controversial element to someone with your apparent sentiments. This is a rather common tactic, likely around as old as states themselves.

None of this is to excuse or endorse any action. Just because states are observed to be certain way does not create some normative statement. I'm simply pointing out the coherence of the comment you alleged had none.

iamnothere 29 minutes ago | parent

> Their primary purpose is to prevent lethal intergroup violence and blood feuds.

[citation needed]

Historically, at least initially, their primary purpose was to allow tribes to organize themselves in a way that would support labor-intensive farming practices. Large-scale early grain farming was not possible without an organized state.

As technological complexity grew, states grew as well. I’d argue that the closest thing to a primary “purpose” for states (not that there is one, states evolved organically) is to maintain the organization of industrial supply chains that perpetuate modern life. Defense is secondary; still important, but this comes after ensuring that resources are available to sustain life.

States are currently the primary perpetuators of violence, and they are presently faltering at their job of maintaining global resource flows, thanks to all the violence. If they fail completely, we all lose.

markdown 2 hours ago | parent

> the loss of faith into democratically-supervised institutions.

Surely you mean oligarch-supervised institutions.

Our institutions are supervised by representatives elected on the dime of corporate and billionaire benefactors. They pull the strings.

It became a banana republic when money became speech.

pluc 2 hours ago | parent

Eh, the outrage never really materialized into anything worth continuing the leaks. Look at the Epstein files. "They" can just wait it out.

BLKNSLVR 2 hours ago | parent

The banality of the day after outrage.

tasty_freeze 22 minutes ago | parent

JD Vance, VP of the USA, recently said that if Watergate happened today it wouldn't last a 24 hour news cycle. I don't know if his intent was to minimize the crime of the acting President ordering a break in of his opponent or if Vance was inadvertently admitting that the stuff Trump is doing is so much worse than Watergate.

BLKNSLVR 11 minutes ago | parent

Both.

The first part because the second part.

harry8 2 hours ago | parent

The difference is the epstein files have been massively overhyped and imagination has led sense.

Real content in the files has caused serious trouble to the moron formerly known as "Prince Andrew" and to Peter Mandelson. This content wasn't some massive pedo consipracy but more common or garden finance sleaze - providing govt. inside info that could be used for trading profits.

Seems Epstein was a more commonplace sleazy creep into young prostitutes getting him into age of consent trouble in some states but not others. This more than some cia/mossad front of blackmailing the powerful with horrific acts done to children.

But absolutely all of it should be dug through, read, understood and prosecuted on the basis of actual evidence of any and all crime. What's there seems less good for selling clickbait-y podcasts or using as an emotional cudgel in politics. Hysteria rarely works out in a positive way.

iamnothere 2 hours ago | parent

Epstein was primarily a money man, but you’ll notice that this gets zero coverage. I guarantee there’s a lot of serious dirt there that will never see the light of day.

It’s almost better for the people involved if the public keeps focusing on the most outrageous aspects of the story. (And it is quite outrageous, and terrible, to be fair.)

joe_the_user 1 hour ago | parent

This more than some cia/mossad front of blackmailing the powerful with horrific acts done to children.

IDK, the CIA/mossad pedophile part seems significant.

I don't think ordinary people upset at young girls being exploited for the purpose of blackmailing people are being 'naive' or something. Sure, it all pales in comparison to genocide X foreign land but people getting riled by that stuff too.

pixl97 1 hour ago | parent

Quite a large amount of people have little empathy. Someone getting blown up somewhere else is a them problem. "I've never been blown up, they must have done something wrong to deserve it (I have heard things like this come out of peoples mouths)". Now, quite often those same people with little empathy have their own children therefore have an empathetic connection to the theoretical victim allowing them to contemplate the terror those children experienced. This allows the situation to be much more viceral to them. Also, pedophila is an act that is highly stimtized in most places in the world so the social shame and disgust phenomenon also applies.

riddley 1 hour ago | parent

By what standards are the files "overhyped" ? Also to what hysteria do you refer? What would we experience if it was a massive pedo conspiracy of extremely rich and powerful people? Would they all just line up and turn themselves in?

ParentiSoundSys 1 hour ago | parent

"It's not in the officially released files that the government itself provided, therefore it didn't happen" is the level of 'reasoning' going on here.

oefrha 42 minutes ago | parent

> the ~government~ implicated itself provided

FTFY. Almost one and the same here but gives more context.

colordrops 1 hour ago | parent

He had deep ties with Israel and Mossad and it's very likely the dirt they have on Trump is possibly the reason we are at war with Iran and bringing the world to the brink of WW3. It's wild to call it underhyped, if anything quite the opposite. It's heavily redacted and the worst half of it hasn't even been released.

