November 29, 2013 • 13 mins
As Edward Snowden lives a life of exile in Russia, his leaked revelations about the reach of NSA surveillance have shocked the world. But what's next for Snowden? And how should the world handle whistleblowers? Is there a real difference between a whistleblower and someone who steals state secrets for other reasons? Learn more with Ben and Matt.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, everyone,
welcome to the podcast. My name is Matt and I
am Ben. And this is stuff they don't want you
(00:21):
to know. And today we're gonna be talking about an
interesting topic personally for me. Then I'm sure you're probably
interested in this as well. Uh. And that is whistle blowing,
and specifically at the beginning here Mr Edwards Snowdon. Yes,
and when we say whistle blowing, lest you'd be mistaken,
we are not talking about someone actually blowing like a
(00:43):
wooden chain whistle, although that is man, I think we
have a sound for that too. Crap. Yeah, we found
these sound effect things and then like the ring of
power for us right now. What we are talking about, however,
is something that we're probably all familiar with, at least
here in the West. Now. The idea of a whistle blower,
someone who uh for no monetary gain um rather instead
(01:05):
for a philosophical quantry or what they feel like is
moral imperative and a great threat to their own their lives,
their their job, family, often a great threat to their
lives or or the possibility of having a family harmed.
They go public with something secret something I don't know
(01:27):
if diabolical is the right word, but let's say shysty. Well,
there's usually a reason that they've decided to take such risks.
So yeah, diabolical, I would say, is a pretty good
youth there. Um, Well, we're the point that we're making, though,
is that a whistleblower is defined by again this sort
of sense of morality rather than um monetary gain or
(01:51):
some kind of vengeance idea. Uh so, why don't you
school me on Edward Snowden? Well, quickly, Yeah, let's talk
about who this gentleman is. He was a high school
dropout that's been talked about a lot in the news
or it was um but he went on to earn
his g d in computers according to biography dot com
(02:11):
and at a community college, and then he ended up
working as a security contractor for the n S a
guard rather and then he worked for the CIA in
the information technology field. Then he eventually moved on to
work for Booze Allen Hamilton's as a subcontractor and there
a tech consulting firm okay, and once he got there, No,
that's all gray deal. That happens to a lot of people.
(02:33):
That's their trajectories. They work for a government agency and
then they move into the much more lucrative world of
private contracting. That's how I did it. That's how you're
doing it. Yeah, and uh, that's what I'll do after
I get out of the Senate, right and part of
my five year planned Um. But then he did something
very different from most of his co workers. He took
(02:56):
as much confidential information as he could out of the system,
sent it to a couple of different places to be
released slowly over time, and then high tailed it to
Hong Kong. Really, there's no other way to say it.
In them from there to Russia, where he currently resides
as one of the most well known whistle blowers in
(03:19):
history right now and also uh, someone that the United
States government would really like to get their hands on.
So Ben, let's let's talk about why he escaped to
the United States to leak this information. Um, it's mostly
because there's been a lot of prosecution for against whistle
(03:40):
blowers in inside the United States rather recently, especially in
this current administration. They've been really really just taking on
whistle blowing and making it just basically really vilifying it.
And you're talking about Bradley Manning for another example. We're
also talking about the idea that uh, someone especially Manning's position,
(04:03):
someone who is UM, someone who is leaking stuff regardless
of their motivation, being found in violation in the Code
of Military Justice, which I don't think applies to Snowdon UM.
But given that he had a clearance and violated the clearance,
I think they're they're legal problems with this. Of course,
(04:24):
Snowdon is saying that he has no Snowdon is is
saying that he knows the law, and that's why he's
staying out at the United States. Uh flew to Hong
Kong because there's no extradition treaty. Right. Well, the the
interesting thing for me here is the the intersection of
the protections that are supposed to be in place for whistleblowers, UM,
(04:46):
for conscientious objectors in that way and violating the law
when leaking this kind of classified top secret information. That intersection,
to me is what's interesting. And UM, I guess that
is the great legal debate that's occurring right now with
regards to them. Yeah. Now, before we follow up on, um,
what's what Edward Snowdon is doing now now defined by
(05:07):
the time of our recording, Let's talk just a little
bit about the whistle Blower series that we have done. Okay, Now,
we did a three part whistle Blower series where we
talked about a couple of things, right, Um, but this
this series predates Snowdon, doesn't it. It does movent at
this show for a while. Um, all right, Yes, we
talked about why somebody would whistle blow the whistle quote unquote.
