Talk:Edward Snowden/Archive 4

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Requested edit

Sort key Please sort Category:Edward Snowden as [[Category:Edward Snowden| ]]. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Done --Redrose64 (talk) 07:35, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 October 2013

Minor: In →"Criminal prosecution and investigation in the US", Wikileaks → WikiLeaks. czar ♔ 17:57, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

 Done. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:45, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Snowden given award, receives first visit in Russia

Updates (can be made when ban is lifted) petrarchan47tc 19:27, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Washington Post: "Edward Snowden burst back into the limelight Thursday after four whistleblowing advocates from the United States reported meeting him to give him an award, and after his father arrived for the first time since his son received asylum." Snowden honored by U.S. whistleblowers in Moscow as his father arrives, hoping to visit

And so what? In some 10 years we shall see if this visit by Lon Snowden (himself!) and some other former somebody is of any notability. Petrarchan, your approach to the article strikes me as an attempt to turn it into a personal blog (or Facebook page) of Lon, not even Edward. Please take a pause. This Resource is not for chronicling family visits of private individuals. You talk about facts but I will tell this by way of illustration: I am now in Croatia and the country is being visited by Ali Larijani, Iranian Speaker himself (no irony in this case), and...? No new edits on his wiki article since early September; and this is a very official and in fact a very interesting tour of Balkans by a top Iranian official! And I have just seen him in The Westin hotel and would probably be tempted to write sth on that; but I do realize that this is not something for an encyclopedia, this is stuff for journalists.([1]). Please keep things in perspective and balance (there are direct Guidelines for that). Axxxion (talk) 19:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Your attempts to claim that Edward Snowden and his unfolding story are next-to-irrelevant are just embarrassing. petrarchan47tc 20:06, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Given the way Wikipedia works, doesn't the fact that a story appears in a reliable source (in this case the Washington Post) tell us that the content is notable enough to appear in the encyclopedia? I don't think that something about what does or doesn't appear in some other Wikipedia article has anything to do with improving this article. I think we all need to work harder to avoid making our comments and criticisms personal. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 04:31, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Agree, and thank you. petrarchan47tc 06:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

No, just because something appears in a newspaper doesn't make it worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. That's because we are not a newspaper. Specifically: "While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion." Just imagine the Encyclopedia Brittanica containing all the content of every newspaper ever published... How many volumes do you think that would take? :-) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:57, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

OK. Let US discuss what exactly we want to add and in which section.Axxxion (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Pure WP:RECENTISM in my opinion. Not sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion, particularly when you bear in ind WP:10YT. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Partly agree with Axxxion in that Snowden's father's visit is not (yet) notable, but the award giving is. Partly agree with Dr. Fleischman in that some of the Snowden stuff is WP:RECENTISM. For me, the last paragraph of the section "Temporary asylum in Russia" has it right, although it could be copy edited to make it active voice. -84user (talk) 07:49, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 October 2013

minor Please add the relevant category: American expatriates in Russia. Thanks. Juneau Mike (talk) 21:50, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Not done: This page is no longer protected. Subject to consensus, you should be able to edit it yourself. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:36, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Error in lead

James Clapper is not the NSA Director. 67.173.220.211 (talk) 02:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

 Done

German Federal Prosecutor

I'm not suggesting this be added to the article yet, if ever, as it's just speculation of future events, but I noticed thelocal.de reported here that the German Federal Prosecutor may summon Snowden to Germany as a witness to the "case of phone tapping against German Chancellor Angela Merkel". Several news sites have picked up this story: Voice of Russia, albanytribune. -84user (talk) 15:28, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

On recent content removal and article size

Article size is not a reason to remove content, per WP:Content removal.

This article size: Prose size (text only): 27 kB (4462 words) "readable prose size"

Does not constitute a lengthy article yet. Some splitting may be helpful in the future. (The story of asylum seeking, for instance, could be massively trimmed here, and split.)

Recently large chunks were removed from the Lede, one of which (regarding the whistleblower label) was the product of intense debate and much collaboration. Length of intro was used as justification. Moving information, if needed, is preferable to removing it. petrarchan47tc 22:08, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Re ' large chunks were removed from the Lede....product of intense debate and much collaboration'. Thats uncalled for. Blade-of-the-South (talk) 07:26, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

If you're referring to this edit, I think you're mistaken -- I didn't remove any whistleblower label. (Did I?) In any case, my edit wasn't based on the the length of the article but rather on the length of the lead. WP:LEADLENGTH provides guidelines on the length of a lead section, and it's common sense that as a story develops some aspects of it will cycle in and out of the lead. Not everything can be considered one of a subject's "most important aspects" in perpetuity. As for deletion of material not in the body, I thought I hadn't done that, but if I had I have no problem with others incorporating the missing info into the body. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:22, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

(P.S. I believe the guideline you meant to cite was WP:LENGTH#Content removal.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Apologies - I should have added a link to the edit in question. This seems like it should have been moved rather than removed altogether. It appears to be the result of our many discussions over labeling Snowden. But Blade was present for those talks, not I, so I'll defer to them. petrarchan47tc 18:51, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Essentially, the removed bit retreaded what is stated right before it, plus it contained references to some specific persons' names (quite irrelevant to the subject matter), which is obviously too detailed and unnecessary in the lead. Axxxion (talk) 19:39, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Another problematic removal was by Dr F, who said "something's got to be trimmed". However the tidbit removed is one of the most important, if not the most important factor in Snowden's current status. "Whilst en route from Hong Kong, US officials revoked Snowden's passport, leaving him stranded for a month in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport". Snowden was on his way to South America, was only passing through Russia when his passport was revoked. Russia, from what I understand, and was the only country to offer safe asylum. By removing this bit of the story, it sounds as if Snowden choose Russia as his destination. We have to be very careful not to remove or add information that makes the overall story untrue, being an encyclopedia and all. petrarchan47tc 20:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not be claiming that the revocation of the passport was the cause of Snowden ending up in Russia without better sourcing. The possibility that the desires of Snowden and/or the Russian authorities played at least some role must be allowed to remain. Is there a confirmed hour and minute time for when the passport was revoked that would indisputably place it to the few hours the plane from Hong Kong was in the air? Even if so, Russia does evidently does not consider itself bound to other U.S. government requests so why be bound to deny Snowden boarding of an onward flight? According to Putin, Snowden was in contact with Russian diplomats in Hong Kong prior to leaving in Hong Kong, which wouldn't be necessary if the plan was truly to just transit through Moscow to the actual destination since there are already no Russian restrictions on a pure transit that would need to be negotiated. The bottom line is that the claim that the Russian government had no discretion over what to do with Snowden for several weeks is not consistent with or at least not clearly supported by the sources.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:14, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I support Bdell's position on the basis of WP:LEADLENGTH as well. Snowden's current asylum status isn't as notable as the other stuff that's already in the lead, and I don't see anything misleading about the current language ("He is living in Russia under temporary political asylum and is considered a fugitive from justice by American authorities"). There's nothing there suggesting he chose Russia as his destination. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:05, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not arguing it should be in the lede, but that it should be included in the article. It had been removed altogether, leaving out a very important bit of information. I will attempt again to add this info, sticking closely to wording from Fox News et al. Please don't remove well sourced information. petrarchan47tc 01:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Bdell, we aren't putting any claim in Wikipedia's voice that isn't in RS. if you feel to add sources that speak of prior plans and communications, please do. But there is no justification in the guidelines for completely removing the revocation of his passport. Here is the sentence I have re-added, and here are the sources: petrarchan47tc 01:25, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

US officials annulled his passport, leaving him stranded for a month in the Sheremetyevo transit zone until being granted temporary political asylum by the Russian government at the end of July 2013.

WSJ, Snowden on the run, seeks asylum in Ecuador, Fox

"Snowden took flight Sunday in evasion of U.S. authorities, seeking asylum in Ecuador" Fox news

"A U.S. official on Sunday said Edward Snowden's passport was annulled before he left Hong Kong for Russia." Fox news

"Snowden’s stopover in the transit zone at Sheremetyevo could be prolonged indefinitely, as his passport, which was annulled by the US on Saturday, leaves him without the necessary documentation with which to travel" RT

It appears this was mentioned in two places, and that we may be arguing over separate entries. Since it was a duplicate, I've removed the first mention, the one Bdell removed earlier. We should all be on the same page at this point. petrarchan47tc 01:51, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

At issue here is not the fact Snowden's passport was annulled but whether that NECESSITATED his remaining in the "transit zone." The June 26 story on Foxnews (which would be more properly described as an AFP story) cites a legal expert on asylum law who notes that that, legally, ""Moscow airport is as much a part of Russia as is the Kremlin." It follows that if Snowden could not exit the "transit zone" it was because the Russian government did not want him to, as opposed to the U.S. government keeping him there (did any independent reporter in fact see him in the said transit zone? For all we know for sure, he could have been at an off-airport location despite Russian claims that he was in the "transit zone"). I might add that according to the U.S., his passport was annulled before leaving Hong Kong, meaning he should have been denied boarding in Hong Kong if powers-that-be are unable to ignore the status of his U.S. passport. The only source that clearly claims that he cannot travel onwards because of the U.S. action is RT, which is not a reliable source for claims that agree with the public relations line advanced by the Kremlin.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:08, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

It could also be argued that the issues here are a) specious arguments are being used for removing information from an encyclopedia (ie, "it doesn't belong in the lede, which is too long" and "I don't like the wording") and b) rather than using WP:RS, editors are asking Wikpedia to defer to their WP:OR.

The wording that I used was very close to the sources, in fact one of them (I believe it was Fox) used the term "stranded" in the article title. However, my issue is not with specific wording but with content removal. There still has not been a reason given for the multiple attempts by editors here to remove the information about Snowden's passport revocation altogether. petrarchan47tc 19:18, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Agree Petrarchan47. Blade-of-the-South talk 08:03, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

If the USA has revoked his passport and he gets Russian citizenship can he still be extradited to the USA? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.67.113.124 (talk) 20:32, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Snowden using passwords of other NSA contractors

• Lennard, Natasha. "Snowden used other contractors’ passwords to access NSA docs." Salon. November 8, 2013.

WhisperToMe (talk) 22:17, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Direct source:

• Hosenball, Mark; Strobel, Warren (November 7, 2013). "Exclusive: Snowden persuaded other NSA workers to give up passwords - sources". Reuters.

--Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

German poll

This looks notable. Very favourable Snowden poll. Might find more refs. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/us-usa-security-snowden-germany-idUSBRE9A60W920131107http://rt.com/news/germany-lose-trust-us-snowden-431/ Blade-of-the-South talk 02:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Reuters source for no leaks in Russia or China?

After reading the Alan Rusbridger piece on Snowden in this week's The New York Review of Books ("The Snowden Leaks and the Public", pp. 31–34), I thought I would come here to check up on this biography and see how it was developing. Rusbridger quotes Snowden saying he did not leak any secrets to Russia or China, and then Rusbridger writes, "Reuters recently confirmed that US officials have no proof that any of Snowden's material has leaked to either country." I looked for such an article at reuters.com but did not find it. Does anyone here have a clue? Rusbridger describes how Snowden was careful in his choice of where to leak the material, and Rusbridger also says that Snowden's recipients have been careful with the material.

Because of various people publicly stating their worries to the contrary, I think this biography could use a little more emphasis on the assertion that Snowden did not give secrets to the Russians or Chinese. The Reuters item would be useful for that. Binksternet (talk) 22:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

We do have this in the "Temporary Russian asylum" section: petrarchan47tc 23:14, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

In an October 2013 interview, Snowden maintained that he did not bring any classified material into Russia "because it wouldn’t serve the public interest". He added "there’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents". NYT

Rusbridger is clearly talking about a different story because he acknowledges the NY Times interview right before that quote. A Reuters article from earlier this month says of "Snowden and some of his interlocutors": "They have emphatically denied that he provided any classified material to countries such as China or Russia." But I still can't find anything about confirmation that the US government has "no proof." Odd. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:49, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, odd. I was looking for US officials saying that they have not seen any evidence that Snowden leaked secrets to Russia or China. Binksternet (talk) 00:17, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The article you're looking for is here:

U.S. officials have said that they were operating on the assumption that any classified materials downloaded by Snowden have fallen into the hands of China and Russia's spy agencies, though the officials acknowledge they have no proof of this.

— Reuters

-A1candidate (talk) 01:38, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Perfect. Thanks! Binksternet (talk) 01:46, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

"Fundraising" section

The fundraising section appears to be not particularly notable and, more importantly. Evidence for this is that sourcing is weak (the only reliable source is really about Bitcoin, not about Snowden) and relies without attribution on an organization that has done nothing but raise money for the subject of the article. It links to a page titled "Free Edward Snowden" with a very prominent orange "Give" button. Frankly if this isn't WP:PROMOTION then I don't know what is. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

In fact I don't think its inclusion is defensible, so I'm removing it. Of course if anyone disagrees in good faith they may revert me. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:31, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I see you have blanked the section. After reading the guideline carefully, I have come around to seeing it your way, and under the circumstances we currently are editing under I feel that this is a good edit... possibly for different reasons than you do. But let me add that it would have been wise, in my view, to have let someone else pull the section, given the perception that some may have, rightly or wrongly, that you have a hostile POV to Snowden. To everyone else here, I suggest we not add that fundraising section back without a extremely strong consensus to do so. It's a promovio, on the face of it. Let's not Wikilawyer this to death, either, please. We have a lot of eyes on us right now, so let's put our best foot forward and see if we can't get a Good Article rating out of this. Jusdafax 20:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

If you review my full edit history (or the talk page archives) you'll see I don't have an anti-Snowden POV. Back when I was much more active on this article I spent most (not all) of my time battling with anti-Snowden POV pushers. Hopefully Petrarchan can attest to this, but regardless, you could have done your homework before labeling me in this manner. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:12, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Any careful reading of my statement shows I took great care not to "label" you, and regardless of your beliefs, you do appear to be spoiling for a fight. Jusdafax 21:22, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear, Dr F, I have seen no such thing. Your work at Sam Adams Award only reiterates my contention that you appear to have an anti-Snowden, anti-whistleblower, pro-USG stance. What have I missed? Can you present diffs to show me where you battled naysayers? I admit I was not active on the talk page this summer, but stuck to the article space, so may very well have missed your good deeds. Best, petrarchan47tc 22:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

It was this edit, as I've said previously, that shaped my viewpoint. The petition is relevant to this article, and the speedy collection of required signatures especially noteworthy. The White HGouse is in a very uneasy position, because they have promised to answer any petitions reaching the threshold, but remain silent on the matter to this day. I don't see how removing this section, due to "recentism", reflects someone "battling anti-Snowden POV pushers". petrarchan47tc

Here are some discussions in which I took "pro-Snowden" positions:

• [2] (defending attributed sourcing to Wikileaks)
• [3] (accusing editor of talk page BLP violations)
• [4] (supporting inclusion of pro-Snowden poll results)
• [5] (supporting inclusion of quotes both pro- and anti-Snowden)
• [6] (supporting inclusion of material about lawsuits against the NSA)
• [7] (opposing inclusion of arguably disparaging statements against Snowden by the govt)
• [8] (defending use of the term "whistleblower")
• [9] (opposing changes that would have questioned Snowden's credibility)
• [10] (opposing connection between Snowden and KGB)
• [11] (supporting use of the word "dissident" to describe Snowden)
• [12] (tentatively opposing connection between Wikileaks and FSB; Petrarchan participated in this one)
• [13] (supporting inclusion of quotes both pro- and anti-Snowden)
• [14] (criticized anti-Snowden editor for edit warring)

And last but not least:

• [15] (reported prominent anti-Snowden editor to WP:ANI; led to voluntary WP:ABAN)

Reviewing these, while Petrarchan was active on Snowden during part of this period, it appears he really wasn't involved in the vast majority of these disputes, so I understand why he wouldn't be willing to vouch for me on this issue. Then again this exercise is rather silly as I shouldn't have to prove my "good deeds" to become a member of this little club. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:34, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

So would you be willing to fix your removal of the White House Petition? And, sorry to put you through this. I was obviously wrong. petrarchan47tc 04:38, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean about the White House petition, but perhaps we should start a new thread about it. Thanks for the apology. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:49, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Since you removed it for "recentism", which is a bogus reason, please remedy this by putting it back. It doesn't require a new thread. And take the tag off of the page. You said at my talk page that you just can't get to fixing this article. That is not a reason to tag it. petrarchan47tc 06:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I tagged it because it was/is imbalanced. No more, no less. It would have been improper to tag for any other reason. And I stand by my removal of that petition. Calling my reasoning "bogus" isn't helpful or convincing. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:24, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The petition was removed for being a recent issue, that you then argued was not relevant because subsequent polling showed the public's opinion of Snowden had changed (for that week, anyway, but this has no relation to the petition). That is not a convincing argument to remove the WH Petition. You do not sound like a person who is here with a neutral point of view, or to work well with others to attain consensus. I take back my apology. petrarchan47tc 07:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand why I should have to agree with you on any particular substantive issue for you to behave in a collegial manner with me with respect to other issues. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:46, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Dr. Fleischman about the deletion and his/her reasons for it as well. Gandydancer (talk) 23:13, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Snowden effect

Notes for possible additions: petrarchan47tc 23:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

On journalism

Guardian - there's enough here for a standalone article:

• Britain targets Guardian newspaper over intelligence leaks related to Edward Snowden 11.30.13. Washington Post. By Anthony Faiola.
  • Guardian accused of aiding terrorism by publishing Snowden's revelations 12.2.13. Guardian. Ben Emmerson.
  • New York Times backs the Guardian over Snowden leaks 11.15.13. Guardian. By Roy Greenslade
  • UK's reputation is damaged by reaction to Edward Snowden, says UN official 11.15.13. Guardian. By Matthew Taylor, Nick Hopkins and Phil Maynard
    • Guardian Editor Describes Pressure After Leaks by Snowden 12.03.13. New York Times. By RAVI SOMAIYA
    • Guardian editor robustly defends Snowden leaks to UK MPs 12.03.13. Russia Today.
    • Guardian will not be intimidated over NSA leaks, Alan Rusbridger tells MPs 12.03.13. Guardian. By Nick Hopkins and Matthew Taylor
      • The Snowden Leaks and the Public 11.21.13. By Alan Rusbridger

• Why are writers being curbed by NSA surveillance? 11.12.13. LA Times. By David L. Ulin

On tech:

• Tech giants are countering government spying 12.01.13. USA Today. By John Swartz
• Is a Snowden effect stalking US telecom sales? 11.1.13. CNBC. By: Eamon Javers
• Techies vs. NSA: Encryption arms race escalates 11.30.13. Associated Press at Guardian. By MARTHA MENDOZA

Lavabit:

• How Snowden'€™s email provider will reshape the Internet privacy debate 11.13.13. Al Jazeera. By Evan Hill

• DOJ says Lavabit cannot prevent search warrants by 'locking its front gate' 11.13.13. PC World. By John Ribeiro

Comment: When adding links please also add date, name of publication, and author so that if the links die one can still find the content. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:37, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Good idea, will do when I have time, and in the future. petrarchan47tc

I mentioned that the Mendoza article is an AP article published by The Guardian WhisperToMe (talk) 18:05, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Enough

I'm through defending myself from the constant barrage of personal attacks from Viriditas and Petrarchan47. The above threads are getting too cluttered for meaningful discussion about the article. If anyone wants to engage in civil, good faith debate about my tagging of the article and/or my reasons for it, then I'm all ears, let's do it here. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

An editor added a maintenance tag at the top of the article. The tag says, the article "may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole". Other editors don't see where this undue weight occurs nor how to fix a problem they can't identify. Should they remove the tag? If not, why not? How can the problem be resolved and the tag removed? Viriditas (talk) 08:20, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

My explanation of the underlying imbalance can be found at these diffs: [16], [17]. If anyone would like further clarification, I'm happy to provide it. If there is consensus that there is an imbalance, or if there is no consensus, then the tag should stay until the problem is fixed. On the other hand, if there is consensus that there is no imbalance, then the tag should go. In this case at least a few editors agreed there is an imbalance. It's probably premature to call a consensus at this point; I'd give it another 24 hours. At that point we can assess consensus. If the tag stays after that point, it may unfortunately have to stay for a while, as fixing the problem could take some time. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:52, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I would like to point out a communication problem. One, you didn't directly answer the meat of my question, although you acknowledged the role of consensus. You pointed me to two diffs; the former says you observe a neutrality and balance problem in multiple sections. You list those sections and then say one should be removed and another expanded. However, you don't provide an actionable basis for removing the tag. The first diff is more of a "Hey guys, there's something wrong but I don't have time to explain it" type of comment. So based on that first diff, I don't see the need for the tag. Now on to the latter diff. The second diff is a meta-diff pointing to the first, along with an explanation of what you see as a problem. You say there is a problem with the "relative lengths of sections and details of coverage". You specify that the Criminal prosecution and investigation section is shorter than other sections and that the debate section is too short. Finally, you say that the Awards section is too detailed and the fundraising is too promotional. In other words, you've provided a subjective, general observation but not much to go on—nothing specifically actionable. When we use a maintenance tag, we do so for specific reasons that can be directly addressed. Since this is a biography first and foremost, it might make sense for it to only briefly mention certain things over others, and it also might make sense to expand others. In other words, there may be good reasons for the current length of sections. I am curious what else could be added to the Criminal prosecution and investigation section beyond what we already have in this biography. I also think we can greatly shorten many of the other sections, including the debate which really doesn't belong in a biography. Is it possible that you have this article confused with the Global surveillance disclosure topic? Viriditas (talk) 09:16, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