Barbing 56 minutes ago | parent

> Seems Epstein was a more commonplace sleazy creep into young prostitutes getting him into age of consent trouble in some states but not others.

Age of consent is eleven in which states?

joe_the_user 1 hour ago | parent

Worth noting that nothing that could possibly be called the "The Epstein Files" was released and this is how the situation is understood by the public.

BLKNSLVR 2 hours ago | parent

The term "responsible disclosure" may no longer have any meaning.

"Irresponsible disclosure" for the short term may be equivalent to "responsible disclosure" for the long term.

There must be some pretty dark stuff yet to be disclosed, and/or some pretty overt threats for those relatively fearless journalists to close ranks. The "Assange example" may have done its job perfectly.

iamnothere 2 hours ago | parent

Not just Assange, basically everyone involved except maybe Poitras took a hit. Appelbaum was driven out of his work with Tor (and from public life) after a smear campaign, Greenwald had to shift to alt media, and Snowden had to flee the country. Other journalists and editors “moved on” from their work with the papers.

Snowden did ask them not to get into any direct military secrets that were in the leaks, so that could explain some of the restraint.

Arainach 1 hour ago | parent

> Greenwald had to shift to alt media

Greenwald didn't "have" to do anything. His politics took a sharp turn towards the right-wing fringe and he lost his original audience.

starkd 1 hour ago | parent

Or maybe he just realized that politics is just one big club and he ain't in it. And neither are the people.

iamnothere 1 hour ago | parent

His politics have been remarkably consistent over time. He’s always been a slightly left-leaning, anti-war civil libertarian who is deeply suspicious of government, particularly the US government. He’s been posting lately about how Trump has been starting or expanding unjust wars and cracking down on press freedom. That’s hardly a “right-wing fringe” slant.

bdangubic 59 minutes ago | parent

if he is slightly left leaning than Bernie is farthest of the far right US politicians

Arainach 51 minutes ago | parent

Since 2016, he's appeared repeatedly in conservative outlets (including pushing conspiracy theories about Ukraine), gotten fired for uncritically pushing unsubstantiated claims from the Trump campaign as journalism, hosted a video podcast giving a voice to folks like RFK Jr.

Other than speaking up against the surveillance state, he's been solidly aligned with conservative viewpoints.

iamnothere 43 minutes ago | parent

He endorsed Bernie through 2023 when he (accurately) noted Sanders shifting away from anti-war/anti-imperialism positions, which seems to be Greenwald’s #1 focus. He was opposed to what he saw as the Biden admin’s role in perpetuating the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Biden-era “counter-disinformation” initiatives, which he is unsurprisingly opposed to. He maintains these positions under Trump while conservatives have moved against them; they are not “conservative” positions.

I’m not opposed to people hosting interviews with political opponents, and reasonable people shouldn’t be opposed to that either.

Arainach 28 minutes ago | parent

By 2023, it's not "hosting interviews with political opponents" - it's obvious that giving a voice and publicity to people like RFK Jr. is actively harmful to society. Freedom of speech means we don't throw RFK in jail, but no one has to publicize his views.

iamnothere 26 minutes ago | parent

I disagree with you. It’s important to understand the perspectives of people actively involved in politics. Even (perhaps especially) those with fringe beliefs.

somenameforme 10 minutes ago | parent

RFK was also a lifelong Democrat. Not that long ago anti-war, pro free speech, anti 'big brother', anti illegal-immigration, anti political violence, anti mega-corp (especially big pharma), and other such stuff was all part of a very typical liberal 'resume.' Now it's more or less the exact opposite on many of these points.

It's not people's views that are really changing, but those of the parties. A complete liberal from not that long ago would now be deemed a conservative by the DNC. I think that's a problem for the DNC that needs to be tackled, because it's self defeating.

2028, after this presidency, should be an overwhelmingly massive landslide the likes of Reagan-Mondale. But it's going to be a coin flip, and this sort of otherizing is precisely why.

aaron_m04 1 hour ago | parent

So are you saying Applebaum was framed?

iamnothere 59 minutes ago | parent

I am not party to all the information, but he was never charged for the alleged misconduct and Die Zeit’s investigation didn’t find it convincing. Given how the Assange allegations fell apart, I think there’s a non-zero possibility that it was a defamation campaign.

He didn’t help himself with some public conduct/comments that painted him unfavorably. So there is that aspect to consider. But the scope of the campaign against him felt excessive at the time, to me.

