Snow(den) Job?

Professor J,

My very first reaction to the kind of information being collected is "Who didn't know that was going on?" I think in this age of digital information we all (including our enemies) assume, even if it's unconsciously, that anyone who really wants to know anything about us can find it out. Of course the CIA could just send us a Facebook friend request and find out more than they'd ever want to know. I can hear the public service announcement now:

Homeland security and the CIA requests that citizens please refrain from Instagramming photos of your dinners and pictures of your grandkids at baseball practice. You are making the agents hungry and bored and they have important work to do. Thank you for your cooperation.

But seriously, it's hard to imagine anyone being genuinely shocked by the phone record revelation. My son in law, a police officer, had training last year about a particular group (notice the omission of the name) the government is concerned about. The instructor opened with this remark: "Do not go home and Google this group unless you want a little visit from the FBI."  While things like that are somewhat disconcerting I doubt anyone is shocked at the use of trigger words that prompt interest and other similar tactics used to keep tabs on various groups and individuals.

I say all this to say that the idea that Edward Snowden revealed some deep secret that our enemies were unaware of is ludicrous. Lots of things about him are disturbing, but the actual thing he's revealed isn't one of them except perhaps in its confirming things we all suspected. What's more disturbing to me is his rapid rise from security guard to CIA analyst making (apparently 122K though he reported 200K) a year and that someone was clearly remiss in vetting him properly before giving him access to the kind of information he's making public. As a result of this we are learning to what extent the CIA uses contractors and at least in the case of this guy, the people being hired may not have a complete understanding of what secret means.

What will be shocking to most Americans isn't the kind of data being collected, but how often the government is using these independent contractors. While being a government employee doesn't keep anyone from leaking classified material, ala Bradley Manning, it does make it easier to keep track of who knows what, and more importantly what kind of people know what. I'd be interested in knowing what kind of background check and psychological testing is done for employees doing this contracted work. I suspect it isn't anything close to what is done for official government workers.

Now there's a lot that is seemingly off about his story and I suspect that when the whole truth is out he'll prove to be far less credible than he is being taken for at the moment. Time will tell on that. The run down on Anderson Cooper 360 a couple of nights ago reported that he went from being a security guard to a rather high paid analyst. No in between just a straight jump. Did he know someone? Was he recruited? What were the qualifications for the job he held? Others are asking the same things:

 Snowden's claim to have been placed under diplomatic cover for a position in Switzerland after an apparently brief stint at the CIA as a systems administrator also raised suspicion. "I just have never heard of anyone being hired with so little academic credentials," the former CIA official said. The agency does employ technical specialists in overseas stations, the former official said, "but their breadth of experience is huge, and they tend not to start out as systems administrators." [Washington Post]

The damage done here, it seems, the real long term damage, is that now our enemies know just how easy it is to gain access to information we'd rather they didn't have.  It gives the impression that no one is minding the store at the CIA when a 29 year old who didn't finish high school can cause this kind of trouble. But hey, now he's hanging out with the Chinese so that's comforting.

On a totally unrelated note (my favorite kind): Your current blog post makes a good point. It is wedding season and while we want to be happy for couples starting out, it's hard knowing what an awakening they are in for. The stresses and strains that are going to face them will be formidable and perhaps one of the best things they could do early on, is avoid debt. The fact that so many of them are going into debt to pay for one day out of their married lives is unsettling. I'm quite often the cynic in the crowd wondering if they have any idea what a huge part of their lives together will revolve around finances. A money management course (Dave Ramsey works for me) should be a part of premarital counseling. It's one of the big things couples fail to nail down early on.