My goal with the tag was to describe a problem, but not necessarily a solution, which would be the next step. The solution would be to expand the sections that are too short and trim the sections that are too long. The particular details of the solution would take time to sort out, and possibly further discussion if disagreements arise during the process (e.g. what should be cut). We would simply follow the normal editing process, with effort to fix the problem. I don't mean to suggest that the "Criminal prosecution and investigation" section should be as long as other sections, merely that the level of detail should be commensurate, provided appropriate sources are available. Petrarchan has asked, how do we know the sources are available? My answer is, I've been reading the news the last few months and I've seen far more than two stories that would be relevant to the section; I just haven't collected them. Regarding what specifically could be added to this section, I don't know, as research is required first, as with the expansion of any section. Regarding the "Debate" section, that is certainly a funny moniker for a biography, but at one time the article had all kinds of notable quotes and opinions about Snowden, calling him a hero, a traitor, etc. What happened to that material, I haven't yet investigated, but it seems appropriate to me to include that type of material here, perhaps under a heading other than "Debate." However if there's consensus that the material doesn't belong in this article, then the "Debate" section should be removed entirely. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 10:06, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I get the feeling that it is more the sudden tagging of the article with Doc's note that was not taken very well as more the problem than his criticisms of the article, which seem reasonable to me. I'm sure that we can find plenty of room for improvement in the article if we work together and I'm sure that we can. Could we perhaps first work on the Criminal prosecution and investigation section to see if it needs to be broadened? Also, it seems that there was agreement that the China section could be trimmed. However, I would not agree to keeping the tag until the article is "fixed", and I believe that to continue to insist on that will only create an unfriendly atmosphere on the talk page that would make progress more difficult. Gandydancer (talk) 15:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

From Dr F's response on my talk page, apparently we are supposed to wait until he finds sources with which to fill in the investigations section. I agree the tag and insistence it stays regardless of other editor's input is the problem. The debate section could be shortened to probably two sentences, but there does need to be a summary of the "fallout" which includes the debate, here - because this is the parent article, and that section was split from here and moved to 2013 mass surveillance disclosures. That msd article is mind bogglingly detailed. Unreadable, really, but see for yourself. Given that (it seems) every article covering the debate prompted by Snowden leaks mentions him in the intro, RS guidelines support/require coverage here. A readable bite-sized summary would be good. petrarchan47tc 17:46, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the mass surveillance articles are wonderful, and have changed much since I last saw them, so I take back my comment about them being "unreadable". But we do need a proper summary here. petrarchan47tc 20:09, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ignoring Petrarchan's mischaracterization of my position, I'll buy Gandydancer's (and only Gandydancer's) reasonable argument in the name of forward progress. However I do so with considerable trepidation as it rewards bad behavior. I condemn those who ignored WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, and WP:AGF, made repeated straw man arguments, and/or took a "my way or the highway" approach. This has been very disappointing to me from a faith-in-the-community perspective. Unfortunately the damage has been done (particularly here, here), and it's time to move on. Perhaps wounds will heal someday. I'll remove the tag. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Undue tag

The overall neutrality and balance in this article have degraded since I was last actively editing it in August. Relatively speaking, the article overemphasizes the following subjects/sections:

• Career
• Hong Kong
• Asylum applications
• Awards (especially)
• Fundraising (this is blatant promotion and should be deleted outright)

relative to the following subjects/sections:

• Debate
• Criminal prosecution and investigation (especially; this needs major expansion)

Please do not remove the tag until consensus has been reached. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:25, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's incorrect. You are the only person who thinks this material is "undue" and this has been addressed in the above RFC. You are now disrupting this article by creating duplicate discussions and asking people to prove a negative. That's not how it works and you're holding this article hostage to your demands. We don't have to prove it isn't undue, but you have to show us that it is. Unless you can demonstrate that these things are undue in a very narrow and specific way, there's nothing anyone can say or do to address your concerns. It looks like you are playing the all or nothing hostage game. You have repeatedly asked other editors to prove that it's neutral, and to prove x, y, and z. Meanwhile, you don't have to prove your stated concerns, so you are essentially transferring the burden on to other editors. When other editors address it, as in the RFC up above, you then move the goalposts. When other editors point this out, you then open up multiple discussion threads claiming that you are now holding the article hostage to your maintenance tag demands and that all the material you personally dislike must be removed or the tag stays. This little game is entirely transparent, disruptive, and not how Wikipedia works. If you have a specific problem with content, then you describe it and ask that it be modified or removed. Previously when you've done this, other editors have disagreed with you. You can't drop the stick, so now you are forced to slapping tags on sections and yelling at the top of your voice that no man shall pass unless your personal whims are met. Viriditas (talk) 04:47, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass --HectorMoffet (talk) 05:06, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Huh? This is a separate issue. The RFC was about the videos. I'm not talking about the videos here. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:13, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

DR is correct there is too much cheerleading on this article and not enough on Snowden's crime and illegal activity.MagicKirin11 (talk) 05:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

We report issues as they appear in RS. There is a section just waiting for your assistance all about the charges against him, but note that he has not been convicted of any crime, so whether it was illegal activity has not been determined. petrarchan47tc 06:00, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you that MagicKirin11's reference to "crime and illegal activity" was rather POV and certainly inconsistent with BLP. However you should bear in mind that all editors, including you, must comply with WP:WEIGHT and specifically WP:BALASPS. The fact that you've voluntarily chosen to write at length about certain sections of the article and not others doesn't give you license to violate these aspects of WP:NPV. In line with policy you should (a) write less about your favorite Snowden aspects, (b) write more about the other aspects, or (c) a combination of both. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:14, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Remove tag - This article needs great NPOV care now that Jimmy Wales has publicly praised Snowden. In general I agree with Viriditas regarding the tag, though DrFleischman's dislike of the awards section allowed me to review and delete per WP:CRYSTAL a short subsection about a school in Germany that may, or may not, give Snowden an honorary degree. I lean keep on the fundraising subsection but am open to discussion. But overall, I think the burden should be on supporters of such a tag to speedily prove that consensus exists to justify such a major disfigurement of this high-profile article. As Viriditas notes, based on past talk page history here, it appears that no such consensus exists. Jusdafax 05:37, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Can you explain what you mean by a "such a major disfigurement?" I never suggested disfiguring the article, let alone in a major way. I'm suggesting expanding some sections and trimming others. I'm not talking about lead editing or dismemberment. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:18, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry not to be more precise in my meaning of the phrase in question, which is meant for the tag itself. It goes without saying that a prominent tag at the very start of an article on such a controversial figure is the first thing one sees. In my view it casts a serious taint on the efforts of Wikipedian editors who contribute in good faith. Furthermore, coming on the heels of a discussion in which you didn't prevail, it gives the appearance, rightly or wrongly of your being a bad sport. I do not make this accusation, but I suggest you remove your tag in the interests of collegial fairness allowing us to begin to discuss your points on a case by case basis and achieve a truly encyclopedic NPOV. Again, it is my view that things have significantly changed because of the Founder's recent laudatory statement regarding the article's subject. More than ever, this important article truly needs to be squeaky clean, so for that we should all be grateful to you. Again, let's lose the tag, please. It would be much much easier if it came from you now instead of as a result of !votes. Thanks. Jusdafax 07:51, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I respectfully decline. I appreciate you elaborating on your previous comment. I agree that the tag is a bit of a black mark but sadly, I believe it's warranted, as the article has in my view become rather lopsided. My tagging of the article had little to do with the previous RFC (which resulted in a compromise, btw) and I did it in good faith. Any appearance of my being a "bad sport" is purely coincidental. There's also nothing unfair or un-collegial about the tag. It serves a number of useful purposes, not least of which is that it attracts the attention and input of editors who don't have this article on their watchlists. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Remove tag. petrarchan47tc 06:00, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• Tag removed. DrFleischman, you don't get to hold the article hostage to your POV. If you have concerns, great, discuss them. If you have issues, great, discuss them. But you do not get to tag this article simply because you personally don't like it. This is a deliberate misuse of the maintenance tag. The tag is designed to bring attention to a problem that can be fixed. It is not intended for single use by one editor who can't communicate a problem that needs fixing. You don't get to hang a badge of shame on this article simply because of the way the wind is blowing. If you see a problem, then you need to communicate that problem so that others can look at it and determine if there really is a problem. Tags are used to draw attention to a problem where there is no attention. Well, that is not the case here. You have attention, but you can't communicate the problem and/or others don't see a problem. When you are able to communicate an actual problem that others agree with and when those editors say, "you're right, there's a problem and we need to fix it" and seem unable to do so, then and only then does the tag get added. Viriditas (talk) 09:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

If I am violating a policy or guideline then please identify it for me. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 10:14, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

To return after a lengthy period of time and state, "The overall neutrality and balance in this article have degraded since I was last actively editing it in August", make a list of demands, and tag the article is extremely arrogant and not the way this place is supposed to work. Gandydancer (talk) 09:58, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off as arrogant, and my reference to August was solely to explain that I haven't given the article much scrutiny in recent months. And to clarify, this is not a list of demands. It's simply my two cents. I feel the problem is sufficiently pervasive and profound that it merits a tag. This isn't holding the article hostage; nothing is being censored or withheld from readers. The tag serves to recruit interested editors and also to signal to like-minded readers that the issue is being worked on. I understand some editors don't like these sorts of tags, but that's really a personal preference. I like them in the certain situations such as this one. I've violated no policy or guideline, and I'm here on the talk page to discuss the matter openly. I'm not sure how that can be described as "not the way this place is supposed to work." Now, aside from all that, does anyone aside from Jusdafax care to weigh in on the substantive merit of my concern? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 10:26, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

According to our guidelines: If the consensus of the other editors is that there is a problem or an editorial dispute that deserves such a clean-up template, then the editors should work to fix the problem as quickly and cleanly as possible so the template message can be removed. If the consensus is that there is no problem, then the message can be removed immediately. The consensus seems to be that there is no problem. Gandydancer (talk) 13:36, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I fully agree with this except that it's definitely premature to call a consensus for two reasons. First, it's too early, as the discussion has been going for less than 13 hours, which isn't enough time to allow for the participation of editors who don't have this page watchlisted. Second, consensus isn't determined by vote. Two editors (MagicKirin11 and Jusdafax) have responded in a substantive way to my concerns. One agreed with me and the other partially agreed with me.

(Also, just a minor quibble, the "guideline" language you quote above comes from WP:TC which is not a guideline. I don't know what weight should be official given to it, but regardless I agree with the language so this is rather moot.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

For those who have concerns about my use of the tag, I urge you to read WP:TAGGING, which I just discovered. Of course it's just an essay but perhaps it will convince some folks here that I acted in good faith and in line with the views of some portion of the community. Moreover this wasn't WP:DRIVEBYTAGGING as I initiated (and continue to engage in) this discussion. And finally, the essay gives some helpful suggestions on how to resolve exactly this kind of dispute. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:37, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Why not just highlight the parts of the article that you feel are a problem and spend time discussing how they can be improved. Obviously dropping tags on entire work is going to cause a problem. I am not a fan of tagging entire well written articles unless absolutely necessary, get specific with your grievance. With so many editors taking issue with the tag it might be now just beating a dead horse (I am afraid). --Inayity (talk) 18:22, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I thought I did highlight the parts of the article I feel are a problem, but I'm happy to go over it in more detail. This is really about relative lengths of sections and details of coverage. The most glaring problem is that the "Criminal prosecution and investigation" section is way too short compared to other sections, a problem Petrarchan has apparently already acknowledged. The second most glaring problem is that the "Debate" section is also way too short; anyone who has followed the Snowden story even slightly knows there's been a tremendous amount of commentary on him (mostly positive, I believe) - yet we only have a few sentences? It's just weird. The third-worst problem is that the "Awards" section has excessive detail compared to the rest of the article, with subsections about obscure awards and gratuitous quotes by Snowden that you'd never see in a comparable article. The fourth-worst problem is that the "Fundraising" section appears promotional. I could go on, but those are my biggest concerns. So you see, these are article-wide concerns, so a top-level tag is appropriate. I could have instead added section-level tags to all seven of the sections I complained about, but that would have created an awful lot of clutter and been more intrusive, in my view. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Energy vs Reward. It is clear you have hit a brick with the higher level tagging. it would be better (I think at least), to pick one area which is the most problematic. And start a thread and discuss that section, point by point. From what I have read, the critiques you list are very broad and invite the critical dialog above. Just remember tagging is not a final solution, the final solution is a better article.--Inayity (talk) 20:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I fully understand tagging isn't a final solution and I believe I want a an excellent, balanced, and untagged article as much as anyone else here. As for splitting these issues out, that is really impossible as my concern is chiefly about relative weight among sections (WP:BALASPS). Yes, some of these issues can be dealt with separately the larger issue cannot. But, as a gesture of goodwill I'll start a separate discussion on what I believe is the most separable issue, which is the "Fundraising" section. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:23, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

You mean you are finally going to get around to discussing why the tag is in the article? How magnanimous of you! The tag has no business being here and there is no consensus for it. Tags are used to draw attention to problems that can be fixed. They are not used as a badge of shame by editors who may get around to explaining why the tag is there sometime in the near future. You're still holding this article hostage with "I am going to tag this article until my personal demands are met, and although I can't exactly explain what my personal demands are or when the tag should be removed, if you all do what I say then maybe, just maybe, I'll remove the tag. Mighty nice article you've got here, it would be a shame if something would happen to it." I think that about sums up your position. Viriditas (talk) 03:57, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

There's something about your general approach that engenders the sense that there's no point in arguing with you on the merits. Perhaps that's why you end up in all sorts of conduct disputes. Care for another round, or will you review this discussion and revise your comment accordingly? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:11, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Another dodge, another day. Notice how whenever the problem you claim exists is addressed, you fail to address it? Again, are you finally going to get around to discussing why the tag is in the article or are you just going to keep changing the subject and moving the goalposts? Why is the tag in the article? We have consensus against it, so why is it still there? Is it because 1) you have no reason, and you just added it to hold this article hostage to your demands, and 2) the reason you haven't removed it is because you don't follow consensus? Are both 1 and 2 examples of intentional disruption on your part? And what about 3) intentionaly reverting two different editors who disagreed with the tag? Is that also disruption on your part? Now, here's the part where you respond by changing the subject again... Viriditas (talk) 07:20, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

You're wasting your time. If you want something from me, please ask nicely and avoid misrepresenting my past comments. Care to try again? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:34, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Why is the tag in the article and what can be done to immediately remove it? Am I wasting my time expecting an answer to this simple question? Viriditas (talk) 07:37, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Baloney

Dr F says: "The overall neutrality and balance in this article have degraded since I was last actively editing it in August. Relatively speaking, the article overemphasizes the following subjects/sections:

Career

Hong Kong

Asylum applications

Awards (especially)

Fundraising (this is blatant promotion and should be deleted outright)

relative to the following subjects/sections:

Debate

Criminal prosecution and investigation (especially; this needs major expansion)

Response:

• These sections have hardly been touched since August, if at all:
  • Career
  • Hong Kong
  • Asylum applications

• RS about the awards did not exists prior to August

• The fundraising section was added by a drive-by editor, and its removal is not contested

• Debate needs a lot of work, this is only a skeleton, merely a place-holder, but I am doing my best with the little time I have to devote to wiki

• No one is stopping you from making a giant federal case of the Federal case, so why a tag on the whole article?

Notes: I have been the only one really working on this article since August, and have only worked on the Russian asylum part, as well as updating important issues such as the awards, and have only begun to deal with what is being termed the "Snowden effect" example list of examples. There have been no great changes since August with respect to the sections you've outlined above, so to suddenly claim the whole article is twisted now leaves me confused. Perhaps though, editors will be attracted to help with research into what is lacking, what is being over or under-reported here, and get to work on improving a very important article.

I am wary of the meme that we are being too nice, too supportive, of Snowden and intentionally leaving out criticism. I would rather hear RS based arguments showing how this article diverges in coverage with relation to that seen in mass media. From my research, I see that there is a campaign in DC that we have yet to cover 1 2 3. Also, Germany's Green Party is calling loudly on the country to grant asylum to Snowden, who the majority of Germany calls a "hero". one example. My palms sweat when news comes out that should go into this article, but that seems to favor Snowden. I have purposely NOT added these two items because of the constant onslaught of POV claims. The article suffers from my fruitless attempts to not stir up controversy and veiled accusations of hero worship. petrarchan47tc 22:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the substantive response. I guess my reply has three parts. First, my reading of the first part of your response (the bullets) basically says, "Don't blame me, I did nothing wrong!" Let me be clear about this: I never claimed you did anything wrong (aside from your overemphasizing of the awards). I never claimed that you were personally responsible for the imbalance. I never claimed to have gone through the edit history to see who changed what when. I simply believe that the article is currently imbalanced and needs adjusting. Your comments above essentially agree with that, you seem to acknowledge that there are problems but you don't take responsibility for them. I never asked you to take responsibility for them. My feedback about this article is about the article, not about Petrarchan.

Nope, that isn't what I meant. I meant there isn't a problem that would justify tagging the entire article. petrarchan47tc 06:49, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The second part of my reply is that I suggest you make an effort to look at issues outside of the pro-Snowden-vs-anti-Snowden lens. We often fall into patterns where we end up pigeonholing discussions into disputes between familiar camps. This is a bad thing as it leads to avoidable miscommunication and conflict. My overall POV can't be neatly pigeonholed this way, nor can the concerns I've raised in this thread. For example, I've said the pro-Snowden part of the "Debate" section needs expansion. Yes of course, the amount of coverage should be roughly related to the amount of coverage by reliable sources, I don't dispute that. (I've actually been taking that very position on an unrelated politically charged article where I've been locking horns with a disruptive, corporatist, WP:COI WP:SPA.) When I say the article is unbalanced, I don't mean in a pro-Snowden way -- although there are shades of that, particularly in the Awards section -- I simply mean that the article in unbalanced. Please don't lump me in with the "constant onslaught" you refer to.

