Tom

“The recklessness, damage, narcissism, and self-righteousness of the Snowden camp do not invalidate all their aims. A debate on the collection and warehousing of meta-data was overdue.”
― Edward Lucas, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster

“The Snowdenistas' exaggeration stems from a conflation of self-criticism with self-hatred. In their eyes, democracy, the rule of law and constitutional government have been so eroded that the West carries no moral weight at all. The authorities are capable of anything, so it is sensible to assume that they do what they are capable of. Why would they stop?”
― Edward Lucas, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster

“If the NSA is able to intercept the communications of a top Russian politician, surely it deserves praise (in private), not censure and exposure (in public). Providing the full list of Snowden's damaging disclosures would be tedious. But even the highlights are shocking. They include: how the NSA intercepts e-mails, phone calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan, and that it is keeping a closer eye on the security of that country's nuclear weapons; an operation to gauge the loyalties of CIA recruits in Pakistan; e-mail intercepts regarding Iran; and global tracking of cell-phone calls to (as the Washington Post naively put it) 'look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect'. To the South China Morning Post Snowden revealed details of how the NSA hacks into computers and mobile phones in China and Hong Kong.49 The obvious result of this is to damage America and its allies.”
― Edward Lucas, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster

“It is only a mild caricature to say that the presumption behind the leaks is that the intelligence agencies in the West are the greatest threat to freedom on the planet.”
― Edward Lucas, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster