Snowden Impersonated Top NSA Personnel. Maybe.

Hey, ATS.

I ran across this article while searching "NSA dress code" (don't ask).

Snowden impersonated NSA officials, sources say.

Apparently, he ripped profiles to access sensitive files. But if you, like me, think that Snowden is still on the payroll, how would you interpret this disclosure given to the public by all of the totally anonymous NSA contacts totally eager to spill the beans to NBC?

In case some genuine leaks do spring, considering that we are being hacked by the Chinese and most of Mid-East every five minutes, it does seem to be a great way to set up plausible deniability. "Twern't me! It was that Snowden doing some sockpuppety skullduggery!"

What do you think, guys?

Also noteworthy:

“Every day, they are learning how brilliant [Snowden] was,” said a former U.S. official with knowledge of the case. “This is why you don’t hire brilliant people for jobs like this. You hire smart people. Brilliant people get you in trouble.”

Yes! That's the ticket! IQ caps for all LEOs! If our employees are too smart, they'll notice when we deviate from silly things like protocol and ethics and service and principles!

reply to post by Eidolon23


I think you're onto something. With this? He can now be said to have accessed almost anything not physically stored in secure vaults, on paper. Clearance won't be an argument for why he could't have and position means nothing.

You're right. This suggestion makes Snowden the human version of the St Louis Bureau of Personnel fire in the 70's. More military records and material went up in that fire than could have physically FIT in a building twice it's size. lol...

This is a way to make him the catch all to any leak they don't like and where the dates work. Clever.....

Originally posted by Eidolon23

“Every day, they are learning how brilliant [Snowden] was,” said a former U.S. official with knowledge of the case. “This is why you don’t hire brilliant people for jobs like this. You hire smart people. Brilliant people get you in trouble.”

First he was an Irresponsible HS drop out, now hes a genius.

Sounds like excuses to cover up their ineptitude and distract from the situation...

Although the comment on not employing Brilliant people is true, why do you think Police have upper IQ limits in some municipalities?

Don't want your jack booted thugs thinking too much.

Originally posted by benrl

Originally posted by Eidolon23

“Every day, they are learning how brilliant [Snowden] was,” said a former U.S. official with knowledge of the case. “This is why you don’t hire brilliant people for jobs like this. You hire smart people. Brilliant people get you in trouble.”

First he was an Irresponsible HS drop out, now hes a genius.

Sounds like excuses to cover up their ineptitude and distract from the situation...

Although the comment on not employing Brilliant people is true, why do you think Police have upper IQ limits in some municipalities?

Don't want your jack booted thugs thinking too much.

edit on 30-8-2013 by benrl because: (no reason given)

Precisely what I was referring to. I love my cop dad, and I am grateful to all those that step up to keep us safe. I find it insulting in the extreme that those who choose to go into service are being profiled this way.

But, if you want someone who will crack skulls without asking any questions, the policy makes an insane sort of sense.

But with Cybersecurity pros? Really? They want to recruit the duller tools in the shed to protect our power grid, our markets, our national security interests? REALLY?

I'm pretty sure our opponents aren't pursuing that policy, though they may keep their cyberwarriors sweating in their underwear, slaving in hellish little live-in cubicle warrens, which probably isn't great for morale.

I'm deeply humored by the people commenting on the fact that he received a GED in high school as a measure of his intelligence. The presumption seems to be that a genius must excel in high school and get their diploma. On the contrary, for a genius, high school may be a stagnated hell or as my high IQ son used to put it, like going to a zoo where the zookeepers let out all the animals and is only good for naps. It used to be that high iq kids would be stuck in the HS world for the most part but they have altered things since even when Snowden was in high school so that it better addresses the critical boredom issue. High IQ kids who are clearly not being appropriately handled are instead sent to either a specialized magnet school or early college. The latter is still funded by the school district (at a reduced tuition) and allows a student to both earn their high school diploma (not GED) concurrently with completing their first two years of college.

en.wikipedia.org...

These programs started in 2002 through the Gates Foundation roughly 1-2 years after Snowden would've typically graduated from high school. Snowden didn't have that opportunity and, thereby, when he did the same, he received a GED. People like Snowden are exactly why Early College was created.

Second that.

When I look at my HS grades, it's a complete joke.

I'd get all D-F in the "compliance" department, but when it was test time, I'd rank in the top few percent, nationally.

I had the good fortune of bouncing around different types of (good) schools, the best being the "Friends" Quaker schools. Anyway, where I ended up was a pos public HS where football and brown-nosing are paramount.


Anyway, could I see Snowden as a genius, of course! I mean, he was smart enough to do the type of "stuff" that would leave 99% of the membership behind. Ok, well that's near-genius, but come on!

Best explanation is similar to the subject of categorizing intellect...it's not totally quantifiable, and the case here is that Snowden had not just adequate intellect, but the steel-clad BALLS to take it to the next level.

For those who think that Snowden is a snowjob, but have wondered, "To what end?":

This then may be the ultimate irony in this surveillance saga. Despite the current flood of protests, recriminations, and embarrassments -- and even a bit of legal jeopardy -- intelligence services around the world (including especially NSA) may come to find that Edward Snowden’s actions, by pushing into the sunlight the programs whose very existence had long been dim, dark, or denied -- may turn out over time to be the greatest boost to domestic surveillance since the invention of the transistor.

By creating pressures for a publicly acknowledged, commercially operated, "privatized" but government mandated data collection and retention regime, the ease with which new categories of long-sought data could be added to this realm -- especially in the wake of a terrorist attack that could be used as an ostensible justification -- seems significant to say the least.

Without having to worry so much about surreptitious programs being discovered, the government can concentrate on making its public case for the mandated retention of ever more forms of data -- which is already typically being collected in the course of business -- while vastly reducing or eliminating firms’ flexibility to delete and destroy such data on a more rapid and privacy-friendly schedule.

lauren.vortex.com...

Nailed it.