Hm, it seems the "pro-Snowden" language was actually introduced by you. I don't think in those terms, but rather what is available in RS that is relevant to this article. petrarchan47tc 03:00, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The third part of my reply, coming back to my first point, is that we all have a responsibility to edit articles in compliance with with WP policies and guidelines, and this includes WP:UNDUE and WP:BALASPS. This means that we can't wax ad nauseum on certain certain aspects of article and leave other sections stunted just because we have no interest in them. I'm sorry, but if you're going to continue adding detailed to the Awards section and such then you're going to have to add a comparable amount of detail to the "Criminal prosecution and investigation"; otherwise, you're just compounding the BALASPS problems, intentionally or not. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

That's untrue. The responsibility is on all of us, equally, to edit where we see fit. You have not added to this section, or introduced relevant sources one could use to expand it. I have not run across any new updates to the charges as we are in limbo with Snowden's asylum making him unavailable for trial. I do agree that the sections are not in a perfect state of balance. We could use some help in trimming the Applications for asylum and Hong Kong sections, which don't warrant a blow-by-blow. Snowden was in Hong Kong for what, a week or so? But the section is equal in size to his four months in Russia. The asylum-seeking story is interesting, but again, it was written as events unfolded is now unnecessarily bloated in comparison with other sections. I haven't had time to deal with this. I responded in what seems a personal way, because your claim is that the article has become problematic since August, and I have been the only editor here since then. I think we don't actually have an argument. I think we have a lack of editors doing the hard work this article requires. petrarchan47tc 03:00, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I have to admit that I'm feeling pretty guilty right now, as I've been watching the article but not getting involved since it seemed to be going well...I just kept thinking "not to worry--Petrar is taking care of things..." Gandydancer (talk) 03:20, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

No, the article is in good shape compared with the majority of wiki, and that has nothing to do with me. I think we are blowing things way out of proportion. Time to take the tag off, and if anyone can find sources with which to update the investigation of Snowden, the good doctor will probably be happy to work on that and we can call it a day. That is not to say an onslaught of editing help wouldn't be awesome. But no guilt (or tags) is warranted! petrarchan47tc 03:38, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that neither Gandydancer nor anyone else has a responsibility to contribute. We're all WP:VOLUNTEERs (well, hopefully) and our contributions are purely optional and appreciated. That said if our contributions create or exacerbate violations of WP policy or guidelines then they should be avoided. Hence in some situations, such as this one, it's inappropriate to continue adding content to certain aspects of article at the expense of other aspects, to the point where a BALASPS problem arises. The tag should remain as long as the article remains out of balance. I understand this bothers some editors, but that's the purpose of the tag. If the tag is so bothersome, then it will serve as an incentive to fix the problem. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:47, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

DrFleischman, perhaps you haven't been here very long, but there is no policy or guideline that reflects your opinion. There is a consensus that the tag should be removed from this article until you have shown there is a problem that can be fixed. It is not, I repeat, not the purpose of the tag to hold this article hostage to your POV. Maintenance tags are used to address problems that can be fixed and to bring attention to an article that does not have it. Tags do not serve as an incentive to fix an ambiguous problem that only you believe exists in your head. If you can't communicate what can be fixed, and if there is no consensus that an outstanding problem exists, then the tag gets removed. It's that simple. I plan on removing the tag, and so does Petrarchan47. We have several other editors up above who disagree with your tagging. So, there does not appear to be consensus that a problem needs fixing nor is there consensus for keeping the tag. Viriditas (talk) 06:03, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I fully agree that there's a lack of consensus over whether the tag should stay or go. In such cases the tag should remain. Moreover, there does appear to be consensus that the article is imbalanced, so removal of the tag is wholly unjustified. Multiple editors who supported removal of the tag based their argument on unfounded accusations of my bad faith. Some of those editors may have changed their minds. If you have a problem with what I've written here, the solution is DR, not reversion. You've been here long enough to know there's no policy or guideline that reflects your opinion. However, you're also well aware that there are guidelines against edit warring, threatening edit warring, unfounded accusations of bad faith, knowing misrepresentation of other editors' opinions, and bullying in general. I urge you to self-correct. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The edit history shows you edit warring against two different editors to keep the tag, so I hope you are familiar with the policy. I am not threatening to edit war. I am telling you that there is no consensus for the maintenance tag, and this talk page supports that opinion. I am telling you that without having something to specifically fix, the tag can't remain. I am telling you that "assumptions of bad faith" have nothing to do with this discussion. The tag will be removed, and if you continue to revert other editors against consensus, then that's your decision. You are entirely misinformed as how we use maintenance tags, and because your strategy is so very common with POV pushers who think they can game the system by taking an article hostage and insisting that everyone else agree to their demands "or else", I was forced to write an essay about it several years ago. You're not being original, helpful, or unique. You are merely gaming the system to try and get people to agree to your demands, which nobody can predict because you keep coming up with new ones every day and moving the goalposts whenever you want. Sorry, that's not how it works. You don't get to hold this article hostage through the improper use of tags, and the tags will be removed per consensus. That's the way it is. I'm sorry you don't like it, but I'm calling a spade a spade. You will not be allowed to disrupt this article. Viriditas (talk) 06:53, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Honestly it's hard to get past the incivility and IDHT. If you could make coherent arguments without the bullying then we might be able to avoid the noticeboards. I'm not holding my breath. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:05, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

IDHT, like the fact that you've reverted two different editors, that you refuse to remove the tag based on the current consensus, you refuse to specify what exactly needs to be fixed, and you appear to be inventing policies and guidelines that don't exist to support keeping the tag? You mean that kind of IDHT? Viriditas (talk) 07:22, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] No one has agreed that the imbalance warrants this tag. Dr F, you are holding the article hostage saying the investigations section needs bulking up, yet have not provided any sources to help improve or update it. The imbalance, imo, can be remedied by trimming the Hong Kong and Asylum applications sections, but this is not a life or death need. This arguing hasn't done one thing to improve the article. In all this time, you could have made the fixes yourself, if you actually have some sources about the investigation and charges. I think you're just whining, frankly. petrarchan47tc 06:57, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't have the sources, and I don't need to have the sources to add the tag. Moreover if people would quit the personal attacks then perhaps I could spend the time doing the research you're requesting. Not that I have any obligation to do that research; the tag itself is a valuable contribution to the article, as it identifies a problem that needs to be fixed. It will take time. Please respect my view and refrain from disparagement. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:21, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, you have the process completely backwards. The burden is on you to tell us exactly what needs to be fixed, and if we don't recognize what you say justifies a tag, then you need to recognize the consensus. No maintenance tag is a "valuable contribution" to any article on Wikipedia; that statement is absurd. You need to respect our view, and you need to stop beating the horse. The tag is getting removed. What you don't seem to understand is that you are engaging in classical POV pushing behavior. Using a maintenance tag to attract attention to an article that is not being looked at is acceptable. Using a maintenance tag to attract editors to a problem that is not being looked at is acceptable. However, using a maintenance tag without exactly specifying what needs to be done to remove it is disruptive, and your above comment about it taking time shows that you have no intention of telling anyone how it can be removed. Classic POV pushing behavior. If it is going to take you time to do whatever research you intend to do, then great, put it on you calendar and make a date to do it, however, the tag will not remain on this article. Viriditas (talk) 07:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The research is required to back up claims that the investigation section is being ignored. You, Dr F, must have had an idea of what could be added before you came to make the complaint, so I assumed showing those sources wouldn't be a problem. petrarchan47tc 07:35, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not following. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:42, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The consensus is that there should be NO TAG, FULL STOP. You and ONLY YOU, want the tag, FULL STOP. Drop it. --24.250.56.128 (talk) 04:29, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

You're a little late for the bullying, sock, FULL STOP. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:11, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Swedish media: Snowden files reveal Swedish-American surveillance of Russia

• Sveriges Television says that Sweden is "spying on the political leadership of Russia, and forwards gathered information to the United States."

• Original report in Swedish

Probably helps to explain why he was granted asylum in that particular country.

-A1candidate (talk) 10:13, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Barjangle wtf?

Apparently Snowden's father is a BARJANGLE ??? and a Coastguard. I've never heard this term before. Is this correct? If not -- maybe a regular editor of this page can fix it ... and if so - maybe we need a Wikipedia entry on barjangle - a quick google delivered zilch so if such a thing as a barjangle exists, would be good to know more! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ethel the aardvark (talk • contribs) 01:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to be in any of the sources listed. Hmmmm. We could drop the term until a source pops up. petrarchan47tc 01:57, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Media seems to uniformly refer to Lon as ex USCG. I'll remove the undefined, unsupported term for now. petrarchan47tc 20:59, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales' opinions on Edward Snowden

Not sure where this fits, but...

• Gabbatt, Adam. "Edward Snowden a 'hero' for NSA disclosures, Wikipedia founder says." The Guardian. November 25, 2013.

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:07, 1 December 2013 (UTC) As stated before Wales oppinion is irrelevant and should not be given speciul consideration.MagicKirin11 (talk) 05:35, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Of course it's relevant, and given Wales' notability it should probably be included. Unfortunately the "Debate" section has been neutered compared to what it once was (improperly, in my view), and if Wales' views were added to this section in its current state it would be out of WP:BALANCE. Basically I think the "Debate" section needs major expansion, including the addition of Wales' views among many others. (This thread is what triggered my addition of the undue tag and the discussion immediately below.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Dr. Fleischman, could you provide diffs of the pre-neutered version you prefer? Since the splitting off of the main reactions section, which was moved by the admin who locked the page a while back, sans summary, the Debate section has only expanded. But it needs to be summary style, as the discussion is now at 2013 mass surveillance disclosures. What do you think, specifically, should be added to the debate section? As for Wales, I don't agree in the least that there should be mention of it here, beyond the link I added to the lede. A lot of important and famous people are saying a lot of things about Snowden. There is a list style discussion of this at the 2013 msd article, and it should go there imo. We are sorely missing a global view. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Indonesia are hot spots right now with leaks and fallout, and we have no mention of them. They are all undergoing the same debate as the US and EU. I would go for adding more context, rather than adding random examples of reactions to a summary. petrarchan47tc 04:26, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

According to WP:LENGTH, at 113 bytes the article is already too long and should be split. Jusdafax 05:45, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

What do you think should be split? Personally, I have not wanted to trim the Asylum applications or Hong Kong sections because I didn't feel confident about removing information. Maybe those sections could be split. petrarchan47tc 07:02, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I notice a lot of work going on at the article, which I am glad to see. Let's give this a few more days 'till things settle down. Jusdafax 10:41, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Snowden is still an American fugitive even with temporary asylum

The deletion of the description of Snowden as an American fugitive is contrary to the subject reference in the lede sentence. Snowden is an American fugitive even with temporary asylum granted by Russian authorities while Snowden remains within Russia. Please restore my edit.Patroit22 (talk) 11:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Agree 100%. Yes he is also an asylee, but he is much better known for being a fugitive. (See WP:BEGIN.) He's a fugitive until the U.S. government catches him or gives up. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:04, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I like how the first sentence is currently written, without reference Snowden's asylum/fugitive status (as it's not what he's primarily known for). --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:26, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Please be aware: This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Edward Snowden article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. petrarchan47tc 00:38, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Activist basically said that Russia is a barbaric country. Is this kind of blatant expression of one's prejudices allowed at Wikipedia, especially in cases where it has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Is hate speech like this treated as acceptable by Wikipedia policy, or is there a mechanism to control it? – Herzen (talk) 09:08, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

• I never said or implied that Russia was "barbaric." I would appreciate your withdrawal of your comment. Activist (talk) 10:33, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you take this to Activist's talk page or the noticeboards if you feel so strongly about it. It has no place on this page. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 09:23, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Another example of PC, Snowden is a fugitive.There seems to be consesus on that. should change be made?MagicKirin11 (talk) 23:58, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

---

E. Snowden is not just a fugitive, but a lucky fugitive (unlike e.g. Alexander Litvinenko). Mazarin07 (talk) 15:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Also a political refugee. Should that also be in the lead? Many names with different connotation, so fugitive in in the eyes of some, and a political refugee in others. Belorn (talk) 05:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

How he is referenced in RS determines wording. petrarchan47tc 05:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Snowden is not a fugitive: he is a free man. You can't be a fugitive if you are located outside of territory the jurisdiction of which finds you to be a suspect of some crime. I think the lede as it stands is fine, but it just brings out the pathetic nature of what the United States government has become. "Snowden is considered a fugitive by American authorities" – Herzen (talk) 06:04, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

If we want to use the most common reference for snowden as found in source, refugee is more common than fugitive by 2x (given a google search). If we want to go by "How he is referenced in RS determines wording", fugitive should be replaced by "refugee". Belorn (talk) 19:40, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

You probably have a point there. But everything seems to turn around Snowden's asylum status in Russia being only "temporary". I don't think that anyone seriously believes that once Russia had granted him that status, it would ever give him up. So he has a new home now, so that he is neither a fugitive nor a refugee, in my view. – Herzen (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Belorn does have a point, I'll change it to refugee. petrarchan47tc 01:51, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the intro doesn't say Snowden 'is' a fugitive, but states rather that the USG considers him one. That is true. petrarchan47tc 01:55, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Conspiracy went "Far... 2far"

By?...

Why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLP ?

Please someone add to "see also" about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacepa

For the post above, correlate the size of the document with his name (on Google).

P.S. How do one "says" "far" in Romanian?

Unfortunately, I don't understand your question. petrarchan47tc 21:43, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Time Magazine 'Person of the Year, 2013' is Pope Francis

Next in voting is Edward Snowden

• http://poy.time.com/2013/12/11/runner-up-edward-snowden-the-dark-prophet/3/

This is an extensive 4-pg article recapping and expanding; great diagram included.
Required reading for WP editors. — FYI, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:11, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Latest SNOWDEN Revelation

Headline: "LATEST SNOWDEN REVELATION: NSA USES GOOGLE COOKIES AGAINST TARGETS"

• http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/11/latest-snowden-revelation-nsa-uses-google-cookies-against-targets/

"Just this week, major tech companies put the pressure on pressure on President Barack Obama to curb the U.S. government surveillance programs. Twitter, LinkedIn and AOL joined Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft in the push for tighter controls over electronic espionage. The group is immersed in the lives of just about everyone who uses the Internet or a computing device." — FYI, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 16:44, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Size of Snowden's documents

Not sure if this is worth adding, but government officials claimed/estimated that Snowden leaked up to:

• 200,000 classified U.S. documents, according to the director of the NSA

• 58,000 classified UK documents, according to the UK's Deputy National Security Advisor

• 15,000 to 20,000 secret Australian files, according to Australian intelligence agencies

This article currently says that he disclosed 200,000 classified documents to the media - while that may not be completely false, it could be better for us to specify how many of these 200,000 documents belong to whom.

P.S. In case you're wondering how a U.S. citizen could gain access to classified Australian , British and Canadian documents, see UKUSA Agreement

-A1candidate (talk) 14:48, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The Lede has "up to" 200,000, without specifying the source of that estimate. These details would be a good addition for the body. petrarchan47tc 20:56, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• Rice-Oxley, Mark, Leila Haddou and Frances Perraudin. "Edward Snowden voted Guardian person of the year 2013." The Guardian. December 9, 2013.

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:26, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

1.5 million classified documents yet to be leaked

CBS News: Snowden, who is believed to still have access to 1.5 million classified documents he has not leaked

-A1candidate (talk) 01:44, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Iceland

The Iceland stuff can go, in my view. One could also speculate as to why he didn't go to Malawi, but what's the point when he went to Hong Kong? He decided to go to Hong Kong, and if that needs explanation then that decision can be explained. Talk about the roads not taken when there were a hundred roads not taken and the article could go on and on and on and on.--Brian Dell (talk) 10:44, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I've now cut it down to a note that he was interested in going to Iceland and his explanation for why he didn't go to Iceland in the first place. Note that the explanation is also questionable, although I've left it in for now, given WP:SELFPUB's warning about "unduly self-serving" material. Snowden's claim here he would have been interdicted on en route to Iceland is given amidst the absence of any evidence that a flight to Iceland booked by a NSA employee as a private citizen would result in being detained at a U.S. airport before embarking on one of the many direct flights from the U.S. to Iceland.--Brian Dell (talk) 07:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Global surveillance disclosures --> NSA leaks

The term "global surveillance disclosures" is not one found in RS to refer to Edward Snowden's disclosures, so the to change the wording in the Lede doesn't seem to be supported by guidelines. It now reads "NSA leaks", as media refers to them. petrarchan47tc 02:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Google pulls up:

• 1,860,000 hits for "2013 + global surveillance disclosures"

• 129,000,000 hits for "NSA leaks"

• 130,000,000 hits for "Snowden leaks"

Anatoly Kucherena

An editor claims that TIME's "Runner-Up" Man of the Year story "makes claim against Kucherena which does not change how Snowden is viewed." This assertion not supported by the source, as the source makes a point of pointing out that Snowden "held his tongue as Kucherena" misled the Western press. If TIME thought Kucherena's "knack for misleading the press" were notable only the context of Kucherena and not in the context of Snowden, then 1) TIME would not immediately juxtapose Snowden's silence with Kucherena's disinformation campaign and 2) would not raise this in an article whose primary subject is Edward Snowden, and not just Edward Snowden with respect to something specific, but Snowden as a 2013 newsmaker in general.
Look again at a fuller excerpt:
Even Snowden’s Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, raised his glass for a toast. Coming from a man with close ties to the Kremlin and a knack for misleading the press... for Snowden [the gathering] was something more, a chance to reaffirm to the world the purpose of his actions, for which he has been charged in absentia with theft and violations of the Espionage Act. Since escaping his country in late May... Snowden has chosen to lie low. No Twitter account. No television interviews. No direct contacts with U.S. authorities. He held his tongue as Kucherena boasted to the press about Snowden’s new Internet job in Moscow, his new Russian girlfriend and his dire money troubles. Most of that is fiction, like [Kucherena's upcoming] novel, according to several people who communicate regularly with Snowden.
Not only is Snowden's silence directly juxtaposed with Kucherena's claims about him, but the context of the clause is a paragraph addressing the effort "to reaffirm to the world the purposes of his actions." That's clearly a revisiting of "how Snowden is viewed."
I'll grant that this should not be spun as more "nefarious" than it is. But it is not the case that either Wikipedia tries to shove down the reader's throat the thesis that Snowden and "several people who communicate regularly with Snowden" (Greenwald? Poitras?) have stuffed their whistles into their pockets while the Kremlin ran a disinformation campaign OR that all questions about the reliability of Kucherena's claims about Snowden and the implications are completely suppressed in this article. Respecting the reader means allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusions from neutrally presented facts, and the fact that "people who communicate regularly with Snowden" were sources for TIME's claim that Kucherena just makes stuff up about Snowden is just that, a fact.
Note here that Greenwald claimed on August 28 that the Kommersant story "about the Russian consulate was fabricated; it never happened." This was, of course, consistent with Kucherena's denial. One could argue that TIME's indication that "several people who communicate regularly with Snowden" knew that Kucherena's claims (in general: it is not true that only specific claims of Kucherena are questioned, his proposed biography of Snowden in general is questioned) were specious suggests that Greenwald may have been siding with Kucherena against Kommersant while knowing that Kucherena was not generally reliable, if Greenwald was one of the anonymous sources "who communicate regularly with Snowden". But this is not to insist that this scenario about Greenwald be presented to the reader. I would concede that may be undue and veering into original research. I am rather pointing out that the potential implications of TIME's claims about Kremlin-connected Kucherena and TIME's explanation of how it came to its view of Kucherena are extensive enough as to provide additional rationale for a brief mention.
re "what does this have to do with Hong Kong", first of all, whether something belongs in a particular section is not the same question as whether something belongs in an article. Secondly, Hong Kong is the only place where we know Snowden has communicated with questioners in such a way that his answers could not have been prepared by someone else. Note how TIME opens with Snowden's Moscow meeting with his four American sympathizers and calls attention to how controlled by Russian authorities the arrangements were. Since his arrival in Russia, Snowden hasn't given any interviews like the one he did with the South China Morning Post, where he talked about U.S. intelligence ops in China, or like the in-person and on-camera interview with Poitras and Greenwald. If TIME didn't think this was newsworthy, it wouldn't call attention to "No television interviews" in its definitive story on Snowden as this year's newsmaker.--Brian Dell (talk) 05:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Just make sure to add the examples TIME used when addressing Kucherena's knack for 'boasting' (as the article puts it). Without them, it does tend to spin a more nefarious sounding tale. I still think it's undue, but whatever. petrarchan47tc 09:32, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Last time you edited the article on this point you didn't provide "examples," you rather rewrote in order to suggest that the doubt about Kucherena's veracity was limited to three enumerated cases and didn't go beyond that. I have explained above why I think that is misleading. TIME quite clearly indicates that the "fiction" charge extends to the book Kucherena says he is writing about Snowden, and it would be a fair characterization of the source to say that if TIME is sowing a seed of doubt about the Snowden narrative in general it is not accidental, not least because there isn't just this "fiction" mention but also the "misleading the press" mention and TIME does not limit "misleading the press" to any particular, enumerated cases. I find it ironic you have concerns about presenting a "nefarious sounding tale" when presenting just such a tale about the NSA is precisely what the Snowden campaign is all about. With respect to these double standards, let's revisit your deletion of the Thomas Drake quote where this leaker refused to leak about the details of Russia's controls saying "Russia has a duty to protect Ed as an asylee. That should tell you everything you need to know." Funny how the Kremlin is entitled to its secrets in deference to its "duty to protect" its residents but Washington isn't. You said Vice is not a reliable source. Yet the author, who frequently directs traffic to the "Free Snowden" fundraising campaign on Twitter, CCed Drake and others in a tweet such that Drake could have voiced objections about the author's reporting and, indeed, Rowley, who was there at the Moscow meeting with Snowden and Drake, replied with "Great! Thank you!"--Brian Dell (talk) 20:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

You are using the TIME magazine as a source, your words above don't mean a thing until you bring a source to support your points. The blurb about Kucherena makes absolutely no sense in the article, but I have added the examples from the TIME article to keep it neutral and RS-based, at the very least. I hope some other sensible editor steps in to deal with this WP:OR tangent. petrarchan47tc 22:39, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I have repeatedly and continually referred to the TIME story, asking you to not cherry-pick from that source and instead consider whether it has been fairly represented on the broader level, yet you continue to do so, extracting individual words from the source (e.g. "boasted"). I have accordingly included the the whole two sentences from TIME in the article. You say the "blurb about Kucherena makes absolutely no sense", but if your "words above" "mean a thing" please explain to us just why this "blurb" occurred in TIME's year end story on Edward Snowden if it is, indeed, nonsensical in an article about Snowden. Is TIME magazine an unreliable source like Vice magazine? Is your reply to my defence of the Vice article to assert that my calling attention to the supporting evidence constitutes an "original research tangent"? Or do you now accept the accuracy of the Drake quote?--Brian Dell (talk) 23:44, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, first of all. You are showing us your theory above in yet another rant about some behind-the-scenes story that exists nowhere in RS the way you are presenting it in this thread. You are trying to tell a story by stringing together unrelated tidbits. The TIME article isn't RS for what you are attempting to say, and it certainly doesn't fit in the Hong Kong section other than the fact that Kucherena is mentioned. If you leave the examples TIME gives of Kucherena's "boasting" (and leave out TIME's descriptor) out of the presentation, the reader hears something far more nefarious than what the article supports. It is, as User: Binksternet said, WP:UNDUE and should be removed on that basis alone.