(05:30):
We talked about Ellsberg, right and the Pentagon papers, and
we talked about how much the Internet has changed the
nature of this sort of disclosure, right, Yeah, how much
more easily it is now to get information out, to
disseminate it, and you can do it. Used to be,
back when we made that whistle Blowers episode, there were
(05:51):
several different avenues that you could take to securely and
anonymously send out information like that. Yeah, we thought there
were rather exactly h using tour network and other things
like that. But now those yeah, like you said, those
those protections for um anonymity don't seem to exist anymore.
They've been routed out right, you can never be impossible
(06:14):
to trace on the Internet. You can be at best
very difficult or inconvenient to trace. UM. However, as we
found out later, uh, the quote unquote conspiracy theories about
some orwelly in government monitoring as much as possible. Turns
out that's completely true. Completely that happened. And UM, as
(06:36):
you know, which makes me think we'll re examine whistle
blowing in the future. But I had, um some questions
just to ask you, purely speculative. All right, sure, what
do you think is gonna happen, Edward Snowden? You think
we'll ever see the States again? Um? As a freeman. Unfortunately,
I don't think so. He was quoted and saying he
doesn't think I'll ever see home again. UM, and he
(06:58):
knows better than I do. UM. It just seems that
that's the direction we're heading in right now. UM. Anyone
who is going to take this kind of action for
whatever reason, it's they're either going to be prosecuted heavily
and end up in jail for the rest of their lives.
So even even if he did see home in the US,
he would probably be in the jail cell somewhere. So Okay.
(07:22):
So another question then would be what do you think
is going to happen to him? Because right now as
we record this, he's living in Moscow. He was living
in an airport hotel for months and then he now
is living in nondisclosed location in Moscow. He saved up
some money, he's running out of money. UM, I don't
(07:43):
know who would hire him. His set of skills is
probably compromised. Well, it seems perhaps he could work for
I don't know, maybe some kind of news organization because
he's shown to give a good interview. Uh. He seems
to be good at collecting information, which is essentially what
a journalist journalist does, and I think I did hear
(08:06):
about him working for a news agency over there. There
were rumors of it at least back during the recording
of this. UM. I don't know. I could see him
thriving and doing that kind of thing. That The problem is,
he's he's going to be having to watch his back
for the rest of his life and that's a that's
a scary way to live. Yeah, I imagine so, and
(08:27):
only time will tell with this. UM. The the last
question I have for you, Okay, what do you think
is the future of whistle blowing, I think it's gonna
be huge. I think it's gonna happen more and more.
It's gonna they're gonna be people posting on their Facebook's
(08:48):
um about things like whistle blowing that way, because I think, well,
it really depends on where we move from here, right,
And I know fis a court just didn't they just
re up on the n s A spying and giving
more powers. Um, So that's good and bad, right, and um,
the way the way social networking is working, it's thriving
(09:11):
and continuing to grow. Um. I think there's gonna be
a clash, a cultural clash between the citizenry and the
government because of things like this, And there're gonna be
a lot of people that end up going to jail.
