What happened to the Snowden archive

112 points | by EXHades 2 hours ago

33 comments

  • BLKNSLVR an hour ago

    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 an hour ago

      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.

  • rtpg 39 minutes ago

    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/

  • anotherhue 2 hours ago

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

  • ericyd 2 hours ago

    [flagged]

      jdiff an hour ago

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

        joe_the_user 36 minutes ago

        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

        all2 42 minutes ago

        Those are all conspiracy theories. ;)

          riddley 27 minutes ago

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

          DubiousPusher 36 minutes ago

          What? MKUlta is absolutely not a conspiracy theory.

            c0nducktr 18 minutes ago

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

            esseph 25 minutes ago

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

        jojobas 34 minutes ago

        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 25 minutes ago

          The level of desensitisation…

            Dylan16807 12 minutes ago

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

  • Coeur 30 minutes ago

    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 15 minutes ago

      Therefore there should be no harm in releasing it.

  • cocodill 2 hours ago

    If you leak it, leak it everywhere!

  • pluc an hour ago

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

      BLKNSLVR an hour ago

      The banality of the day after outrage.

      harry8 43 minutes ago

      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.

        riddley 12 minutes ago

        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 9 minutes ago

          "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.

        iamnothere 40 minutes ago

        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.)

        colordrops 8 minutes ago

        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.

        joe_the_user 28 minutes ago

        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 8 minutes ago

          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.

      joe_the_user 25 minutes ago

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

  • bflesch an hour ago

    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 an hour ago

      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 an hour ago

        That’s a gross misrepresentation of their point.

          fn-mote 41 minutes ago

          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?

      markdown 40 minutes ago

      > 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.