LATER EDIT: I just checked the change you've made, and this sticks to the source better, but frankly it is gossip, undue and out-of-place. As for the blurb sourced to VICE and stuck to the bottom of the Sam Adams award section, it is also out of place, imo (and if VICE is RS, that's news to me).petrarchan47tc 00:00, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm in full agreement with Petrarchan here. Gandydancer (talk) 01:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

If one is going to apply WP:SYNTH without using common sense then any article that is more than just a concatenation of plagiarized quotes is SYNTH. Look at the edit here:
"At time A source B in story C "claimed that" Mr X <insert direct quote> "and wrote" <insert direct quote>"
If this is SYNTH then what isn't SYNTH? Now maybe you think remarks I have made on this Talk page are SYNTH ("presenting it in this thread"). If so, I'd be interested in the original research that led you to conclude that WP:SYNTH is meant to be applied to Talk pages. As for the original research charge, note that that policy mentions "Primary, secondary and tertiary sources" amongst other things. None of that applies here. My "original research" consists of finding a TIME article and quoting from it. Really not that original!
As for the "gossip" claim, are the people who say that Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper has made misleading claims just "gossips"? I dare say it is more rightly characterized as "fair comment." Merriam-Webster's definition of gossip mentions "private details of other people's lives" and there is nothing "private" here, since what is being questioned are public statements about a serious as opposed to tabloidish matter and the reaction, or absence thereof, to those statements. When it comes to the article as opposed to this Talk page, I'm not the one doing the questioning, either, but TIME magazine. As for "undue and out-of-place" these are of course commonly encountered synonyms for WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If I don't like something in a particular article by definition it is "out of place" there!
WP:UNDUE would be to have two paragraphs on this. In fact, there's all of two sentences at issue here, and it only becomes undue if the proper balance in this article is 99 lines that talk up Snowden's nobility and championing of human rights for every line that suggests a more sober and skeptical view. The article is currently shot through with stuff like this material sourced from the (unquestionably reliable!) Kremlin-controlled channel Russia Today: "Snowden responded to the award, saying it was "a great honor to be recognized for the public good created by this act of whistleblowing", and that it was not him, but the public who "affected this powerful change to abrogation of basic constitutional rights by secret agencies." Does Wikipedia claim he was a whistleblower? Does Wikipedia claim Snowden served the public good? Does Wikipedia claim basic constitutional rights were violated? Does Wikipedia claim Snowden is due honors and awards? It's all supposedly plausibly deniable that Wikipedia is pushing Snowden's agenda on his behalf, because it's all put into the mouths of others, either Snowden or a Snowden supporter. They are repeatedly being handed a soapbox throughout this article. If for one brief moment the claims of one of those supporters about Snowden are questioned that is hardly "undue". As for the VICE story, I would address your argument if it existed, but it doesn't. You claim has been that it's unreliable and that's it. Since it apparently isn't possible to engage on that point on this Talk page, and is apparently seen as a personal conduct issue on my part by another editor, I've addressed it on Binsternet's Talk page.--Brian Dell (talk) 11:11, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Snowden's own words are undoubtedly relevant to an encyclopedia article about him. They are not definitive statements of fact, but they are incontrovertibly a relevant point of view. If there is any doubt that he said those words, no one of notable substance has expressed it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

What if I said "BP (British Petroleum)'s own words (as written by BP Corporate Communications) are undoubtedly relevant to an encyclopaedia article about BP. They may not all be definitive statements of fact, but there are incontrovertibly a relevant point of view. If there is any doubt that BP said those words attributed to BP, no one of note has said so."? Fact is that Wikipedia would never tolerate BP and/or BP sympathizers continually being given the opportunity to spin BP's story. If somehow it was tolerated, you can bet editors would be insisting that competing, critical narratives be extended at least some space as well. But for Edward Snowden, well, it appears the politics change the standards for what is "undue" and what isn't.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:10, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

What BP says about itself should be reported in Wikipedia. The article should not be primarily based upon those self-statements and should clearly attribute controversial claims made by the company itself. Reliable, relevant challenges to those self-statements should be included as well. I repeat, do you have a reliable source which challenges the fact that Snowden said those things?

Competing, critical narratives should be given space when and where they are reliably-sourced and significant in context. We are not required to note each and every narrative in every location. Wikipedia is not required to append a negative statement to each positive statement in an attempt to create "balance."

Significant discussion of things people have said about Snowden's lawyer belong in a biographical article about Snowden's lawyer - not in Snowden's biographical article. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:26, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

What's notable is determined by what the sources cover, not by a Wikipedian substituting his own opinion, and here TIME deemed the material at issue notable, and notable in a summary article on Snowden. What TIME and others do NOT find notable is quotes like "We believe that Snowden exemplifies Sam Adams’s courage, persistence and devotion to truth — no matter what the consequences." Can you imagine someone singing the praises of BP like this getting quoted in Wikipedia (without also having something critical or at least moderating)?

Has Snowden's claim that the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva after working as a systems administrator been challenged? Yes, it has. In the Washington Post, in fact. Has his claim that he flew to Hong Kong on May 20 been challenged? Yes, but this article just states "On May 20, 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong". Has his insinuation that "everything [an ordinary citizen may] do and say is recorded" been challenged? Yes, it has. Has his claim that the NSA's programs are "illegal" been challenged? Yes. Has the appropriateness of his invocation of Nuremberg been challenged? Yes. Has his claim that he took no documents with him to Russia been challenged? Yes, it has. Has the claim that Snowden is not under the control of local security forces in Russia been challenged? Yes, it has. Has his claim that ordinary citizens can't be "creative, to have relationships and associate freely" because of the NSA been challenged? Yes. Has Sarah Harrison's (and Russian) claims that Snowden was "stranded" in Russia because "the United States revoked his passport" been challenged? Yes, but, yet again, that challenge is not included in this article. Instead, we get repetition of the claim, quoting Green Greenwald. Have most of Snowden's more controversial statements, like praising Russia for its human rights stance, been omitted from this article? Yes, they have.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Who has challenged those events and statements, and what evidence is their challenge based upon? If those challenges are based upon nothing more than speculation and are not given wide credence in mainstream media, we have no responsibility to discuss them. Fringe theories are routinely omitted from Wikipedia articles, particularly those which are biographies of living persons.

A quick Google search finds a wide range of responsible, mainstream sources uncritically and factually reporting that Snowden worked for the CIA under diplomatic cover in Geneva and flew to Hong Kong, to just spot-check two of your assertions. It is your responsibility to demonstrate that the challenges to those events are significant, well-sourced and not merely fringe conspiracy theories. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

To "just spot-check" one of your assertions about what I asserted, I did not assert that Snowden did not fly to Hong Kong. No reasonable person would deny that he was once in the United States and at one point this year was in Hong Kong. The details in my assertions above matter. And a "mainstream source" "uncritically and factually reporting" that according to Snowden he left Hawaiii on May 20 is not equivalent to the same without an "according to Snowden" qualifier. It is the responsibility of the editor adding material to ensure that what is stated in commensurate with the extent to which the claim has been confirmed. I could go through all the sources for you if I thought such a review would get a fairing hearing, but it's apparent that it would not get a fair assessment here given the lengths participants in this thread are prepared to go to in misapplying the "undue weight" charge or the "fringe conspiracy theory" charge (doubting something does not mean the doubter is advancing a "fringe theory" of his own. See Proving a negative. I'd be accusing people in this thread of advancing "fringe conspiracy theories" about how VICE came to print a false quote of Drake if I shared this misunderstanding of WP:FRINGE.) TIME magazine has directly challenged Kucherena's claim about Snowden's job situation, the same Kucherena who had a claim about Snowden directly contradicted by Putin, and there are no sources other than Kucherena to support, and yet evidently the "consensus" is to still refuse to allow that doubt about the claim to get into the article, never mind more general doubt about the whole narrative being advanced by the Kremlin about how Snowden ended up in Russia, why he is still there, and how much control he is under while there.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The Kucherena material that you would like to add, saying he is known for making shit up, has little to do with Snowden. Nobody else except Michael Scherer, the Time journalist, doubts that Snowden has an internet job in Russia. Nobody cares about a possible new girlfriend who has in any case not been shown to be significant to Snowden. Nobody cares about Kucherena's notional book project until it is actually published. Scherer's implication (not hard proof) that Snowden does not hold an internet job in Russia is contradicted by a great many sources which accept it as fact. Let's drop the vague implications and stick to widely accepted material. Binksternet (talk) 01:30, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

There's no doubt Snowden is working for a major Russian internet company? Yandex and Mail.ru have both denied he's working for them. What are your sources?--Brian Dell (talk) 02:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You have named two Internet companies. Surely you are not asserting that Yandex and Mail.ru are the only major Internet companies in Russia, are you? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:25, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The article asserts that Kucherena says Snowden got a job. We don't need proof that he has one, unless we state this in Wiki's voice. petrarchan47tc 06:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that @Binksternet's claim, above, that "nobody else except Michael Scherer, the Time journalist, doubts..." is not true, as this New York Times story makes clear.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

As for BP, their statements do indeed appear in the Wiki article, at the request of the BP PR department, no less. petrarchan47tc 01:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Map Key

The NSA surveillance map needs a key. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.244.137.239 (talk) 01:48, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

New Edward Snowden sources

• Fung, Brian. "Edward Snowden doesn’t show up once in Google’s list of top 2013 searches." Washington Post. December 17, 2013.
• "Brazil says not now considering Snowden asylum." Reuters. Tuesday December 17, 2013.
• "Snowden offers to help Brazil investigate NSA spying when he's given asylum." Russia Today. December 17, 2013.
• (I am not sure if this actually counts as an RS) Queally, Jon. "Snowden: 'I Would Rather Be without a State than without a Voice'." Common Dreams. Tuesday December 17, 2013.

WhisperToMe (talk) 09:06, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

• Gellman, Barton (December 23, 2013). "Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission's accomplished". The Washington Post. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |newspaper= (help)

HUGE new source. HUGE. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:25, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree! And good to see you back, editing. Merry Christmas. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:27, 27 December 2013 (UTC) — Yes, it is HUGE. (Snowden's short Christmas message.)

Is the NSA's Spying Constitutional? It Depends Which Judge You Ask

Atlantic article by Andrew Cohen; Dec 27, 2013 petrarchan47tc 21:52, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Misinformation and Credibility

There should be a section detailing what Snowden has gotten wrong with his leaks. Also, his lying about his education, army service, and role at the NSA are well known and are dispersed throughout the article but are not listed in a single section. Snowden's credibility is under serious question and this article effective ignores that fact. There needs to be a section detailing his credibility and why some people disregard anything he says based not on their unwillingness to listen but because his track record for telling the truth is so poor. Eyes down, human. (talk) 15:55, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Snowden's statements are backed up by decades of earlier disclosures (See Global surveillance disclosure). If any biography deserves such a "misinformation and credibility" section, it should be added to that of Barack Obama ("There is no spying on Americans"). -A1candidate (talk) 16:19, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

But Mr Obama's reaction suggests there is rather a lot of truth in what Snowden has told us. People are not really interested in his education or army service, are they? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:00, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

If there actually is more information of any sort about Snowden's education or military service I'm not aware of it. Perhaps Eyes down could present what he has found and we could discuss it. As for the problem s/he is having with the order info is placed in the article, it seems to me that it is similar to other bios. Not sure what s/he means by "what he has gotten wrong"... Gandydancer (talk) 19:55, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

They aren't listed as a single section because WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. If WP:RS, however, synthesized this information and due weight considerations were met, a section such as the one MKRa desires would be justified. petrarchan47tc 21:03, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Where is the reliable source that synthesized the "Recognition" section currently in this article?--Brian Dell (talk) 19:03, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Photo and gallery edits

I don't care for the recent edits. I find the gallery edits to be not especially related to this bio of Snowden. I also feel that the two photos, Greenwald and Poitras, are too large since this article is a Snowden bio. Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 03:27, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The NSA programs being featured in the gallery are what put Snowden on the map. I would strongly argue that they are very encyclopedic additions, and along with the journalists' photos, are well-placed in the article. As a reader, the images bring to memory all that I have heard about the programs. Pure text, on the other hand, for the majority of us who skim rather than read, doesn't have the same effect. When these programs were in the news, the images were displayed as they were being discussed. This is why the images add actual information, and help the reader soak in the (somewhat dry) content. You will remember too, I was complaining a while back that this article is lacking visuals, and used the BP oil spill article as an example of a visually-rich article. These additions balance the article out well, imo. petrarchan47tc 04:14, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Agree that the photos are not helpful, since this is an article about Snowden. If photos of Poitras and Greenwald are included, why not also include photos of Gellman, Putin, Obama, Judge Leon, Daniel Ellsberg etc? Dezastru (talk) 16:20, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The portraits are HUGE. If they could be smaller, it does seem fitting to have images of Greenwald and Poitras, in my mind. They continue to play a huge role in Snowden's life (Greenwald speaks or emails with him daily) and in the whole Snowden saga, from the very beginning. The reason we don't also have an image of Gellman is because one doesn't exist yet on Commons, unfortunately. It wouldn't be a huge loss without the images, but I do prefer offering these visuals to the reader. The NSA programs' presentation could be less conspicuous, perhaps on the right side, or better yet in some kind of scrolling gallery (which we don't have available), but again, personally I think it is a service to the reader and does add context and content to the article without overloading it in any way. petrarchan47tc 01:03, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Obama and Putin also continue to play huge roles in Snowden's life. There are Wiki links for Greenwald and for Poitras. Interested readers can see photos of them on their Wiki bio pages. Dezastru (talk) 02:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

The way that it serves the reader, in my mind, is that they don't have to click on a link to get more information about two of the most pivotal people in Snowden's life and in the story of the NSA leaks. Putin and Obama are well-known and an image does nothing to inform readers. They are also peripheral. It looks silly to argue these are in the same vein simply because they've played a role in Snowden's life, frankly. Is there some other reason you don't like these particular images? petrarchan47tc 03:59, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I feel that the smaller photos of Greenwald and Poitras fit better and are useful for the article. However, I still strongly object to the others. They are available at the other article while in this article there is no discussion about what they are even about--nor should there be, IMO. Gandydancer (talk) 00:12, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly one way or another, though I do think adding the most well known leaks (which could be narrowed to three: MUSCULAR, XKeyscore and PRISM) is a good addition and totally fitting. When we first heard of and saw Snowden, it was in tandem with these programs/leaks/images. He is famous because of these very leaks (and subsequent ones). However it makes sense to expand a bit on the programs with a short description of each, imo. petrarchan47tc 05:05, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

The Leaks section is now filled out, and considering the importance of the leaks to the Snowden 'story', as well as the nice visual break from text that the images offer, I now lean in favor of keeping them. petrarchan47tc 07:57, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Snowden and Assange: FP analysis of how Snowden became more well known than Assange

• Leetaru, Kalev. "King Snowden and the Fall of Wikileaks." Foreign Policy. December 30, 2013.

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

added videos

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Hi all

I've added videos from the Sam Adams award presentation in Moscow (one of which is media of the day on commons today), I think the videos are a worthwhile addition to the article but the descriptions may need some work.

Thanks

Mrjohncummings (talk) 13:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Removed as this gives WP:UNDUE emphasis to a minor story that is pure WP:RECENTISM about an organization that barely exists. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:08, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I am adding them back; your rational doesn't hold water. If your reasoning was that the Award is entirely undue, you would have no reason for having left the section about the Award in the article. I disagree that this could be categorized as a minor story - with regard to the subject matter and a quick look at reliable sources, it is not. Although the award may not be well known, the people behind the award are highly notable, all ex-intelligence officials and most are quite famous.

This 'organization that barely exists' has been active since at least 2002.

This is the second of two videos appearances we have of the Snowden, and is his first public appearance since becoming an asylee, which makes these videos even more notable, as we can see from the coverage in RS below. petrarchan47tc 01:43, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

• USA Today: 4 Americans meet to give Snowden an award
• AP: 4 US Whistleblowers Meet Snowden In Moscow
• Coverage on Guardian
• Coverage on Washington Post
• Coverage on Democracy Now

I'm not saying anything about the reliability of the sources; WP:UNDUE is about neutrality, not verifiability. The award is already covered in the text. On top of that it gets not one, not two, but four videos? Whether it's intended this way or not, it comes off as abject hero-worshiping. Even a single video is inappropriate, as it puts disproportionate emphasis on a very small aspect of Snowden's biography. He is famous for his leaks, not the award he received for his leaks. This is not the Nobel Prize. And yes, this is an organization that barely exists. They have no website and you won't find a single reliable source that even acknowledges their existence prior to Snowden's disclosures. And every other recipient of the award has an article, but you won't find links to videos of any of them receiving it. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:16, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

This is the second of two videos appearances we have of the Snowden, and is his first public appearance since becoming an asylee, which makes these videos even more notable. (I've just re-added my note from above.) In media coverage these videos are receiving attention not for the award, the catalyst for the visit and public appearance, but because since becoming a household name after the Guardian interview, no one has heard from him until now. Regarding the videos, I'd like to hear more from the editor who added them as well as the rest of the community. Regarding "hero worship", that is a personal judgement void of substance, given that editors are simply reflecting RS and should not be made to feel guilty for that. The opposite of hero worship is equally egregious for an editor, and I would point to the removal of Snowden's White House petition as well as the recent grumbling at Sam Adams Award as red flags for a certain potential POV. petrarchan47tc 22:27, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

The fact that content is supported by reliable sources doesn't mean we abdicate our responsibility to ensure that the content is presented in a neutral and WP:BALANCEd way without giving WP:UNDUE weight to any particular aspect of the subject. I do not dispute that Snowden's public reappearance is notable; indeed it is. What I dispute is that his reappearance is somehow so much more notable than all other aspects of his biography that it gets four videos, while the rest of his biography gets none. And the fact that these four videos paint him in an overwhelmingly positive light, far more positively than the article as a whole. Where is the video of the DOJ announcing his indictment? Or the C-SPAN coverage of the congressional hearings about him? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

The videos are important IMHO and should be in Blade-of-the-South (talk) 07:21, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Please point to a comparable article that has links to a video concerning a comparable event. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

It has been a week without a response. I sense stonewalling. Someone please respond re comparable articles, or I'll interpret silence as acquiescence. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:53, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Interesting, no response. I'm re-deleting the videos. If anyone disagrees with this, please make an effort to advance this discussion. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:19, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I re-added the videos again as it seems their removal is controversial (3 against removal on talk). Receiving the award was a notable event, we're lucky enough to have footage of it-- it doesn't strike me as UNDUE to link to the footage of the event. --HectorMoffet (talk) 05:38, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

We're "lucky enough" to have footage of lots of other things, both related to Snowden and not, that never gets a link on WP. Why is this special? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:59, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Why does this article have videos when most articles still don't? Well, most video producers don't release their videos under Creative Commons, and thus they can't be uploaded to our servers. In this case, the footage was released under CC. Most editors don't understand how to upload and include videos, so articles that attract the interest of tech-saavy editors are probably going to be more prone to have videos.

I do agree we should worry about hagiography-- for example, the video clip where he's handed the award might be best put in the gallery and a still image used to illustrate the event. The gallery, meanwhile, might belong in the section on the award, rather than 'motivations'.

I recognize that even in 2013, it IS unusual for our articles to have videos (sigh). And I recognize the videos we do have present Snowden in the best possible light. So I do see your concerns that that article is getting 'special treatment'-- but the solution is for us to make video galleries a more regular occurrence on WP, not to delete links to the footage we already have. --HectorMoffet (talk) 07:15, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Your response doesn't hold water, for two reasons. First, there's lots of relevant footage available, such as C-SPAN footage, that may be freely used for non-commercial purposes with attribution. We could include all sorts of video coverage of Snowden related events, such as congressional hearings and NSA/DCI press conferences. Second, just because it might be desirable to promote video galleries on WP doesn't in any way negate the requirement that we adhere to WP:UNDUE and WP:BALANCE. You acknowledge that the videos present Snowden in the best possible light; that should settle the matter, as we have a responsibility to present the facts neutrally, rather than in any sort of good or bad light. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

"We could include all sorts of video coverage of Snowden related events, such as congressional hearings and NSA/DCI press conferences"-- You'll get no argument from me! There's a definite 'need for balance' in the video sections-- I think Congressional Hearings would make fine addition-- either hosted on Commons or at minimum linked to. That might be a great way to have our cake and eat it too. --HectorMoffet (talk) 07:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

How about 4 videos for each congressional hearing and each press conference? Ok, I'm not serious. But do you see what I'm getting at? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 09:01, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Should the links to the four Sam Adams Award videos be deleted?

