Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden criticizes Russia’s mass surveillance law, and a Russian official retaliates by outing him ‒ as a Russian intelligence source. Silent Circle, the phone company that built its marketing on fear and loathing of the NSA, is nearing bankruptcy.

Over the weekend, VICE published a story entitled “Exclusive: Snowden Tried to Tell NSA About Surveillance Concerns, Documents Reveal.” If you haven’t read it, don’t bother. By its incendiary headline, the story—the product of documents released as part of a FOIA lawsuit—would purport to be an outright validation of Edward Snowden’s claims that he repeatedly tried to raise surveillance concerns with NSA officials but was ignored.

In 2013, in the early days of the Snowden leaks, Harvard Law School professor and former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith reflected on the increase in NSA surveillance post 9/11. He wrote:

In my last post, I said that the European Court of Justice decision in Maximillian Schrems v. Data Protection Commission ignores some inconvenient truths. US frustrations with European double standards on surveillance are understandable. They are also beside the point. The US must reform surveillance law – specifically, Section 702 of FISA – if it wants to restore safe harbor.