That's my that's my psychic reading for the day. Well,
it's the if we're talking about the United States, we
already put a lot of people in jail. Yeah, I
(09:34):
think they're gonna be a lot of um, let's say,
middle class technology people going to jail very soon. Well,
I think we go far enough in the future on
this trajectory, everyone will be in jail. Everything person will
be in jail will be given your striped pant suit
when you enter the airport. Um, I'm kidding hopefully, But
(09:56):
I think that um Snooda makes a good point with
whistle blowing when he said as that he believes the
reaction to the stuff that he's leaked and that he
continues to leak via Glenn Greenwald is essentially not going
to change things for people, because we know people are
risk adverse. And I love what you're saying about the media,
but we should also consider that access to this kind
(10:18):
of media could just doesn't necessarily mean people will be
these well informed bastions of principled action. Um, if they
think that's the right thing to do, of course they'll
they'll either side with or against this kind of whistle
blowing stuff. But we have to also think that the
propagation of massive media stimulation has affected human psychology as
(10:44):
much as we are as changed by the technology as
the technology is changed by us. Certainly so the kind
of person who is now in and data with information
twenty four hours a day is um a lot less
likely to focus on one issue and pay attention. I
can see this, but but I do think that with
(11:06):
the way inequality is increasing such a rapid rate, especially
in this country, but really worldwide. There are more and
more people that are not getting compensated. Let's say, as
well as they feel they should be people that have
Those people have access to certain information, and if there
(11:26):
is anything going on with regards to that inequality, say
something that's maybe a little nefarious. Um, maybe those people
will have the incentive to, you know, say screw it,
I'm gonna leak this information now because they feel they're
being treated unequally. I could see that increasing. Yeah, I
see what you're saying, and it's it's tough to guess
(11:48):
with that. Um. For the record, I do agree with you.
I do think we'll see more leaks from various sources
in the future. I think the big question is what then?
You know, what ones then do somebody just retweet it?
You know, it gets retweeted a lot of pillars of
civilization crumble. Um. I don't know. But that is our episode.
(12:09):
If you'd like to learn more about whistle blowing, please
check out our three part series on this, which, again,
as we said earlier, we made before Edward Snowden hit
the radar. You guys, we didn't ignore it and um,
you can tell us what you think about the future
of whistle blowing by hitting us up on Facebook, hitting
us up on Twitter. We're on YouTube, we have our
(12:32):
own network of online shows on the thing called test
tube dot com. And if you're not a social media guy,
you can always just send us an email directly, right, Matt,
that's right. Then you can send us an email to
conspiracy at Discovery dot com from one on this topic,
another unexplained phenomenon, visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
(12:57):
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
handle conspiracy stuff.
From UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, everyone,
welcome to the podcast. My name is Matt and I
am Ben. And this is stuff they don't want you
(00:21):
to know. And today we're gonna be talking about an
interesting topic personally for me. Then I'm sure you're probably
interested in this as well. Uh. And that is whistle blowing,
and specifically at the beginning here Mr Edwards Snowdon. Yes,
and when we say whistle blowing, lest you'd be mistaken,
we are not talking about someone actually blowing like a
(00:43):
wooden chain whistle, although that is man, I think we
have a sound for that too. Crap. Yeah, we found
these sound effect things and then like the ring of
power for us right now. What we are talking about, however,
is something that we're probably all familiar with, at least
here in the West. Now. The idea of a whistle blower,
someone who uh for no monetary gain um rather instead
(01:05):
for a philosophical quantry or what they feel like is
moral imperative and a great threat to their own their lives,
their their job, family, often a great threat to their
lives or or the possibility of having a family harmed.
They go public with something secret something I don't know
(01:27):
if diabolical is the right word, but let's say shysty. Well,
there's usually a reason that they've decided to take such risks.
So yeah, diabolical, I would say, is a pretty good
youth there. Um, Well, we're the point that we're making, though,
is that a whistleblower is defined by again this sort
of sense of morality rather than um monetary gain or
(01:51):
some kind of vengeance idea. Uh so, why don't you
school me on Edward Snowden? Well, quickly, Yeah, let's talk
about who this gentleman is. He was a high school
dropout that's been talked about a lot in the news
or it was um but he went on to earn
his g d in computers according to biography dot com
(02:11):
and at a community college, and then he ended up
working as a security contractor for the n S a
guard rather and then he worked for the CIA in
the information technology field. Then he eventually moved on to
work for Booze Allen Hamilton's as a subcontractor and there
a tech consulting firm okay, and once he got there, No,
that's all gray deal. That happens to a lot of people.