Non-Admin Closure: The obvious consensus is to either keep and/or merge the videos. Three of the videos have been merged into File:Edward Snowden speaks about everything.webm and the fourth video was replaced by a still image. Theses edits all have the backing of consensus. I must add my personal opinion in that I believe this discussion and the compromises are a great example of team work on en.wikipedia. It should be noted that this closure is just to put a stamp of evidence of consensus as the parties involved seemed to have resolved this situation. -- ТимофейЛееСуда. 20:45, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

There are currently four links to uploaded videos related to the Sam Adams Award footage: one to Snowden receiving the award (in the Edward Snowden#Awards subsection), and three of Snowden speaking at the same event (in the Edward Snowden#Motivations subsection). The question is whether these links should be removed. Arguments for removal have centered around WP:UNDUE and WP:BALANCE. Arguments against removal have mostly said that the event was highly notable. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Plural was used for describing "argument(s) for". If this was in error, please correct your entry to reflect the singular. Thanks, petrarchan47tc 09:13, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• Delete most, keep one. Four videos seems to me excessive for anything short of the Kennedy assassination. FWIW, I wouldn't support four videos if Snowden had won the Nobel Prize, much less this comparatively obscure award. Adding this many video links makes it seem the most important moment of Snowden's life, but I think few reliable sources would consider it such (it certainly didn't dominate world headlines similarly to other Snowden events). This emphasis also raises some mild neutrality concerns. For comparison, we would never include four video links to White House spokespeople discussing and condemning Snowden's actions, though White House press broadcasts are presumably public domain. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

But we did include the White House reaction to the Russian asylum - it is the largest paragraph in that section. Further, media covering Snowden didn't just talk about this event, they included these videos. Wikipedia is in keeping with RS in this regard. If you haven't researched the coverage, let me know and I will add links. petrarchan47tc 18:49, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Reactions to Snowden were moved to the 2013 global surveillance disclosures article, where there is a good amount of space dedicated to WH reaction/condemnation. For inclusion in this article, (video) statements by Snowden can't be compared with WH reactions. It might make to sense to give equal space in this way if the article was 'Snowden controversy' or 'Snowden relationship with US government'. petrarchan47tc 21:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Adding four video snippets that make Snowden's case, and zero that criticize him, really does raise POV issues, unless your plan is to correspondingly overemphasize anti-Snowden views in the prose for some kind of overall balance. Despite taking the time to respond twice, I think you've missed the point here in both. Of course there are reliable sources about this event, but I'm not arguing that it didn't exist (and in fact argued that one video should be kept). I'm arguing that it's undue weight to link readers to this ceremony four additional times. This event doesn't even appear in the article's own lead section, for crying out loud. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:41, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Khazar2 makes a good argument that's hard to dispute. As a reader, I certainly don't want to look at four videos, which is why I have brought up other technical solutions that obviously won't happen within the time frame of this RfC. No matter how many arguments people make to keep these videos, it is an inescapable fact that from a merely aesthetic POV, it doesn't work. Viriditas (talk) 07:07, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Khazar2 -- These are not video snippets about any ceremony, they were simply recorded at one. The snippets are not "pro-Snowden", they inform the reader about him using his own words. To me, that is good, encyclopedic content. If there has been criticism or notable response to his statements in the videos, I would add them to page myself. As for their placement in the article, I would agree this isn't the best. The videos were added by an editor who has not worked on the article before. I do wish the three could be linked to play as one, which is how media outlets such as Washington Post covered this. But for now, even with the 4 clips and 3 still images, the Snowden article is sparse and visually unappealing compared with most Wikipedia articles, in my mind. To remove more media would certainly not help the situation, and is in no way a POV issue any more than text detailing his childhood history would be. It's information about the subject of the article. I don't see the problem. petrarchan47tc 22:22, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Update: The 4th video, showing Snowden accepting the award, was removed and in its place is a still image. The 3 video clips now have context, with an introduction and a proper spot chronologically in the Temporary Russian asylum section. petrarchan47tc 00:01, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Do you really think it would be neutral to have videos of Barack Obama or George W. Bush talking about their political beliefs on their own pages? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. I'd also add that responding twice to every post someone makes in a discussion borders on bludgeoning; instead, let's agree to disagree. You still have plenty of space to explain your rationale in your own !vote without needing to also pound mine into the ground. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• keep The videos are all very short. The three in the "motivations" section are all very short snippets, probably all taken from a single, much longer, video (someone please correct me if this assumption is incorrect). They are useful because they help explain Snowden's motivations. The one showing him receiving the award is also relevant to its section. Its removal would not be a great loss to the article, but it does little harm, in my view, to keep such a short clip. --NSH001 (talk) 18:17, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

The short, seconds-long video clips were released by Wikileaks in this format. A longer video, or the source video, has not been released or doesn't exist AFAIK. petrarchan47tc 18:53, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Keep per NSH001; this article is quite anemic with regard to non-text content, and as information trickles out about the subject, I expect editors to add more, be it text, video or still images just as we do any other article. Check out Deepwater Horizon oil spill, another article I've worked on a bit, to get an idea how comparably sparse this one is, making this RfC seem a bit of a time-waste. Frankly I'm getting sick of the needless difficultly placed on editors trying to work on this and the Sam Adams Award - a related article and recipient of similar complaints by the same RfC-filing editor. petrarchan47tc 18:35, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Delete most, keep one. Four videos is overkill. --Inayity (talk) 18:42, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: It's sad that in 2013 (going on 2014), Wikipedia has still not integrated multiple media formats into its articles. We should be able to easily link to and play all four videos in one small window with a loadable playlist template that can handle all types of media files. Otherwise, a variation of the {{collapse}} template would provide a quick fix for those wishing to preserve the videos. But really, we need a way to easily integrate slideshows, audio recordings, and video in a single display. Viriditas (talk) 04:05, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Delete. This event is simply not particularly notable. Yes, it received some press, so it merits mention in the text, but there are lots and lots of *more* notable events mentioned in the article that don't have any videos, despite them being available. This event probably wouldn't make the top 10. Bear in mind that this is an extremely obscure group that doesn't have a website and whose very existence isn't supported by reliable sources prior to this particular event. And aside from the notability issue, no one has explained how the videos provide any benefit over and above what's in the text. So he won the award. We say he won the award; isn't that enough? Likewise, the motivations videos "explain Snowden's motivations" (quoting Petrarchan); are his motivations unclear from our text? And if so, isn't the solution to change the text? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 09:15, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment: this is a biography article. It doesn't matter if the event was notable, what matters is if the commentary in the video helps illustrate the subject. For what it's worth, it wouldn't matter if it was a home video taken in a hotel room or a major production. What matters here is content, not the notability of the event. Viriditas (talk) 23:24, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:BALASPS, the weight given to the Sam Adams event shouldn't be disproportionate to its significance to the biography of Edward Snowden. I believe we've all been using the terms "significance" and "notability" interchangeably. The point, though, is that whether content is "helpful" or "illustrative" doesn't end our inquiry; there's still a neutrality standard (BALASPS) that must be met. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:22, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

The videos show Snowden talking about NSA programmes, the dangers to democracy, and about government transparency. Those issues are entirely relevant and significant in this article. The fact that he is speaking at a conference that you may or may not heard of is irrelevant. WP:BALASP has no application here, and I'm surprised you even brought it up. Viriditas (talk) 07:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

On what basis would WP:BALASPS not be applicable? As far as I know it always applies. And, as it says, it's about proportionality of the event's significance, not simply whether the event is or isn't significant. Put another way, we don't get to put in unlimited videos (or text) just because an event meets some "significance" threshold. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:42, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

The event has no bearing on the content. I'm not going to repeat myself again. Viriditas (talk) 01:33, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, for some reason I can't make heads or tails of your comment "The event has no bearing on the content." How is WP:BALASPS not applicable? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Merge: There's absolutely no reason to split a short videos into three even shorter parts. Having said that, the video itself is worth keeping but should be moved to Edward_Snowden#Political_views. -A1candidate (talk) 23:36, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Merge. Before A1candidate made his comment, I requested further input on a proposed merge here. Anyone who has the skills to merge these segments together is invited to do so provided it won't cause any problems for our readers (or the servers). Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 01:30, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
• Merge or Keep One. Multiple videos of the same event do not belong in an encyclopedic article unless each video, on its own, provides important content that is not already incorporated by the balance of the text and other videos. In this instance, all videos are of the same event and each does not sufficiently expand or extend the theme to warrant multiple inclusions. Factchecker25 (talk) 14:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I still oppose keeping any of these videos, but if the decision is between merging or keeping one I strongly prefer keeping one, the awards ceremony itself. The other three videos are Snowden elucidating his political views and motivations, things that are already well covered in the text of this article, and additional video coverage of the same material creates a neutrality issue. We would never allow similar footage in a politician's article, and I don't see any meaningful difference. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• Merge - per reasoning stated above by Viriditas. This is information that improves the the article, as it presents the subject in his own words. I call that encyclopedic, as I define it in the year 2013. Jusdafax 22:00, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
• Keep the videos, separately or Merged into one is fine by me. The videos facilitate seeing the subject in his own words in a story that has gone viral, and due to the subject's necessary removal from US jurisdiction, a story that has mostly been told for him by media intermediaries. Cheers. N2e (talk) 19:19, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Merge is possible

Thanks to help from User: Viriditas and the good folks at Village Pump, we should have a single video containing all 3 clips shortly :) petrarchan47tc 22:33, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

It should be noted that with this merged video to replace the three clips (having already replaced the fourth video from the "Sam Adams" section with a still image), we are now left with a single video. petrarchan47tc 22:56, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done

This is certainly a step in the right direction, and I appreciate your efforts, Petrarchan47, but we still have neutrality/BALASPS issues. Why do we have two redundant paragraphs about the Sam Adams Award? And as for the content of the video, we still have the subject of the article speaking his mind on his political views - how is this neutral? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:56, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I added a YouTube video reference towards the end of the 'Alternate Christmas Message, 2013' and removed the "YouTube" claim from the ref that was not YouTube. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:19, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should add link to US spying on Israel

Given the high profile nature of the US-Israel relation, and past stories about Israeli spying on the US, it would be appropriate to add Israel to the list of countries that the US has spied on in the article. From :

"Among allegations aired by Snowden last year were that the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart GCHQ had in 2009 targeted an email address listed as belonging to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and monitored emails of senior defense officials.

...

Greenwald voiced understanding for the Pollard linkage.

"I think you are absolutely right to contrast the Jonathan Pollard case with revelations of American spying on their closest allies within the Israeli government, because it does underlie, underscore exactly the hypocrisy that lies at the center of so much of what the US government does," he said.

" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richesla2 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, there is going to be a lot coming out soon, per Greenwald, about information contained in the leaks regarding Israel. It will be added. petrarchan47tc 08:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

"According to the Washington Post..."

...his passport was voided by US officials "as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America."

This is misleading. The Washington Post in fact says "He said that once the U.S. government voided his passport as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America, he had no other choice." The material between the quote marks appearing in Wikipedia (that is, "as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America") should be attributed to "He", not the Washington Post, when the Washington Post does not use its own voice to state what Wikipedia presents within quotation marks. Changing "Washington Post" to "Barton Gellman" is still misleading because the "He" here in "He said" is neither WaPo nor Gellman but Snowden. It ought to therefore say that according to SNOWDEN his passport was voided by US officials "as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America."

I just deleted this sentence rather than correct it (quotes should not be used at all here since WaPo does not follow "He said" with quotes) simply because the article already has this. We've already got Greenwald claiming that "[Snowden] didn't choose to be there. He was trying to get transit to Latin America, and then the US revoked his passport..." As if that isn't enough, we've also got Harrison claiming that "I was travelling with him on our way to Latin America when the United States revoked his passport, stranding him in Russia." I accordingly don't see the necessity of repeating the claim again at length when the article is already repeating for the third time the claim with Barton Gellman's assertion that Snowden "didn't choose Russia. He was literally changing planes in the Moscow airport when the United States revoked his passport. He was stuck there by that." That isn't enough? You STILL need to add this additional sentence here on top of what Gellman said? What does it say that Gellman doesn't already say in the very next sentence?

Meanwhile, until I just added it today there was nothing that pointed out that the "stranded" narrative has been challenged and contradicted. One can try and call the U.S. official saying Snowden's passport was annulled BEFORE he left Hong Kong a liar (as if a U.S. official is not reliable when it was U.S. officials who took the action) but one cannot deny that this same official has significant agreement re the additional claim that in fact Russia could overlook the absence of a valid passport and allow Snowden to travel on should both Moscow and Snowden so desire. As the legal scholar cited by the Associated Press notes, "Moscow airport is as much a part of Russia as is the Kremlin... Many nations pretend that airport transit lounges are not part of their territory, indeed not under their jurisdiction. As a matter of international law, this is completely false." The idea that Snowden was "stranded" in the airport is a "pretend" fiction created by the Kremlin and then re-propagated by Greenwald, Wikileaks, and Barton Gellman. If Wikipedia is going to in turn re-propagate this "stranded" line, once is enough (you can take your pick of Greenwald, Harrison, and Gellman), and the contradictory statements from U.S. officials and legal experts should be admitted.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

No one has argued against the inclusion of official statements, ever. If I inaccurately attributed a quotation to Gellman when in fact it was Snowden's, you can simply fix it in the text next time, yes? petrarchan47tc 03:40, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

"Debate" section

Just leaving notes for future additions: petrarchan47tc 22:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Edward Snowden revelations prompt UN investigation into surveillance 12.2.13. Guardian. By Nick Hopkins and Matthew Taylor.

 Done

• Edward Snowden says he accomplished his Mission to raise national debates. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:23, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done petrarchan47tc 23:31, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Needed: Edward Snowden advice on how not to be surveilled

Apparently, Edward Snowden has also dispensed advice (not part of what he has leaked) on how not to be surveilled or otherwise get netted in the NSA surveillance haystack, and it is changing the way many people communicate worldwide.

For instance, see: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance

A section on this aspect of the Snowden case would have to provide the information with a neutral POV, which should not be too difficult. As it is of general interest regardless of the outcome of any criminal proceedings, it bears mention to the general readership. There should be no legal difficulties with this. Danshawen (talk) 03:52, 4 January 2014 (UTC)danshawen

As useful as this material might be, Wikipedia is not a how-to manual. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Start something on Wikibooks. They'll love it. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

It should definitely be mentioned in the article, because almost nobody reads Wikibooks. Wikipedia is not censored, or is it? --85.197.10.39 (talk) 10:27, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Tweaking marginal stuff from leaked media reports on Snowden is probably playing into hands of Intelligence handlers

A couple of competitive Wiki editors are swapping edits on Snowden's passport revocation and related public tidbits. Russian and other intelligence agencies involved behind the scenes in all this do not face the same constraints on public sourcing as Wikipedia. Snowden's undisclosed location in snowy Russia is known to media and various intelligence and law enforcement officials but is not published. It will become public someday and should be a case study for an after action repot of how far off Wikipedia edie are. Meantime, there is no need to sweat the small stuff of what is public and what Ms. Harrison and her friends want us to believe.Patroit22 (talk) 03:56, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

This should be down your alley. Perhaps you can use it to somehow generate a specific edit recommendation. Absent a specific edit recommendation, however, "This is not a forum for general discussion... Please limit discussion to improvement of this article"--Brian Dell (talk) 06:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC);

Brian. I made a pertinent suggested edit to limit what appears to be edit wars over marginal public media reports that fit the classical spy management use of fellow travelers. All to deep for discussion here and nerve published in main stream media. Enuf said.Patroit22 (talk) 03

49, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Upcoming interview

For those who are interested:

On 26 January 2014, Snowden will be giving a 30-minute pre-recorded interview on German TV. As far as I know, this will probably be his first television interview and it it's going to be a rather long one, so there may be new information that could be included in this article. -A1candidate (talk) 22:48, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Ich habe in vielen jahren nicht Deutsch studium... petrarchan47tc 23:04, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

• Interview preview - NSA engaged in economic spying, claims Showden Deutsche Welle; 26.01.2014; permalink

• Interview in English

• Transcript

The Snowden-Interview in English

• From NDR - Norddeutscher Rundfunk, a public radio and television broadcaster in northern Germany: https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en

Passport

According to Gellman, after his interview with Edward Snowden in December 2013, and to Wikileaks, who was overseeing Snowden's travel from Hong Kong, Snowden was stuck in Moscow due to US' revocation of his passport. This information was left in the article, but is being questioned again.

This passport issue is a sticky subject, and deserves better coverage in the article. For now, I'll leave some research here. petrarchan47tc 22:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• "The document reportedly allows him to leave the airport transit zone where he arrived June 23 with a revoked U.S. passport, which did not allow him to legally enter Russia or board a flight elsewhere" LATimes

• "Although Snowden was able to stay in Russia, revocation of his U.S. passport has been a crucial weapon to prevent him from crossing an international border for any reason other than to come home to prison in the United States." HuffPo

• "Russian media quoted sources as saying the revocation of his U.S. passport is what's really keeping him from moving on -- preventing him from buying a plane ticket or even leaving the airport and setting foot on Russian soil." Fox

• "Upon his arrival, Snowden did not leave Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. One explanation could be that he wasn't allowed; a U.S. official said Snowden's passport had been revoked, and special permission from Russian authorities would have been needed." Fox

• "...had his U.S. passport revoked before he boarded a flight for Russia" AP

• "Snowden left Hong Kong, where he faced an extradition request from U.S. authorities for Moscow early Sunday morning and is seeking political asylum in Ecuador. It is unclear how Snowden was able to travel to Russia if his passport had been revoked. A U.S. official told the AP that a country could overlook the former contractor's revoked passport if an airline or senior official in a country ordered that Snowden be allowed to travel." Hill

• "The United States, by cancelling his passport, has left him for the moment marooned in Russia," Assange said. Politico

• "Hong Kong officials said that Snowden left the country "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel." "As the HKSAR Government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong," Hong Kong government officials said in a statement. Snowden's U.S. passport was revoked on Saturday, and Hong Kong authorities were then notified -- but the U.S. notification may have occurred after Snowden already had departed the city. The Obama administration was left "scrambling" for answers for how the fugitive former NSA contractor was able to jet to Moscow....despite carrying a passport that can no longer be used" ABC

• "Despite U.S. officials’ insistence that Snowden’s passport was revoked Saturday, the Hong Kong government said Sunday that he left “on his own accord for a third country.” Aeroflot told the Associated Press that Snowden registered for the flight on Sunday using his U.S. passport. Ecuadoran diplomats were at Sheremetyevo International Airport, where Snowden landed aboard an Aeroflot flight about 5:05 p.m. (9:05 a.m. EDT). It was not clear whether they were meeting with Snowden or with others who accompanied him. Snowden did not have a Russian visa, according to several sources, so he was confined to a transit area within the airport. WaPo

• Gellman: "...But Snowden knows his presence here is easy ammunition for critics. He did not choose refuge in Moscow as a final destination. He said that once the U.S. government voided his passport as he tried to change planes en route to Latin America, he had no other choice." WaPo

• "I was traveling with him on our way to Latin America when the United States revoked his passport, stranding him in Russia." — Sarah Harrison, the WikiLeaks advisor who met Snowden in Hong Kong and accompanied him to Moscow on June 23.
• Snowden "was transiting through Russia on his way to somewhere else, and got trapped there by US actions." — Primary Snowden source Glenn Greenwald.
• "He was literally changing planes in the Moscow airport when the United States revoked his passport." — Primary Snowden source Barton Gellman.
• “The United States, by canceling his passport, has left him for the moment marooned in Russia.” — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
• The U.S. went "so far as to force down the Presidential Plane of Evo Morales to prevent me from traveling to Latin America!" — Edward Snowden, in his recent open letter to Brazil. source

Given that "Snowden's U.S. passport was revoked on Saturday, and Hong Kong authorities were then notified" it's actually impossible that "U.S. notification may have occurred after Snowden already had departed the city." Aeroflot flight 213 is scheduled to depart at 10:50 AM Hong Kong time each day (or later). There is only one Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong to Moscow each day. 11 AM Sunday is necessarily after Saturday. Not that this particular point really matters but you evidently think it does given your boldfacing. Recall here what was going on before any of this:

Snowden, [Putin] said, was given a choice about coming to Russia before he flew in from Hong Kong on June 23.

“I’ll tell you something I’ve never said before, hinted at, but never said directly. Mr. Snowden first appeared in Hong Kong and met with our diplomatic representatives [there],” Putin said, adding that he was told about Snowden at that time.

“I asked: ‘What does he want?’ He’s fighting for human rights, for the right to spread information, he is fighting against human rights violations in this area and against violations of the law in the United States…. I said, ‘So what? If he wants to remain with us, he can stay, but then he must stop all activity destroying Russian-American relations.’ He was told that.

