Snowden didn't circumvent anything, because he hasn't released anything. Snowden has made a lot of grandiose claims which he can't actually back up, because beyond a few slides and some very common knowledge stuff (NSA hacking China) which he could've outright made up he hasn't been able to show he could do any of the stuff he claims.
If you were aware of any notable hacking incidents in China, and could claim to have privileged knowledge, then it's easy to say the NSA were behind whatever you want (just in this case, obviously the NSAs mission would imply it attempts hacking of foreign networks).
PRISM is disclosed via a powerpoint presentation. Presentation as in, a thing you tend to show to a large audience. Its highly likely he was simply given a copy of it after being shown it, since good internal education and knowledge sharing is a pretty core concept to running a successful enterprise.
Snowden didn't circumvent anything, because he hasn't released anything.
He clearly has released top secret documents; your assertion that he "hasn't released anything" is simply untrue. If you truly feel this isn't a leak, you obviously think the top secret classification is irrelevant and disagree with the US gov. on this. Some examples of his assertions verified by documents:
NSA keeping daily phone records for every American
NSA receiving data from US internet companies
GCHQ (and thus NSA) keeping 3 days complete internet traffic passing through UK
GCHQ (and thus NSA) keeping the content of all UK text messages
Re access controls at the NSA, I find it telling that an analyst was able to look at Bill Clinton's emails and only be reprimanded afterward - if proper legal controls on each target of surveillance were in place, or even perfunctory control by supervisors, that could never have happened.
He's released - again - a powerpoint presentation. The NSA phone record stuff? That was public knowledge in 2007. The GCHQ stuff seems like it was a powerpoint presentation too - no one's claimed anything more.
It's a leak, yes. He should be prosecuted for it, yes. But it's also widely disseminated internal data by nature of being a presentation.
Everything else is him claiming to have knowledge of things, without providing specific details beyond "his word". There's no reason to think he had the powers he claims to have and he's been leaking the NSAs foreign survieillance programs in broad-strokes like a sieve, but American specific stuff? Mysteriously quiet. With equally quiet walkbacks of the claims by the Washington Post and Guardian.
My question is, what has Snowden released which confirms the idea that he had the type of broad-ranging access which you claim.
Nothing you just cited confirms that: the first is Verizon phone records. Again - public knowledge since 2007 if anyone was actually paying attention.
The second and third are a warrant of the type used to request surveillance (you know, due process and all that) and a document of procedures for minimizing data on US citizens.
Both documents, explicitly dealing with not collecting broad-ranging data on US citizens and demonstrating oversight and limitation to the process. So again, where is the smoking gun? Where is any proof that Edward Snowden has done more then simply make a copy of a library of guidelines and procedures for NSA employees? Because nothing you just linked proves that he has anything substantive which actually proves wrongdoing, overreach, or the NSA going beyond mission parameters.
Some of your assertions were simply untrue - if you want people to take you seriously, don't try to distort the truth. If the documents above were common knowledge they would not be stamped 'TOP SECRET/NOFORN', he released more than the powerpoint slides, etc.
Because nothing you just linked proves that he has anything substantive which actually proves wrongdoing, overreach, or the NSA going beyond mission parameters.
To take just this one example, I consider tracking the domestic phone records of all Americans daily to be a huge infringement of the NSA's stated mission and the privacy of hundreds of millions of Americans, which you so blithely dimiss as 'public knowledge'. YMMV on that, but frankly your arguments that this is nothing of consequence are absurd given the reaction of the US President, Congress, the NSA, Foreign governments, and journalists around the world to these leaks - clearly they are important and clearly the revelations have shocked many people.
People have been throwing hyperbole around liberally in this issue, so again: powerpoint slides or mundane documents, none of it proves what you're claiming it proves. Edward Snowden has not shown he had any of the capability or access he is claiming. The fact it's marked "Top Secret" does not prove this - confidential information is always "need-to-know" - you can have Top Secret clearance but you don't get to just go and ask for all the Top Secret documents in the archive unless you have a provable reason to have them. It was perfectly clear what I was saying, if you want to get pedantic then its certainly too early to wildly speculate on Edward Snowden's secret NSA leaking team (as in the parent of this thread).
You may consider the phone records a huge infringement but again: this program was public knowledge. There were articles written about it. In fact it was public as early as 2006:
[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-ns...]. Edward Snowden releasing anything on it is thus mundane except for the fact Edward Snowden is doing it, and again - doesn't prove that he actually knows anything significant or had the type of access he claims to have.
Which is the point here: not what you personally find invasive, but the idea that Edward Snowden has the goldmine of data and knowledge people are wildly speculating he does, despite scant evidence in that direction.
No you have it wrong. The rules, while explaining how to deal with data, provide loopholes to basically capture and store everybody (US citizens included). The point is that they are writing laws that should be illegal and are interpreting the patriot act in ways it was not supposed to be interpreted.
Just because you failed to release interesting classified materials doesn't mean you weren't trying to. Just because you didn't kill anybody doesn't mean you don't get charged with attempted murder.
Sorry. I guess I presumed that your very first statement of "Snowden didn't circumvent anything" meant that he had nothing interesting in the first place. Which implies that he has nothing to release even if he wanted to.
So if he's charged with espionage, even if he hasn't released anything, does that mean he has circumvented something? Or that access to that information didn't actually require being circumvented in the first place?
If you were aware of any notable hacking incidents in China, and could claim to have privileged knowledge, then it's easy to say the NSA were behind whatever you want (just in this case, obviously the NSAs mission would imply it attempts hacking of foreign networks).
PRISM is disclosed via a powerpoint presentation. Presentation as in, a thing you tend to show to a large audience. Its highly likely he was simply given a copy of it after being shown it, since good internal education and knowledge sharing is a pretty core concept to running a successful enterprise.