(02:33):
That's their trajectories. They work for a government agency and
then they move into the much more lucrative world of
private contracting. That's how I did it. That's how you're
doing it. Yeah, and uh, that's what I'll do after
I get out of the Senate, right and part of
my five year planned Um. But then he did something
very different from most of his co workers. He took
(02:56):
as much confidential information as he could out of the system,
sent it to a couple of different places to be
released slowly over time, and then high tailed it to
Hong Kong. Really, there's no other way to say it.
In them from there to Russia, where he currently resides
as one of the most well known whistle blowers in
(03:19):
history right now and also uh, someone that the United
States government would really like to get their hands on.
So Ben, let's let's talk about why he escaped to
the United States to leak this information. Um, it's mostly
because there's been a lot of prosecution for against whistle
(03:40):
blowers in inside the United States rather recently, especially in
this current administration. They've been really really just taking on
whistle blowing and making it just basically really vilifying it.
And you're talking about Bradley Manning for another example. We're
also talking about the idea that uh, someone especially Manning's position,
(04:03):
someone who is UM, someone who is leaking stuff regardless
of their motivation, being found in violation in the Code
of Military Justice, which I don't think applies to Snowdon UM.
But given that he had a clearance and violated the clearance,
I think they're they're legal problems with this. Of course,
(04:24):
Snowdon is saying that he has no Snowdon is is
saying that he knows the law, and that's why he's
staying out at the United States. Uh flew to Hong
Kong because there's no extradition treaty. Right. Well, the the
interesting thing for me here is the the intersection of
the protections that are supposed to be in place for whistleblowers, UM,
(04:46):
for conscientious objectors in that way and violating the law
when leaking this kind of classified top secret information. That intersection,
to me is what's interesting. And UM, I guess that
is the great legal debate that's occurring right now with
regards to them. Yeah. Now, before we follow up on, um,
what's what Edward Snowdon is doing now now defined by
(05:07):
the time of our recording, Let's talk just a little
bit about the whistle Blower series that we have done. Okay, Now,
we did a three part whistle Blower series where we
talked about a couple of things, right, Um, but this
this series predates Snowdon, doesn't it. It does movent at
this show for a while. Um, all right, Yes, we
talked about why somebody would whistle blow the whistle quote unquote.
(05:30):
We talked about Ellsberg, right and the Pentagon papers, and
we talked about how much the Internet has changed the
nature of this sort of disclosure, right, Yeah, how much
more easily it is now to get information out, to
disseminate it, and you can do it. Used to be,
back when we made that whistle Blowers episode, there were
(05:51):
several different avenues that you could take to securely and
anonymously send out information like that. Yeah, we thought there
were rather exactly h using tour network and other things
like that. But now those yeah, like you said, those
those protections for um anonymity don't seem to exist anymore.
They've been routed out right, you can never be impossible
(06:14):
to trace on the Internet. You can be at best
very difficult or inconvenient to trace. UM. However, as we
found out later, uh, the quote unquote conspiracy theories about
some orwelly in government monitoring as much as possible. Turns
out that's completely true. Completely that happened. And UM, as
(06:36):
you know, which makes me think we'll re examine whistle
blowing in the future. But I had, um some questions
just to ask you, purely speculative. All right, sure, what
do you think is gonna happen, Edward Snowden? You think
we'll ever see the States again? Um? As a freeman. Unfortunately,
I don't think so. He was quoted and saying he
doesn't think I'll ever see home again. UM, and he
(06:58):
knows better than I do. UM. It just seems that
that's the direction we're heading in right now. UM. Anyone
who is going to take this kind of action for
whatever reason, it's they're either going to be prosecuted heavily
and end up in jail for the rest of their lives.
So even even if he did see home in the US,
he would probably be in the jail cell somewhere. So Okay.