Note Putin said in this September 4 interview that he was "told about Snowden" by his diplomats in Hong Kong and decided that "he can stay," but there is no need to arrange a transit visa or other advance permission with Russian diplomats in Hong Kong if one truly intends to just transit: "Russian law does not require you to have a transit visa if you are transiting through one international airport in Russia, whereby you will not leave the customs zone, and will depart within 24 hours to an onward international destination." What would have created a need for special permission, however, would have been an intention to not continue onward within 24 hours! Of course Aeroflot would allow Snowden to register for the flight on Sunday using his U.S. passport if Moscow and Beijing have given special dispensation.
By the way, a blog written by a politician and activist on HuffPo making claims about "crossing an international border" hardly overrides what "a leading authority on international refugee law whose work is regularly cited by the most senior courts of the common law world" has to say about the matter (see previous section). Ditto for Wikileaks and Greenwald. Greenwald has already exposed himself as an unreliable source by declaring on August 28 that the Kommersant story that first reported Snowden's contact with Russian diplomats "was fabricated" and then Putin goes on TV on September 4 to confirm the contact. More generally with respect to "Primary Snowden source[s]", we know from the TIME year-end article that "several people who communicate regularly with Snowden" (that is, primary Snowden sources) know Kucherena has "a knack for misleading the press" (given that it was "according to" these people that most of what Kucherena says "is fiction") yet have conspicuously failed to correct the record when Kucherena's false claims have been spread in the media. These "primary" people have consistently exhibited more interest in Snowden advocacy than in accuracy (although Greenwald calls it "adversarial journalism" against Snowden's enemies in the U.S. government as opposed to pro-Snowden reporting).--Brian Dell (talk) 20:50, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

• Just a note to think about. You know that Hong Kong is 12 hours ahead of us? Do you know what time they were notified and what time this notification finally reached customs at the airport? I'd say there is no way to know one way or the other.TMCk (talk) 23:08, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I am aware of that and that's why I noted that "Sunday" is not 2 AM Sunday in Hong Kong but more like noon. Even allowing for time zones he still left Sunday. But as I said I think this is rather beside the point. On June 24 a State Department spokesman said that "though the Privacy Act prohibits me from talking about Mr. Snowden’s passport specifically, I can say that the Hong Kong authorities were well aware of our interest in Mr. Snowden and had plenty of time to prohibited his travel." "Plenty of time" is plenty of time. Note what else the spokesman said there: "We do revoke passports at the request of law enforcement authorities. We do so expeditiously when the request is received. When the Department of State revokes a passport, that information is shared through databases accessible by law enforcement and various border agencies around the world, including INTERPOL, to prevent persons from traveling on revoked passports." Note that "shared through databases" suggests reaching "border agencies around the world" with electronic speed. Now when did "law enforcement" make the triggering move here? ABC News said "A State Department Operations Center alert said Snowden's U.S passport was revoked Saturday after the Justice Department finally unsealed charges on FRIDAY"

In my view, the U.S. government was trying to work with Hong Kong authorities to get them to turn over Snowden without forcing Hong Kong's hand. WaPo then breaks the story that there are sealed charges against Snowden on Friday, June 21. "After The Washington Post reported the charges, senior administration officials said late Friday that the Justice Department was barraged with calls from lawmakers and reporters and decided to unseal the criminal complaint." So the charges were unsealed Friday (later on Friday "officials" explained why) and State "expeditiously" moved to revoke Snowden's passport. Hong Kong/Beijing promptly realize that with the charges public, Privacy Act notwithstanding people will know the passport has been revoked as well and the "insufficient information" argument will become too unbelievable, so the green light to move on that Snowden/Wikileaks/Kremlin having been anticipating is given.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:58, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• Media seems to say that they don't know either. We have first-hand accounts, and comments from unnamed government insiders. I suppose the best approach would be to lay it all out for the reader without presenting any conclusion. petrarchan47tc 23:21, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

• That's exactly the point I tried to make.TMCk (talk) 23:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

So, you would see a "Passport revocation" (or similar) section dealing with these questions to be reasonable? petrarchan47tc 23:54, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I thought more about such being incorporated into the existing text passage(s?) where the revocation is mentioned.TMCk (talk) 01:15, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Sounds perfect. petrarchan47tc 01:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The highlighted text above has received no objection, yet it has been here, highlighted, since 13 January. Today I added it but it was removed with the edit summary eluding to a White House spokesperson's statement that contradicts the text. I would ask that editors argue on the talk page rather than by removing cited information, and that the WH statement be added to the article rather than used as an excuse to remove content. petrarchan47tc 23:48, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

“The highlighted text above has received no objection” is, in fact, the most false statement I have ever encountered on a Wikipedia Talk page. Here is your highlighted text, from above:

“but the U.S. notification may have occurred after Snowden already had departed the city.”

Here is my January 14 reply, from above:

“it's actually impossible that 'U.S. notification may have occurred after Snowden already had departed the city'.... Not that this particular point really matters but you evidently think it does given your boldfacing."

“It's impossible” is “no objection”? Are you kidding me? You then go on to edit war over this, instead of replying to me here on the Talk page. In an edit summary I refer you back to my January 15 comments where I call attention to what the official State Department spokesman said on June 24, and here you say I was "eluding" (sic) to a WHITE HOUSE statement! Can we agree, first of all, on the importance of reading what other editors have written?--Brian Dell (talk) 01:40, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's review the substance here:

Note that the ABC News story here says “whether the U.S. embassy was able to tell Hong Kong in time before Snowden fled, or whether the Chinese officials simply were eager to wash their hands of him and let him go, remains unclear”. ABC News doesn't know for sure, but acknowledges as the second possibility that notice was timely and that the Chinese simply ignored the notice. Subsequent to the ABC News story we have that daily press briefing at the State Department that I've noted earlier. There spokesman Patrick Ventrell states that “we’re just not buying that this was a technical decision by a Hong Kong immigration official. This was a deliberate choice”. Ventrell then says he will “walk you through all the broader frame of what we do with passports here at the State Department” and when he does so, he notes that notification would not involve going through the “U.S. embassy” (ABC News probably should have said State Department or “consulate” as there is no U.S. embassy in Hong Kong) as it is more automatic, being “shared through databases accessible by law enforcement and various border agencies around the world, including INTERPOL, to prevent persons from traveling on revoked passports.” Ventrell then says that there was “plenty of time to prohibited his travel.... this is not a technical sort of immigration paperwork kind of matter taken at the Hong Kong level.” If that isn't enough, Ventrell then directly addresses the question of media reporting that assigns any blame for Snowden's being in Russia on the U.S.:

“– there’s been a little bit of confusion. And I just want to be very clear here. There was some media reporting that somehow the State Department had dropped the ball or we didn’t proceed as we needed to on this case, and I just want to outright reject that, that we have very much done our duty and done what’s necessary in expediting any processes that we have an involvement on. And certainly in terms of our diplomatic communication and the channel that we provide to some of these governments has been very active. So I just want to reject some of that reporting. Obviously, because of the Privacy Act, there’s some restrictions on how much I can say, but it has been frustrating to some of us to watch some news reporting implying something in that direction which is simply not true.”

So the State Department is quite clear here (Ventrell earlier said that what "the Privacy Act prohibits me from talking about [is] Mr. Snowden’s passport specifically"), and since the State Department is the entity that revoked Snowden's passport and knows when that happened, who is in a position to say State should not be relied on concerning this point?

The ABC News story should be paired with what State said rather than have the ABC News story alone, but I believe it is still misleading to have ABC paired against State because it is far from clear ABC intends to contradict State. The ABC story was written without the benefit of access to the later press briefing at State. It is quite possible that at the time ABC just assumed that if Snowden got away the U.S. must have moved too slowly. Most important, however, is ABC's acknowledgement that it is possible “Chinese officials simply were eager to wash their hands of him and let him go”

Yes, you can set it up as a “he said, she said” with a cite to ABC for “he said” and a cite to State for “she said” but there is a good argument for calling such an opposition WP:SYNTH. It's putting the material together in such a way as to try to suggest, yet again, that it's the U.S. government's fault that Snowden is in Russia as opposed to the "fault" of Snowden and/or Russia and/or China. The truth is more like "he said possibly A, maybe B, she said absolutely not anything but B (and she's in a better position to know)." ABC's report is too hedged to have a black/white contrast with State here, and is certainly too tenuous to support the added weight of being highlighted in the lede.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:25, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Brian, I do find that you can be fair and not impossible to work with. Thank you. I apologize that I missed your objection. If it contains WP:SYNTH, however, it won't fly. I have to ask that you try to give shorter summaries here that are heavy on WP:RS, instead of long blocks of text. The passport situation seems not to be clear to anyone. But I think it's time to leave this up to the community. Would you feel keen to start an RfC about what can be said from the sources? You have my blessing to go ahead and file. petrarchan47tc 04:00, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

• It appears Snowden has helped us out. He made comments today explaining his side of the story. I'll add that to the body. Maybe we don't need an RfC. petrarchan47tc 05:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I object to changing "however, Putin acknowledged" to "media reported that Putin stated". See WP:WEASEL. There are no grounds to water this down by moving from a direct statement to an indirect statement. To quote the Washington Post, "Putin CONFIRMED that Russian officials had been in touch with him while he was still in Hong Kong." That means keeping the link to what was confirmed (the Kommersant story), not trying to sever that link. THIS is a true "he said" versus "she said" situation. See also USA Today, which says the same thing: "Putin also gave the first OFFICIAL CONFIRMATION that Snowden had been in touch with Russian officials in Hong Kong before flying to Moscow on June 23". Please note the video there on the USA Today website. You can see Putin there being interviewed by AP International Editor John Daniszewski. There are no grounds here for injecting a "reportedly" or something like that here. That Putin acknowledged Snowden met with Russian officials in Hong Kong is as solid as you can get.--Brian Dell (talk) 06:50, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

The question is what would be the question to pose to RfC. The unsealing of the charges on Friday, June 21 set two things in motion at the same time: the revocation of Snowden's passport and Snowden's departure from Hong Kong. I don't believe Snowden won the race here but even if he did, what difference would that make? The U.S. clearly did not want him to travel onward from Hong Kong to anywhere, such that Snowden's claim that "the State Department decided they wanted me in Moscow" doesn't hold water no matter what angle you approach from. A former federal prosecutor has noted that "the decision to unseal the criminal charges Friday, possibly prompt[ed] Snowden to flee." And indeed, that's what happened, according to this BBC story, although the BBC suggests Snowden was pushed as opposed to having jumped:

...Mr Ho said he had a meeting with officials last Friday [June 21], which yielded no answers.

Somewhere around that time, a message was delivered to Mr Snowden through one of his supporters, purportedly by a person who claimed government status. Mr Ho said that person urged Mr Snowden to leave, and assured him that he would not be arrested if he left his safe house. ...
By this time, the US had made public the charges against Mr Snowden. He was feeling the heat.
Mr Ho said Mr Snowden at first intended to leave Hong Kong for Moscow on Saturday night. For some reason, perhaps because Mr Ho had made no progress with the Hong Kong official, he hesitated.

But by Sunday, Mr Snowden was ready to leave.... Mr Ho now believes the message delivered to Mr Snowden asking him to leave came from the Beijing government.

Does anyone really disagree that the Chinese made a political decision to let, or tell, Snowden go after reading this Washington Post article in full?
Note also that "Assange appears to have had a strong role in obtaining the travel document for Snowden, dated 22 June..." Why would Assange work out a travel document for Snowden dated Saturday, June 22? Because Snowden's passport was revoked that day and Assange knew it! Note that Assange lies to the New York Times, saying the document was issued Monday, June 17, but the document itself was later leaked with an issue date of June 22. Assange said he was "uncertain" whether Snowden could travel from Moscow to Ecuador with the document ("Different airlines have different rules, so it’s a technical matter whether they will accept the document" said Assange) but this of course just generates an "airline rules" excuse for Snowden stopping, for good, in Moscow. If “He left Hong Kong with that document", as Assange says, of what importance is the status of his passport? "Doc was for HK exit" tweeted Wikileaks, not necessarily to get him to Ecuador. Note that Assange told Rolling Stone: "While Venezuela and Ecuador could protect him in the short term, over the long term there could be a change in government. In Russia, he's safe, he's well-regarded, and that is not likely to change. That was my advice to Snowden, that he would be physically safest in Russia."
Snowden was ready to skedaddle that very evening, June 22, were it not for the fact that the carrier for that Saturday night flight, which leaves after midnight, is Cathay Pacific (Snowden's Aeroflot ticket must have been bought quite late, he wasn't even planning to go until after the developments of Friday, June 21, was going to fly on Cathay Pacific very early on Sunday the 23rd, and then ends up going on the Aeroflot flight near mid-day on the Sunday.) In the case of Aeroflot, we read in that first link that "The minute Aeroflot got the information that a certain person by the name of Snowden is about to buy a ticket, this information would be immediately transferred to the quote-unquote competent authorities. It would be a political decision to give him a ticket or deny him a ticket."--Brian Dell (talk) 06:28, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

TL:DR. I really can't deal with these long blocks of text - since you asked if I was willing to read it, I thought I'd better be very clear - no. Very short summaries, and reliable sources supporting what you say, will be read. petrarchan47tc 21:53, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

It is a long block of text because it is a long argument, extracting quotes from several different sources. If you were inclined to ever give my editing the benefit of the doubt, something shorter would suffice. If you wouldn't insist on edit warring with me, I would not have to write anything on this Talk page at all! I'll add that if it were black and white which sources were reliable and which are not there wouldn't be much disagreement here would there? I don't believe Wikileaks and Russian sources are generally reliable when it comes to Snowden but I haven't attempted blanket removal of claims cited to them because the question of reliability is nuanced and should be assessed on a case-by-case basis if there is a dispute. Whoever disagrees with me deserves my attention in this way.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:16, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

"seat reserved to fly on June 24 through Cuba"

I think "he had a seat reserved to fly on June 24" is too definitive. Note the following from the Guardian's June 23 timeline:

10.18am BST

The New York Times has managed to speak to an Aeroflot reservations agent who said Snowden's ticket to Moscow was one-way and didn't include any onward travel. Snowden was travelling with one other person, called Harrison, the agent said.

Snowden had already been in the air for half a dozen hours at 10:18 BST, such that we are not talking about a situation whereby Snowden still had time to add on an onward leg before leaving Hong Kong. So how did Reuters come to report that Snowden had booked a seat for an onward flight the next day?

10.37am BST

Interfax, the Russian news agency, is saying Snowden is set to fly on to Cuba. It's citing Aeroflot sources as saying there is a ticket in the American's name for a Moscow to Cuba flight, Reuters reports.

This brings me to the Reuters cite this bio is currently using for "he had a seat reserved to fly on June 24". That Reuters story is more than two months later and is primarily about Fidel Castro declaring that Cuba was not involved in Snowden failing to board an onward flight to Havana. The having the onward reservation was incidental to Reuters' August story and so for that little bit Reuters just dropped its earlier June elaboration that its source was a Russian news agency. In other words, this August 28 Reuters story does not indicate that Russian news agencies don't remain the ultimate source for all claims that Snowden had an onward ticket.

11.06am BST

It's possible Cuba could also be a staging point, according to Russian news agencies.

While both Interfax and Itar-Tass are now saying Snowden is booked on a Monday flight from Moscow to Havana, the latter is also citing an unnamed source as saying the American will then go on from Havana to Caracas in Venezuela.

Note that the additional information in the NYT snippet was that Harrison was on board, something subsequently confirmed, whereas ITAR-TASS says Snowden was moving on to Venezuela, something that not only hasn't been confirmed but conflicts with reports Snowden was Ecuador bound.
Now it's true that the claim Snowden's ticket to Moscow didn't include any onward travel isn't on the New York Times website any more. But the ready explanation for this is is that when other media outlets subsequently started saying there was an onward booking, the NYT took the conservative route of not standing in contradiction to other reports on the particular point when the NYT couldn't independently corroborate its own Aeroflot source. But the NYT DOES say this: "Russian news services reported that Mr. Snowden would take a Monday afternoon flight to Cuba, prompting a late rush for tickets from the horde of journalists gathered at the airport. But others dismissed it as a ruse to put the news media and others off Mr. Snowden’s trail." That the NYT should wish to raise the possibility that the onward ticket to Cuba is a mere "ruse" is significant. I believe that Wikipedia should follow the NYT's example here and, at a minimum, say that the onward reservation is according to Russian media.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:55, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

If you are mainly saying "let's attribute this to Russian media as the NYT did", then I agree 100%. If I've missed nay other points, let me know succinctly. petrarchan47tc 21:49, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'm saying. But if I JUST said that, somebody would complain when I replaced Reuters, saying I replaced material cited to a generally reliable source (which would be true). I wouldn't have had to say anything at all had @Binksternet not reverted me here with the complaint that my source preferences were politically biased. So I have explained why I think the NYT is the BETTER source to use here. Now if you would just concede that analyzing competing sources on a Talk page like this does not constitute WP:original research....--Brian Dell (talk) 02:38, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Restoring talk page section & the definition of TL:DR

Too long: Didn't read referred to entries, not sections, on this talk page. It is not OK to remove an entire section using this excuse, especially when it serves to hide a concerted effort to POV push. (It is concerning that this effort to smear 'whistleblowers' extends to other articles as well, and that even after going to the BLP noticeboard, I receive no help in restoring a neutral biography to the Pedia.) petrarchan47tc 19:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

The original section is still there. Brian's last rv. only removed his last resp. which is ok.TMCk (talk) 20:12, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

You know, you're right... (and maybe I do need a break). petrarchan47tc 20:14, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually s/he did remove the entire section--I restored it. Gandydancer (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Were I to say more here than just that I never take removing another's comments lightly I'd be adding yet more talk to talk about the Talk page.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:57, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

…...Magnificent Clean-keeper-Can you explain to Wiki novices like me what this means? Brian and petrachant47 seem to be making edit after edit on points that do little to making the entry a neutral biography and there seems to be an attempt to delete rather short talk sections while the whole talk page drones on and on with their bickering. Thanks for any explanation. Patroit22 (talk) 22:11, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Nothing unusual. It's called wiki-editing :)) TMCk (talk) 00:59, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's look at an example of what we have to do here at Wikipedia by looking at today's news. It's been reported that Snowden said "If there's information at [the German multinational] Siemens that's beneficial to U.S. national interests — even if it doesn't have anything to do with national security — then [U.S. intelligence]'ll take that information nevertheless." Now do we just add that to this biography of Snowden? An NSA spokesman has e-mailed the Washington Post to say that "The [Defense] department [which the NSA is a part of] does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber." The BBC has named a former White House official who insisted last October that "the US does not engage in industrial espionage... If it was for industrial purposes, it would be basically a violation of US policy." Should Wikipedia just repeat Snowden's claim and note that U.S. officials dispute it? That's usually the simplest and safest approach but that sometimes isn't the best because 1) it treats both claims as equally credible and 2) to some extent the two sides may be talking past each other: have they both defined "industrial espionage" in the same way such that it's a true he said/she said? Our mandate is to allow readers to make the most informed decision possible about whom to believe, which may be both, subject to not spending too much of the article space on the matter.

With respect to (1), to date I have been more sceptical of the factual accuracy of statements attributed to Snowden than Petrarchan47. Here, when I see Snowden state in the same interview, "These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower" I find it remarkable how "neatly and suspiciously" Snowden's statements serve Russia's purposes. See my controversial "Mother Russia" comment above.

With respect to (2), I would note that nuance and precision matters because in other countries many companies are government-directed, blurring the line between state and private institutions. And as US DNI Clapper has said, "We collect this information for many important reasons: for one, it could provide the United States and our allies early warning of international financial crises which could negatively impact the global economy. It also could provide insight into other countries' economic policy or behavior which could affect global markets. [But] What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of – or give intelligence we collect to – US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line." If the definition is providing U.S. private business with government intelligence data for commercial gain, I would argue that the U.S. does not do it, for various reasons. Does Snowden's claim clearly assert that the U.S. does do this?

So, given this background, what do you think Wikipedia should do with Snowden's comment here?--Brian Dell (talk) 04:45, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia should do what it always do. Write about both sides, and let the reader determin how credible each statement is. If we make a decision about the credibility of one or the other statement, we have to invoked the WP:Verifiability policy, and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable source. ECHELON#Examples of industrial espionage is to me enough to challange any statement from NSA which claim that they do not commit acts of industrial espionage. Belorn (talk) 10:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

We don't "always" just "write about both sides" if one side is a WP:FRINGE view. WP:Verifiability is indeed an issue here, but primarily with respect to some of the remarks that have been attributed to Snowden. Is freesnowden.is a reliable source? Is there anything to back up Snowden's allegations of industrial espionage (if he's that's clearly what he's alleged) beyond the fact he alleged it? I don't find those examples you call attention to very convincing. U.S. intelligence exposes Saudi and Brazilian officials taking bribes, and this leads to missed contacts for the foreign bribe payer. Exposing Airbus' and Alcatel's corruption is hardly equivalent to stealing their technology and handing it over to their private U.S. competitors. The bottom line is that Wikipedia should not be pushing the POV that what the U.S. has been doing is the moral equivalent of what the Chinese/Russian/French have been doing unless reliable sources support that contention.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 December 2013

Federal court ruling of Judge Pauley

On 27 December 2013, US Federal Judge William H. Pauley III ruled that bulk collection of American telephone metadata was legal. Regarding the ACLU's statutory arguments, the judge wrote, "...there is another level of absurdity in this case. The ACLU would never have learned about the section 215 order authorizing collection of telephony metadata related to its telephone numbers but for the unauthorized disclosures by Edward Snowden. Congress did not intend that targets of section 215 orders would ever learn of them. And the statutory scheme also makes clear that Congress intended to preclude suits by targets even if they discovered section 215 orders implicating them. It cannot possibly be that lawbreaking conduct by a government contractor that reveals state secrets - including the means and methods of intelligence gathering - could frustrate Congress's intent. To hold otherwise would spawn mischief: recipients of orders would be subject to section 215's secrecy protocol confining challenges to the FISC, while targets could sue in any federal district court. A target's awareness of section 215 orders does not alter the Congressional calculus. The ACLU's statutory claim must therefore be dismissed." Regarding the privacy implications and concerns of bulk meta data collection, the judge wrote, "The ACLU argues that analysis of bulk telephony metadata allows the creation of a rich mosaic: it can 'reveal a person's religion, political associations, use of a telephone-sex hotline, contemplation of suicide, addiction to gambling or drugs, experience with rape, grappling with sexuality, or support for particular political causes.' But that is at least three inflections from the Government's bulk telephony metadata collection. First, without any additional legal justification--subject to rigorous minimization procedures--the NSA cannot even query the telephony metadata database. Second, when it makes a query, it only learns the telephony metadata of the telephone numbers within three 'hops' of the 'seed' [a known terrorist associated number]. Third, without resort to additional techniques, the Government does not know who ANY of the telephone numbers belong to. In other words, all the Government sees is that telephone number A called telephone number B. It does not know who subscribes to telephone numbers A or B. Further, the Government repudiates any notion that it conducts the type of data mining the ACLU warns about in its parade of horribles." Judge Pauley also noted in his 54 page ruling that the inclusion of a public privacy advocate's voice in the presentations to the FISC may be needed. The judge wrote: "As FISA has evolved and Congress has loosened its individual suspicion requirements, the FISC has been tasked with delineating the limits of the Government's surveillance power, issuing secret decision without the benefit of the adversarial process. Its ex parte procedures are necessary to retain secrecy but are not ideal for interpreting statutes. This case shows how FISC decisions may affect every American--and perhaps, their interests should have a voice in the FISC."