WarOnPrivacy 47 minutes ago | parent

A longish life has taught me to believe vulerable women who open themselves to ridicule, mistreatment and attack for outing more-powerful men who harmed them.

The women who outed Jason Applebaum knowingly opened themselves to some harsh treatment. I believe them.

LastTrain 48 minutes ago | parent

Why must there be?

rtpg 1 hour ago | parent

This article linked back to the intercept's snowden archive articles [0], and while this article paints the Intercept in a bad light it lead me to reading a couple of these.

While I heard many of the headlines the reporting is very in depth, including a bunch of smaller details worth poking into. I'd recommend people who are interested and who haven't done so yet to just read a couple of these.

[0]: https://theintercept.com/series/snowden-archive/

Coeur 1 hour ago | parent

Snowden got into action because he believed that the US was fundamentally good and needed to get back on track. Over the past 12 years, in the US and around the world, this belief completely vanished. Whatever remains in the archive no longer holds any valuable news.

BLKNSLVR 1 hour ago | parent

Therefore there should be no harm in releasing it.

firesteelrain 57 minutes ago | parent

People became ambivalent. Snowden fled eventually to Russia. Some people viewed him less relevant over time as the archive merely trickled out. When he fled to Russia, he looked less like a martyr and more like a national security information leaker or spy like Robert

A lot of what sounded extraordinary in 2013 is now baked into everyday discussion like metadata and mass surveillance. He is also available less for interviews because he is in Russia.

Basically bigger fish to fry

anonym29 30 minutes ago | parent

He didn't flee to Russia. He had booked tickets to Ecuador going through Russia. The Obama administration revoked his passport, rendering him stateless and unable to leave Russia. Please do not regurgitate propaganda.

firesteelrain 27 minutes ago | parent

He actually fled the US before the leaks became public to Hong Kong but it was a calculated risk because Hong Kong has extradition treaty with the US. So he was fleeing already.

He could have returned to the US however he would have most certainly faced arrest. So he asked and was granted temporary asylum in Russia. If my passport is voided for whatever reason then I am returning to the US. I am still a citizen and so was he.

But naturally he didn’t want to be arrested so by definition became a fugitive.

BLKNSLVR 20 minutes ago | parent

> I am still a citizen and so was he.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

firesteelrain 19 minutes ago | parent

I get it I didn’t leak national security information but it doesn’t change the fact that he wasn’t stateless. That’s the part I was referring to

BLKNSLVR 11 minutes ago | parent

That just feels like a slightly different false equivalence - and having said that, I may be making yet another version of it by saying this:

If a person has a 'state', but that state would immediately jail the person for treason upon their return, is that materially different to stateless?

That feels like the reason that many countries allow 'political asylum'.

brightball 3 minutes ago | parent

Wasn’t he departing from Hong Kong to Ecuador and was stuck in Russia because his passport was revoked in transit?

I thought that’s what I remembered hearing. I think all of his meetings with reporters were in Hong Kong.

WarOnPrivacy 55 minutes ago | parent

Besides the undisclosed portions of the Snowden archives, I was also disappointed that the Assange/Wikileaks insurance files were never decrypted.

ref: https://kagi.com/search?q=wikileaks+insurance+torrent

motionlessveloc 33 minutes ago | parent

So where's Snowden in all this? The article talks at great length about everybody he gave copies to and how they've all gone silent, but obviously he holds copies as well and is not beholden to the US on what he does with them. (Although he is surely on a short leash with his Russian masters as well.)

BLKNSLVR 30 minutes ago | parent

> In January 2014, he told a German TV interviewer that he gave all of his information to American journalists reporting on American issues.[56] During his first American TV interview, in May 2014, Snowden said he had protected himself from Russian leverage by destroying the material he had been holding before landing in Moscow [0]

Also, please refer to a reply to a similar comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781990

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Hong_Kong

phendrenad2 23 minutes ago | parent

"When you get the message, hang up the phone" - Alan Watts

I think that everyone read the headlines, internalized it into their worldview, and moved on. Nobody was particularly interested in the sordid details of how the government backdoored everything, they just noted it as fact and moved on. And the world since then has been marked by it. Trump's claim that the DNC spied on him would have been entirely toothless if people weren't primed to believe in such things way back in 2013. In a lot of ways, I think that the Snowden revelations were part of what split the more-or-less unified liberal western world, the Barack Obama "hope & change" "hopecore" Fukuyamian thought, into opposing "leftist" and "trumpian" camps.