(07:22):
So another question then would be what do you think
is going to happen to him? Because right now as
we record this, he's living in Moscow. He was living
in an airport hotel for months and then he now
is living in nondisclosed location in Moscow. He saved up
some money, he's running out of money. UM, I don't
(07:43):
know who would hire him. His set of skills is
probably compromised. Well, it seems perhaps he could work for
I don't know, maybe some kind of news organization because
he's shown to give a good interview. Uh. He seems
to be good at collecting information, which is essentially what
a journalist journalist does, and I think I did hear
(08:06):
about him working for a news agency over there. There
were rumors of it at least back during the recording
of this. UM. I don't know. I could see him
thriving and doing that kind of thing. That The problem is,
he's he's going to be having to watch his back
for the rest of his life and that's a that's
a scary way to live. Yeah, I imagine so, and
(08:27):
only time will tell with this. UM. The the last
question I have for you, Okay, what do you think
is the future of whistle blowing, I think it's gonna
be huge. I think it's gonna happen more and more.
It's gonna they're gonna be people posting on their Facebook's
(08:48):
um about things like whistle blowing that way, because I think, well,
it really depends on where we move from here, right,
And I know fis a court just didn't they just
re up on the n s A spying and giving
more powers. Um, So that's good and bad, right, and um,
the way the way social networking is working, it's thriving
(09:11):
and continuing to grow. Um. I think there's gonna be
a clash, a cultural clash between the citizenry and the
government because of things like this, And there're gonna be
a lot of people that end up going to jail.
That's my that's my psychic reading for the day. Well,
it's the if we're talking about the United States, we
already put a lot of people in jail. Yeah, I
(09:34):
think they're gonna be a lot of um, let's say,
middle class technology people going to jail very soon. Well,
I think we go far enough in the future on
this trajectory, everyone will be in jail. Everything person will
be in jail will be given your striped pant suit
when you enter the airport. Um, I'm kidding hopefully, But
(09:56):
I think that um Snooda makes a good point with
whistle blowing when he said as that he believes the
reaction to the stuff that he's leaked and that he
continues to leak via Glenn Greenwald is essentially not going
to change things for people, because we know people are
risk adverse. And I love what you're saying about the media,
but we should also consider that access to this kind
(10:18):
of media could just doesn't necessarily mean people will be
these well informed bastions of principled action. Um, if they
think that's the right thing to do, of course they'll
they'll either side with or against this kind of whistle
blowing stuff. But we have to also think that the
propagation of massive media stimulation has affected human psychology as
(10:44):
much as we are as changed by the technology as
the technology is changed by us. Certainly so the kind
of person who is now in and data with information
twenty four hours a day is um a lot less
likely to focus on one issue and pay attention. I
can see this, but but I do think that with
(11:06):
the way inequality is increasing such a rapid rate, especially
in this country, but really worldwide. There are more and
more people that are not getting compensated. Let's say, as
well as they feel they should be people that have
Those people have access to certain information, and if there
(11:26):
is anything going on with regards to that inequality, say
something that's maybe a little nefarious. Um, maybe those people
will have the incentive to, you know, say screw it,
I'm gonna leak this information now because they feel they're
being treated unequally. I could see that increasing. Yeah, I
see what you're saying, and it's it's tough to guess
(11:48):
with that. Um. For the record, I do agree with you.
I do think we'll see more leaks from various sources
in the future. I think the big question is what then?
You know, what ones then do somebody just retweet it?
You know, it gets retweeted a lot of pillars of
civilization crumble. Um. I don't know. But that is our episode.
(12:09):
If you'd like to learn more about whistle blowing, please
check out our three part series on this, which, again,
as we said earlier, we made before Edward Snowden hit
the radar. You guys, we didn't ignore it and um,
you can tell us what you think about the future
of whistle blowing by hitting us up on Facebook, hitting
us up on Twitter. We're on YouTube, we have our
(12:32):
own network of online shows on the thing called test
tube dot com. And if you're not a social media guy,
you can always just send us an email directly, right, Matt,
that's right. Then you can send us an email to
conspiracy at Discovery dot com from one on this topic,
another unexplained phenomenon, visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
(12:57):
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
handle conspiracy stuff.
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