Trwithe (talk) 16:01, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Is it essential that the entire passage be quoted verbatim? Could it be partly paraphrased, as with the material in the section on Judge Leon's ruling? Dezastru (talk) 16:36, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

This level of coverage is better for the inevitable "NSA rulings" or "Pauley NSA ruling" articles than for Snowden. petrarchan47tc 02:08, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done --Mdann52talk to me! 14:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Caprarescu accuses CIA and SRI of staging the case of Edward Snowden

I propose to add the following text as the last paragraph of chapter "Reaction" before section "Debate":

Bogdan Alexandru Caprarescu published a document called "The Secret Organized Crime" in which he accuses an international criminal organization composed of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), and presumably other secret services of many crimes including the staging of the case of Edward Snowden. In the same document Caprarescu witnesses that CIA and SRI read the thoughts of people and control the bodies of people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bogdan.caprarescu (talk • contribs) 12:06, January 29, 2014‎

I appreciate your bringing this to a talk page, rather than just inserting it, but we're not going to include your conspiracy theories in any of the articles you've been trying to edit. It's self-published, self-promotion, soapboxing, not supported in reliable sources, among other issues. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:12, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not done Welcome to Wikipedia! Unfortunately the content you're proposing violates several of Wikipedia's policies and cannot be added. Most importantly, material must be verifiable using published reliable sources such as newspapers or other media with editorial review. The sources you cite aren't reliable because they appear to be self-published. In addition, based on your username you appear to be engaged in self-promotion, which is not allowed. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:16, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Typo

Typo in sentence (reference number 371): Glascow should be Glasgow? Scratchmarc (talk) 21:01, 29 January 2014 (UTC)scratchmarc

Fixed, thanks. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:05, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

UK demands smashing the Snowden/Guardian drive

Headline: Smashing of Guardian hard drives over Snowden story 'sinister', says Amnesty

• http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/21/smashing-snowden-hard-drives-sinister
  • Quote: "Rights campaigners say pressure on Guardian to destroy drives containing material from whistleblower poses threat to freedom."

Can this go in the article? — Probably, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 02:50, 1 February 2014 (UTC) Can someone put this in?

Headline: CHILLING VIDEO SHOWS JOURNALISTS DESTROYING SNOWDEN HARD DRIVES UNDER WATCH OF INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS

• http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/01/chilling-video-shows-journalists-destroy-snowden-hard-drives-under-watch-of-intelligence-officials/

This article has video and pictures of the computer components. FYI, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 23:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

New bio from the Guardian

I don't have time to go through it, but there's plenty to look at here: How Edward Snowden went from loyal NSA contractor to whistleblower Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:53, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 February 2014

In the Sam Adams Award section, the link links to Samuel Adams the founding father... instead of Samuel A. Adams the CIA whistle blower for Vietnam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A._Adams 24.185.103.162 (talk) 03:35, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

fixed --Kmhkmh (talk) 03:44, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Feedback from an NSA employee

There's a related discussion at Talk:Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013–present)#Feedback_from_an_NSA_employee that may be of interest to editors here.

-A1candidate (talk) 03:12, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I've copied the beginning answer here (with more to come), as the information is pertinent to this article: petrarchan47tc 22:03, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The editors of the US Guardian, the New York Times, as well as Barton Gellman from the Washington Post - all of whom received a large portion of the Snowden docs - spoke at the Columbia School of Journalism on January 30. You can view the panel discussion here. What I gathered, and can share from memory FWIW, was that all of the editors who received docs agreed with Snowden's demand that nothing released would hurt the US, but that it be solely in the public interest. The Guardian editor went into detail about this process: literally combing though, line by line, any pending report with the sole purpose of determining whether it would do harm, and whether it would benefit the public. Barton Gellman stresses that all of the news organizations have worked directly with government officials with every revelation to help make these determinations. He said as always, when reporting on matters of national interest, government officials are consulted before a story goes to print. He said the Post may not always choose to suppress a story based on the gov't recommendations, but they often do. Do listen to these people in their own words tell the story of this release.

• Is the media acting as a filter? Yes, absolutely. Snowden is involved with none of this process.
• Do the media have everything from Snowden? Snowden has nothing, he has given all of his copied documents to the press.
• How do they decide what to report? This is well-covered in the video. (It's a very interesting story.)

Per Glenn Greenwald

"Snowden "had only sought to alert people that information they thought was private was being exploited by US intelligence agencies...Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States...But that's not his goal".

From a review of the Columbia panel:

"Noting varying degrees of government pressure on both sides of the Atlantic, Guardian US editor Janine Gibson and New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson stressed that respecting the right of news organizations to report on sensitive materials was in the government's interest as well, since otherwise the material would simply find its way out in a completely haphazard way without regard for any journalistic responsibility, which was also the outcome Edward Snowden hoped to avoid."

Whether the media has everything is disputed, as the media has not acknowledged holding 1.7 million documents collectively. See Jesselyn Radack challenging the 1.7 million number as "coming from the government."--Brian Dell (talk) 05:02, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Pls review Bdell555's edits

This page is for discussing edits to Edward Snowden. If you really need more drama in your life you can go to WP:RFC/U. But please don't.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
In a posting on an unrelated noticeboard, I found this user to be propagating a very gross violation of BLP, accusing a notable living person of being a "truther", although that assertion was not backed up by the article text. The passion with which Bdell brought to his statement suggests his passions are running high. I have no reason to believe Bdell would knowingly propagate falsehoods, but having caught one error on a different BLP article, and having noticed the same user was involved in a lot of passionate editing here at this BLP article, I'd like to encourage people to just do a quick double-check of Bdell's contributions-- just to "check his work" and make sure it meets the high standards we set for our articles. Bdell555, if you read this-- it's often easiest to edit articles where your passions are least inflamed. NPOV is easiest to achieve when you're genuinely neutral. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC) I'd asked for a review here for edits related to another NSA whistleblower, to no avail. Thank you for helping to call attention to this. petrarchan47tc 20:04, 30 January 2014 (UTC) I'd say it was to some "avail", since someone chimed in to say "Brian Dell seems to be making the better argument", something everyone here could have seen had you not selectively omitted that in your diff here, petrarchan47. And on that note, I'd also ask Hector to henceforth direct his readers to the "unrelated noticeboard" when accusing other editors of "very gross violation"s so that readers can decide for themselves whether the editor you accuse is guilty as charged. In this case, it is in regard to Sibel Edmonds on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Given that another editor there is of the view that Edmonds is "absolutely a 9/11 conspiracy theorist" if I'm guilty of gross violations I've got company. Besides that, I never, in fact, ever edited Edmonds' BLP making it a bit difficult for me to have actually committed an "error on a different BLP article"! And do rest assured that my edits are already receiving very critical and skeptical treatment around here, Hector. In fact, as I've noted before on this Talk page, my work is not infrequently reverted without it even being read (that is, my work is reverted simply because I wrote it).--Brian Dell (talk) 21:23, 30 January 2014 (UTC) Can someone please provide a diff showing where Brian Dell accused someone of being a "truther?" --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:43, 30 January 2014 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Sibel_Edmonds.27_allegations_of_coverups_by_the_media_and_U.S._government petrarchan47tc 02:40, 31 January 2014 (UTC) I already pointed everyone to that discussion, Petrarchan. I just did it in such a way that when the noticeboard turns over, people can still find the discussion by using the search box. In that discussion I did point out Sibel Edmonds has signed the 9/11 "Truth Statement" and appeared on the Alex Jones Show to www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/240706insidejob.htm agree with Mr Jones] that "the evidence is leaning towards" "an inside job". Note, however, that even if, with no small indulgence, we assume that making these observations constitutes "a very gross violation of BLP", according to Hector I made the "error on a BLP article", not on some other Wiki page. Yet I never made any edits on that BLP. This is just a "smear campaign" against me, if I may borrow a term of art from Petrarchan47.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC) My understanding was that Hector was referring to your editing at Russ Tice, which was indeed a smear job - when every reliable source presents his being fired after whistle-blowing as obvious retaliation, or at least suspicious, you decided to present to the world a biography of a living person whose beginning paragraph details his being fired, and the result of an NSA psychological evaluation. You decided to wikilink "psychotic" and gave no indication that there were ever questions about this firing (there was indeed a Pentagon investigation into it) nor did you share any response from Tice or anyone else who had commented - only the official government line. That is a smear campaign. petrarchan47tc 06:21, 1 February 2014 (UTC) Every clause in your statement here can be refuted but I will decline to do so here simply because this Talk page is supposed to be about Edward Snowden, not someone else. I will note, however, that you took that other BLP to the BLP Noticeboard and the only third party input you received was that "Brian Dell seems to be making the better argument".--Brian Dell (talk) 04:21, 2 February 2014 (UTC) A talk page comment about someone being a "truther" (without directly including the name of the person being referred to) is a "very gross violation of BLP" that merits a complete review of the editors contributions? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC) I think Hector has reason to be concerned, and my post just above with regard to edits made at Russ Tice shows very clearly an anti-whistleblower POV being used to attack pages of living people. I also think Hector put it a bit more mildly in a way that makes sense: "just do a quick double-check of Bdell's contributions-- just to "check his work" and make sure it meets the high standards we set for our articles". Bdell555 has spoken disparagingly about whistleblowers publicly, but sees nothing troubling about making major edits to their pages, indeed focusing on them. Normally when one is found to have made tendentious edits and has made public statements like some he has made, it is considered a normal course of action to check on the work. Do you care to comment on these edits made to Russ Tice? petrarchan47tc 22:21, 1 February 2014 (UTC) You and Hector have every right to be concerned about whatever you want -- but a gross violation of BLP this is not. And your constant accusations of POV-pushing are tendentious and grossly hypocritical. Glass houses, all that. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:28, 2 February 2014 (UTC) Would you please provide an example or two of my tendentious editing? The edits I've pointed to show Bdell555 placing in the first paragraph of a living person that the NSA psychiatrist found him to be psychotic (wikilinked even). Reliable sources always frame the story of how this man was fired as an obvious, or at least very questionable, one - which is not how Bdell555 or the government frames it. We shouldn't be parroting the government line if it diverges from RS. You're now implying that my editing behaviour is akin to this example from Bdell555 in some way? I need an example, or for you to strike this comment. petrarchan47tc 22:11, 5 February 2014 (UTC) I never claimed your editing behavior was akin to Brian's. Your conduct issues are quite different. Accusing your fellow editors of POV pushing is generally considered uncivil, and tendentious when used as a substitute for responding on the merits. I don't think I need to provide examples of these types of accusations, you levy them every day. Please stop. If you insist on me providing examples let's take this up in user talk. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:22, 5 February 2014 (UTC) A "normal course of action" to some might appear to be WP:HOUNDING ("singling out of one or more editors... in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work") to others. Why did I add the opinion of whistle-blower Frank Snepp to this article if I thought whistleblowers in general were unreliable and their opinions not worthy of notice? Perhaps one person's whistleblower is another person's conspiracy theorist and distinguishing who is who requires a case-by-case assessment.--Brian Dell (talk)

Alternative Christmas Message

Re. this edit, at least a summary of the message is needed, with or w/o quotes. The edit summary reads: "an award is not a platform for extensive quoting of subject's POV statements", but the message (not an award BTW) is about giving an individual a platform for their POV, isn't it?TMCk (talk) 02:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

"the address focussed on the importance of privacy and the need for an end to government surveillance" looks sufficient to me. The article is already quite lengthy.--Brian Dell (talk)

Well, space/length is not an issue here and I think a little bit more than what is given now is warranted. But talking about length, the part about who "filmed, edited and produced" it is of no importance/value and can go. Let's wait and see if this is getting some further input and go from there.TMCk (talk) 04:25, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Space/length is an issue with respect to neutrality/balance issues, which is why I shortened that paragraph. It is perfectly appropriate to have a section on the subject's political views. However, it is inappropriate to that the subject's political views repeated ad nauseum every time the subject expresses them at an event. The fact that the subject shared his views while accepting some recognition doesn't give us license to throw neutrality to the wind. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:29, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Please see section below asking for community consensus on ALL of the recent deletions. I cannot attend to this article right now and need help. petrarchan47tc 22:04, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Consideration for University of Glasgow rectorship

I removed the paragraph about Snowden being considered for the University of Glasgow rectorship, since it doesn't seem particularly notable that he's being considered for it (as opposed to actually receiving it). This change was reverted by Petrarchan47 with the summary: "sorry, dr. F, you'll need consensus to remove this (and the ret, but we will start here)." This is not a proper basis for a reversion, or put another way, this was an insufficient edit summary. If you want to revert something you should explain why; otherwise the reversion is just a vote (and we don't vote). Right now we seem to have a consensus of 1. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:46, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I should have said "see you at talk", because that what I meant, as you can see by the time stamp in the section below. I saw an indication recently that you consider me impossible to work with, and I hope you aren't bringing some personal issues here to this artifice.

You can see the edit history of the article to see that multiple editors felt the Glasgow nomination was highly noteworthy and took part in updating the article. Your "it's no big deal" may be US centricity as work. It was seen as a big deal in Europe, from what I understand. petrarchan47tc 05:57, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with DrFleischman. It isn't particularly notable. Capitalismojo (talk) 13:06, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Unless there is a clear consensus to keep, and there isn't, trivial material (like this) is excluded from a BLP. That more than one editor wants to keep is not an argument to keep when none of these editors have provided an argument to keep besides wanting it kept. If the New York Times carried this info, there'd be an argument to consider, but this doesn't even rise to that level.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:22, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Signature

This isn't a neutrality question, more of an "I'm puzzled" question. Why do we have Snowden's signature in the infobox? It seems weird to me. I didn't even know there was a signature field. It seems like it might be appropriate for public officials, but not for private citizens? It strikes me as a bit invasive. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:38, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

It strikes me that this falls into the category of trivia that should be removed per Help:Infobox#What should an infobox contain?. I'm no infobox expert, however. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:43, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

It also strikes me that the subject is known as a leading advocate for digital privacy and we're publishing his personal mark in the most public of ways. Not that his signature is legally private, but there's a certain weird dissonance. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:52, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I have seen signatures most often in the infoboxes of presidents and political figures. I would suggest removing it from this article. Capitalismojo (talk) 18:28, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I removed it. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:34, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Snowden info on Boundless Informant, dead man's switch, and two-man

From Gellman, Barton. "Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished." Washington Post. December 23, 2013.

• Snowden said that he tried to raise the Boundless Informant issue with superiors and coworkers. Added info to Boundless_Informant#History
• Snowden, on the two man rule: "“I actually recommended they move to two-man control for administrative access back in 2009,” he said, first to his supervisor in Japan and then to the directorate’s chief of operations in the Pacific. “Sure, a whistleblower could use these things, but so could a spy.”" Vanee Vines, an NSA spokesperson, stated that there were no records of these conversations.
• When asked about a dead man's switch he stated: "That sounds more like a suicide switch. It wouldn’t make sense." And Gellman stated that "confidants" argued that: "If Snowden were fool enough to rig a “dead man’s switch,”[...] he would be inviting anyone who wants the documents to kill him."

WhisperToMe (talk) 00:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Snowden source: "Snowden Used Low-Cost Tool to Best N.S.A."

• Sanger, David E. and Eric Schmitt. "Snowden Used Low-Cost Tool to Best N.S.A." (Print title: "Cheap Software Helped Snowden Plunder Secrets") The New York Times. February 9, 2014. p. A1, New York edition

WhisperToMe (talk) 07:51, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

References

The references section is screwing up, can somebody who knows about these matters look at it? PatGallacher (talk) 18:18, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

What's the problem you're seeing? It looks ok to me. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:24, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Links

p>> UK court upholds Snowden-linked detention(Lihaas (talk) 14:52, 19 February 2014 (UTC)).

Interview from ARD Censored in USA ?

It's a french info (from here), I don't know if it's right ... --:-) 5 février 2014 à 15:13 (CET) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smily (talk • contribs) 14:15, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't ad the retranscription in the article : so I post it here Retranscription disponible en anglais (FreeSnowden.is) ...We'll see it's realy censured. --:-) 5 février 2014 à 15:19 (CET)

FWIW, the text in english is here. jxm (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Will add soon (too tired). petrarchan47tc 21:59, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually Snowden's intetview with the German television broadcaster ARD (in English) is already linked for days in the external link section. Archive.org has a copy. As far as the "censorship" is concerned, it isn't censored in the US, the archive.org should be accessible to everyone. However if you attempt to access it via the ARD website, it might perform ip-country check and only allow access if your IP resides in Germany (or Europe). It is however true that the US press largely ignored the interview so far (see [18], [19]), nevertheless there are articles on it English speaking press outside the US and scarce mentioning within the US press as well(see [20], [21], [22],[23], [24]--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

It is likely that some news media declined to carry it simply because they don't see the necessity of rebroadcasting every unverified statement Snowden happens to make. As it stands now, U.S. government ordered censorship of Snowden says is an unsubstantiated fringe theory.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:13, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you serious? Obviously there is no censorship of the interview in the US as such. But equally obviously the first in depth interview with such a famous/controversial person is a big news story, which for whatever reason got largely ignored by the US media (which can be seen as such doing a lousy job from a journalistic perspective).--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Ignoring someone is not equivalent to censoring him. I would also refer you to the bio, which notes that "Snowden met with Barton Gellman of The Washington Post... for an exclusive interview spanning 14 hours, his first since being granted temporary asylum" such that this ARD interview was not, in fact, the first. The fact you apparently were not aware of that interview with Gellman suggests that that interview was not carried on channels around the world either.--Brian Dell (talk) 01:27, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

We are talking about different things here. First of all I didn't suggest any censorship ( Smily did), but rather the opposite. As far the interview is concerned to my knowledge (and the claim of some sources) the ARD interview is actually the first in depth interview that was broadcasted, that is where you see Snowden talking himself verbatim. As far as I know Gellmann went to Moscow a month earlier for another in depth interview which however wasn't broadcasted but just compiled into a Washington Post article (a rather different thing). Now we might differ in our assessment on how newsworthy a broadcasted interview (versus a compiled newspaper one) is, but when various sources state that much of US media largely ignores a newsworthy broadcast here, then that seems a fair assessment to me.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:54, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand the issue here. This was an interview, one of many this person has done. It wasn't censored in the US. The NYTimes posted video of the interview immediately. It is still on their site as far as I know. The fact that other media enterprises didn't give it as much play as some would like doesn't make for notability or for "censorship". Capitalismojo (talk) 17:08, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

To answer your question, there is no dispute or issue between Brian and me as far as the censorship is concerned (there is none). I do however disagree with him on the "noteworthiness" of the interview from journalistic perspective. But our different assessments of that aspect are of no direct consequence for article's content, so there is no need to pursue that here any further.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:41, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Here is the NYT link to the video, or at least the part they thought was newsworthy. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:20, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

This was Edward Snowden's first ever TV interview. It is 30 minutes of an 8 hour documentary to be released in the beginning of Spring. I think those who see this as 'no big deal' are proving that this wasn't covered by media and that there is a great lack of awareness about the event. Wikipedia could use a section on the interview - perhaps underneath the "Alternative Christmas Message". I could see justification for adding a mention that some RS voiced suspicions about a blackout:

• Jonathan Turley here
• Jesselyn Radack here
• Chris Hedges here&here
• Ben Swann here

(It's also mentioned at College news, though I don't know if this one is needed or useable.) petrarchan47tc 00:29, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I dispute petrarchan47tc's "justification for adding a mention that some RS voiced suspicions about a blackout." These sources are anything but reliable, and as flimsy as balsawood.

Foremost among them is guest blogger Jay Syrmopoulos (see link in bulleted list above next to Ben Swann), who charges that "the government/corporate symbiosis" sought to bury the interview. "It seems clear that the virtual blackout of this insightful interview," Mr. Syrmopoulos writes, "is yet another deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth from the view of the American public."

Another guest blogger, Charlton Stanley (see link above next to Jonathan Turley), declares that the interview "appears to have been blocked intentionally by US government authorities." His only support for this apparition is the aforementioned guest blog by Jay Syrmopoulos, who is therein identified as "a journalist and political analyst living in Winona, Minnesota. He received his Bachelors in Political Science from Winona State University and is currently pursuing a Masters in Global Affairs from the University of Denver." All of which uniquely equips him, it would seem, to divine what he calls the "extremely dark implications" of this attempt by the government/corporate symbiosis to bury the Snowden interview.

The link next to Jesselyn Radack's name leads merely to a tweet promoting Charlton Stanley's blog, as does one of the links next to Chris Hedges's name—both of which, incidentally, lead to tweets from a self-billed "non-official fan Twitter account" that is not endorsed by journalist Chris Hedges.

So before we make mention in this article of "some RS voiced suspicions about a blackout," we ought to ourselves be suspicious towards these purported "reliable" sources, all of which trace back to one grad student in Denver. JohnValeron (talk) 23:02, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Would you care to comment on my other point? I was hoping someone interested in the article would help add the section on this very much NOT blacked out interview. petrarchan47tc 23:17, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The article already contains three detailed descriptions of the German TV interview, nicely incorporated into the narrative flow.

• Snowden, in a January 2014 interview, said that the "breaking point" which lead to his leaks was "seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress." He furthered, "There's no saving an intelligence community that believes it can lie to the public and the legislators who need to be able to trust it and regulate its actions. Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back. Beyond that, it was the creeping realization that no one else was going to do this. The public had a right to know about these programs."
• Snowden did not board that onward flight, however, saying in a January 2014 interview that he was "stopped en route" despite an intention to be "only transiting through Russia". According to Snowden, "I was ticketed for onward travel via Havana—a planeload of reporters documented the seat I was supposed to be in—but the State Department decided they wanted me in Moscow, and cancelled my passport." He decided to remain in Russia because whilst he was "considering possibilities for asylum in Latin America, the United States forced down the Bolivian President's plane." He said that he would travel from Russia if there was no interference from the US government.
• He was asked about the threats, and whether he lost sleep over them, in his first television interview which aired on Germany's NDR January 26, 2014. "I'm still alive and don't lose sleep for what I did because it was the right thing to do," he responded.

Why should there be a separate standalone section devoted to just this one interview? JohnValeron (talk) 04:14, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Have you seen the interview? These aren't summaries by any stretch of the imagination. You've cited three places where an excerpt was used to shed light on existing details in the article. Those details, after a careful read, are exposed using many different sources over the past 10 months. These are very different and not exclusive matters. To argue that Edward Snowden's first and only TV interview should not have its own section because: a) "What's the big deal?" and b) "You've already mentioned it" seems nonsensical. How the mentions can be called "detailed descriptions of the interview" is entirely beyond me. petrarchan47tc 10:16, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

@Petrarchan47:

I think we're losing sight here, so please take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

The discussion started with a notice of the tv interview and question whether it is censored in the US. Now the question of the censorship has been answered (there is none) and link to the interview has been incorporated into the article (iirc actually even before this thread started) - so far so good.

But now please keep in mind that this article is supposed to be an encyclopedic biography of Snowden - not more not less. And as such there is no need for a special section on the interview (which biography of person has a section devoted to a particular interview?). Of course material from the interview may be incorporated into the article where appropriate and of course should the external links section contain a link to the interview, but there is no need for a special article section just devoted to this particular interview or any other.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:36, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

It's true the section began as a question about possible censorship of the interview, which does deserve its own section here as it was newsworthy in its own right, though this wasn't seen in the US. Notable people such as Jonathan Turley and Snowden's lawyer indicated by Tweets that they had suspicion of a blackout (or supported the theory put forth in the linked article) - so to respond directly to the section heading, yes, we do have RS to support that some have questioned it. But to add this requires the interview be discussed - not simply cited for bits of content. You ask what article mentions an interview - this is the reason I am so stunned anyone would argue about this inclusion - this very article has a section about Snowden's Christmas Message, albeit not an interview, it was a three minute address and has had its own section without a problem. I suppose an RfC about whether a section for his first TV interview is acceptable wouldn't be a horrid idea. It would be helpful to hear from the larger community. petrarchan47tc 12:40, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

A quick look at the Daniel_Ellsburg page shows coverage of an interview he did with Democracy Now! although it was handled in a paragraph rather than a separate section. So yes, biographies can include individual interviews if they're noteworthy. It could be covered in a paragraph at the end of "Temporary asylum" - unless there are strong objections. petrarchan47tc 13:07, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Having a section on Snowden's views of the NSA and the leak, in which among other sources the interview is used as well is different matter. I have no objections against that. Or to put it this way the Ellsberg article shows that not having a section devoted to one interview is the way to go.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:34, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

A couple of points:

• The censorship at least in the strict sense seems to be obvious nonsense. As pointed out above already, the interview is freely available on an American site (archive.org) and find it mentioned or linked in various US media as well (though not so much in the mainstream media). At best one could claim a peculiar lack of interest of US mainstream media to give coverage to the interview.
• The sources you've cited above are not suitable for WP and imho not even for any serious discussion. "Thinking out loud" on twitter even when done by prominent people isn't something that shouldn't be taking all that seriously and it certainly isn't proper a source any claim in WP.
• Find me any biographic article in WP (or an external encyclöopedic publication) that has such an interview section and note not even German WP article on Snowden has such a section. Or let's consider an actual of really famous interview and how that is incorporated into a biographic article. Take Nixon and the Frost interview. That is an interview that has been made into a movie and due to its prominence even has its own article. Now take a look Nixon biography (being a featured article!) and see how it incorporates the interview. Btw. personally I don't consider a separate section on the interview as "horrid", I just see it as bad biographical writing for an encyclopedic article.
• Getting feedback from the community/other editor is a good idea.

--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:27, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Just to be clear, my clumsy use of the word horrid was not in any way a reference to your comments. I was saying that community input would be a good idea. petrarchan47tc

Kmhkmh makes compelling points here. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:51, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

---

Kmhkmh said : First of all I didn't suggest any censorship (Smily did) (...).--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:54, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

-> Not me in fact, but this. It's youtube, google in fact, witch is accuse to erase systematically the vidéo, the 32min vidéo, and the US media to be extremely quite. So it's a question, and the question is open, precisely 2 questions :

• why not on youtube? (test yourself, I did)
• Why not in the newspaper? (10 line here and that for all the United State of America, and what, aljaseera america and the European blog of NY times, ...)

I don't know anything, I've just made a test : what happen if I talk about that. Nothing erased, just many, many, many discussions ... and it's no more a subject for any journalist, just like if nobody care about Snowden. Can it be possible? The question steel open I think ... not only for the USA .. --Smily (talk) 11:41, 13 February 2014 (UTC)it

No, it's really not "steel" an open question. It has not been censored. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:51, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Please don't make fun of people for whom English isn't a first language.

The question about whether there has been suppression of the German interview isn't one that rests with us to determine, and even if we did, our work wouldn't be admissible to the a pedia so why bother? What we can do is see what RS has discussed it. Two reliable sources have tweeted their support for the idea. The fact that in the US, the interview was only mentioned in one article has to say something, but again, this would require a write up in RS to add. It makes sense to add the Tweets linked to above (though not Hedges) in a mention of the interview if editors decide to add one, as we always like to add all sides to an issue once due weight and RS concerns are met. petrarchan47tc 19:56, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I believe the consensus is that there was no censorship, or "suppression" as you call it. That some sources speculated on this point does not, in itself, give any substance to this speculation.--Brian Dell (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Whose consensus are you speaking of? We are tasked with finding RS about a claim, not finding fellow editors to come and share their personal opinions - which aren't permissible in the article, and are therefore quite worthless to us. petrarchan47tc 23:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I concur with Brian Dell's conclusion: "That some sources speculated on this point does not, in itself, give any substance to this speculation." Moreover, as I pointed out above, even the alleged sources in this case did not engage directly in speculation. Rather, Jonathan Turley, Jesselyn Radack and Ben Swann merely tweeted links to speculation by others—ALL of it tracing back to one grad student in Denver. (The cited link to Chris Hedges is actually to a non-official fan Twitter account that is not endorsed by journalist Chris Hedges.) Such oblique "sources" are unworthy of inclusion in a Wikipedia entry. JohnValeron (talk) 16:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

It really doesn't make a difference what level of education the author has completed. Why waste time with an argument like that one, except to try and discredit a source? My iPhone was created by a high school drop out, and one of the US' most secret organizations was exposed by a man who also didn't finish high school, let alone college. The fact that RS tweeted and showed support for the ideas contained within the piece is worthy of inclusion, if this interview is discussed. WP likes to show all sides of an issue if there are reliable sources to cite. No one is suggesting we say anything beyond what you've stated, that Radack and Turley tweeted the link (perhaps adding what they said in their tweets). petrarchan47tc 23:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

If you insist on citing tweets as reliable news sources, here's the sort of thing that might actually stand up to scrutiny.

• GlobalPost here

But the Jonathan Turley, Jesselyn Radack and Ben Swann biased promotional tweets you're advocating are simply silly—totally without substance. JohnValeron (talk) 02:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't follow. Where did I insist on adding anything? You may want to brush up on the guidelines before schooling fellow editors. Twitter is considered a self-published source, like a personal blog, and RS for the author's own views (unless the true owner of the account is in question). I have never categorized these tweets as "news sources" nor their content as news. They are opinions by reliable sources related to the subject at hand. On the other hand, I have not seen any evidence brought that would support the opposite view: that indeed the event was covered by American media and nothing funky is afoot. Do you have any sources besides the NYT blog that covers Snowden's one and only TV interview? If so, please list them. petrarchan47tc 07:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I remind you that the promotional tweets by Turley, Radack (Snowden's legal representative) and Swann link solely to unsubstantiated speculation that ALL traces back to one grad student in Denver. Do you have any "sources" that are not circular and self-referential? JohnValeron (talk) 17:54, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

"...thinks it’s a parasite from the local water..." ("U.S. official(s)" wanting to kill Snowden)

Is this not getting WP:UNDUE, detailing some anonymous person's assassination fantasy? The State Department position on these threats is that they have “no place in our discussion of these issues.” Wikipedia evidently disagrees, as there is currently a huge place given over to going on about these threats. Kucherena and Snowden certainly want to make hay out of these threats, with Snowden elevating these people to "officials" (a term Webster applies to those who have "a position of authority") despite the official "totally inappropriate" from the State Dept spokesman, and Wikipedia is becoming tendentious if it is continually turning over its platform to extended self-serving statements. "Doing the right thing means having no regrets." This is encyclopedic?

I might add here that it's an assumption that all of the words attributed to Snowden in that Q&A were handpicked by Mr Snowden himself. Snowden once wrote a 1000 word essay that Glenn Greenwald knew was indeed entirely by Snowden and Greenwald thought it "Ted Kaczynski-ish" and would not go over well with the public. We've now got someone who writes like he could rival Greenwald in sophistication. I'm reminded of that purported Snowden statement of dubious authenticity issued last summer that was "written in fluent Assangese".--Brian Dell (talk) 00:22, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I could add "no one knows whether Snowden was actually the person physically typing in the responses" to the article and cite that to NBC News, but I should hope we could agree that the better approach is to minimize our use of material attributed to Snowden without confirmation it is in fact Snowden's words to when it's necessary/appropriate to note a point of fact is disputed. "Doing the right thing means having no regrets" etc is really just polemics and removing that does not leave the reader less informed about the facts or possible facts.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I think it's not undue, actually it is a subdued version of what is being reported in media, which is that some wanted to put "a bullet in his head". If media wasn't going into detail about the assassination ideas, we wouldn't have the right to here either. But Kucherina's statement required context, and as you can see I did not go into detail initially. However, the reader needs to understand what Kucherina is complaining about regarding "real threats". petrarchan47tc 21:43, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Note: I did end up trimming the section whilst leaving enough detials for context. petrarchan47tc 23:00, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I understand that someone wants to put "a bullet in his head." But given that there may be hundreds of millions of people around the world with an opinion on Snowden, it's hardly news that a few people were found with extreme opinions. So why did Buzzfeed report this? How about because Buzzfeed wanted to do a story advising readers that while "the New York Times has called for clemency.... In intelligence community circles, Snowden is considered a nothing short of a traitor in wartime" and these "chilling" fantasies are given as examples? Where's your evidence that the threat is "real"? It's not in Buzzfeed, which also reported that "There is no indication that the United States has sought to take vengeance on Snowden... And the intelligence operators who spoke to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity did not say they expected anyone to act on their desire for revenge." The official State Department spokesperson then went on the record to note that there is absolutely zero chance a hit would ever be approved, never mind threatened, by someone actually in charge. Kucherena jumps on the Buzzfeed story to say his client needs more Kremlin-supplied security, private security won't do. Well of course he does. He isn't going to miss an opportunity to play up how much his client is being persecuted by a wrathful U.S. government seeking to maintain its power. It also serves the notion that Snowden wouldn't be safe outside the embrace of Mother Russia and must accordingly remain there. Disseminating anti-American propaganda is his job. But that doesn't mean we have to nod along with him. He really should be ignored as an unreliable source, or at a minimum the doubts about his credibility given to the reader, but I recall you arguing at length for deletion of any reference to the TIME story calling him "misleading" and that suppression continues to reign as I decided to not edit war over it. I might add that freesnowden.is has not been established as a reliable source either. You cite to this website, but note that the domain is registered to Assange and hosted on Wikileaks servers. Its reliability is therefore no higher than that of Wikileaks.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:58, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

This reads more like a rant than a talk page discussion. This statement, "It also serves the notion that Snowden wouldn't be safe outside the embrace of Mother Russia", makes me question whether you are capable of maintaining a neutral POV. Probably best to save phrases such as "the embrace of Mother Russia" for personal opinion rather than talk page space. Gandydancer (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you have anything to say about the article has opposed to me? See the top of this page: "Please limit discussion to improvement of this article." Of course I don't have a "neutral" POV. To quote from policy: "Problems arise when editors see their own bias as neutral". I'm a national security conservative, which in turn means that I'm going to be consistently on the short side of consensus given the libertarian majority on Wikipedia unless my position is so strong that people ideologically opposed to my point of view feel compelled to concede it. For many of those inclined to dispute my editing, unless a weight equivalent to the Library of Congress is dumped on them they'll continue to insist I have failed to present enough evidence and argument for them to stop edit warring.---Brian Dell (talk) 01:30, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

@Gandydancer I'll make another observation here about this particular statement of mine you find so objectionable. In an Associated Press wire we find "He said Kucherena's statements about concerns for Snowden's safety do not hold water." Who is "he"? Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and security analyst who frequently contributes to Index on Censorship. Soldatov is then quoted "We are all perfectly aware that Snowden, who has just received asylum, does not face any danger in Russia... This is a just a pretext." Since @Petrarchan47 refuses to accept that Kucherena has been using the latest threats as a pretext, my questioning that is directly relevant to the editing dispute.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:56, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Please stop POV pushing and OR-ranting. I am not arguing that this is big news, the media is doing that. It was widely reported that Snowden is seeking extra security, and why. That is what this paragraph is about. As I have said, I only added the details from Buzzfeed so that his lawyer's statement made sense. This isn't a paragraph about an article. If there was no fallout from the article, it wouldn't have been mentioned here. If you wish to pull quotations from the Buzzfeed piece, that would be a separate section - but it would also be undue unless the bits highlighted were discussed elsewhere. That is how I see it, anyway. Others may feel to weigh in. [I am officially 100% EXHAUSTED by Bdell555.] petrarchan47tc 00:21, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

My pushing back against your POV pushing is of course perceived as POV pushing to you. There is ranting here all right, but it is you ranting about being "100% EXHAUSTED". I have to write huge reams of text here to support all of my editing because you refuse to concede anything at all to my editing judgment unless you are buried in a mountain of evidence forcing you to concede the wisdom of my edits. I am exhausted by the unremitting and continual intransigence of yourself and your allies here but given your inclination to appreciate where those who don't agree with you are coming from, would it have ever occurred to you that all sides are exhausted here? You recently went to a notice board about another article, inviting others to weigh in and the response you got over there was "Brian Dell seems to be making the better argument". I have been continually referring to sources and providing arguments for why some sources are more reliable than others and why certain edits should be undertaken to render the article more neutral. You have to do due diligence to do a good job at that, due diligence you dismiss as original research instead of bothering to engage with it on a point by point basis. It's your dismissal of the importance of taking care that led to errors like your false statement that "The highlighted text above has received no objection" and your misattributing what the State Department said to the White House, just to take two examples.

With respect to the technical argument you seem to be trying to make for reverting me, your preferred version doesn't include "put a bullet in his head" despite the fact that the primary source for Kucherena's remarks is Russian news agencies and there we see Kucherena say "It's gone as far as some officers, who earlier served in special forces, saying they are ready to kill Edward." Now which threat came from someone who served in the Special Forces? Why, that would be the "I would love to put a bullet in his head" guy. I could add here that this same guy speaks of "having to do it in uniform", a qualifier that doesn't exactly add support to the contention the guy is a "real" risk to disobey orders and go rogue.--Brian Dell (talk) 01:15, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes Brian, you are exhausting. You said it yourself: "I have to write huge reams of text here to support all of my editing". There is a name for that, please see WP:TE, and please stop it. Gandydancer (talk) 01:36, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tendentious editing applies to article editing, not Talk page editing (except for formatting issues). There is also a name for what you are doing, which is repeatedly reverting another editor without discussing the edits at issue on the Talk page. It's called WP:Edit warring.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:02, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

That "Mother Russia" comment cements my impression that Bdell555 is not here to represent the topic neutrally. The attitude I'm seeing is classic WP:BATTLEFIELD, including edit summaries that sound like a line-in-the-sand challenge: "You want to hear from me less? Then stop fighting my editing at every turn. If you are going to insist on an edit war, I am [g]oing to discuss until the warring stops." Let's have shorter discussions of sourcing and wording, please. Binksternet (talk) 02:34, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I now see that when you reverted my replacing a Reuters cite with a NYT cite, you didn't even look at the content that you were reverting, you just saw that I had mentioned the Guardian and FOX in my last two edit summaries (which was to a different part of the article) and on that basis alone you rolled back all three of my edits to the last version by Petrarchan47. So in other words I wasted my time defending that change on this Talk page because you might not have had any objection at all had you realized what you were doing! My mistake for assuming you had a good faith objection to the edit itself as opposed to the editor, I suppose. This is what I mean by "hearing from me less": this Talk page could have been shorter had you directed your attention to the article.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:18, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Bdell555, looking at the last 24 hours you've already broke 3RR. So much for edit warring.TMCk (talk) 02:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Can you provide the diffs that prove this? I address this sort of attitude towards 3RR on my Userpage. Please do take your complaint about me to a noticeboard so we can get more people involved here. Currently, the new entrants to this thread are unwilling or unable to take a look at the EDITS here as opposed to the EDITOR.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:31, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

This "you are exhausting" talk is destructive, non constructive, and is contrary to the spirit of the project. Anyone who is too "exhausted" to address the good-faith concerns of their fellow editors ought to take a good long wikibreak, and consider focusing their efforts on less controversial subjects. That goes for all of you. Yes, including you, Petrarchan. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Mr. F, if you consider these contributions to be concerns worth your time, I implore you to respond to them and to help me. (And thank you for the advice, though I already have a doctor ;) petrarchan47tc 20:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:VOLUNTEER --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:45, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Let me be more specific, I implore you to point out what exactly good faith concerns you see? I can't sift through it, and it is tiring. You have apparently sifted through theses concerns, and maybe could show me what I'm missing with regard to article improvement. Thanks, petrarchan47tc 20:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Fleischman, we can do without your advice. Why go around trying to stir up trouble? Gandydancer (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Stay civil, assume good faith, and lay off the personal attacks. I haven't done any "sifting" and no one has presented any evidence of bad faith by anyone. If you two can't take my very simple suggestion to refrain from the "I am completely exhausted by you" and the "I can't sift through so-and-so's comments because they are tiring" comments, then you truly do need to take a break. Is that such an unreasonable suggestion? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:37, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidently Petrarchan47 wants to double-down on this, preferring to heighten the supposed U.S. government threat to kill Snowden even more in the article instead of addressing the many objections given above. This "threat" as Petrachan47 wishes to present it is an unfounded conspiracy theory. Buzzfeed clearly cited the threats in order to give examples of how angry some people in the intelligence community are at being betrayed, as opposed to revealing a previously unreported assassination plot brewing inside the government. That Snowden and Kucherena have misrepresented the Buzzfeed story by treating it as the latter in no way compels Wikipedia to do likewise. This does not mean ignoring the Buzzfeed story but it does mean not drawing on it selectively to mislead readers. Petrarchan47's effort here is of a piece, editing Wikipedia to insert the opinions of Sibel Edmonds. In fact Edmonds is a conspiracy theorist, a signer of the "9/11 Truth Statement" who went on the show of conspiracy theorist monger extraordinaire Alex Jones to www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/240706insidejob.htm declare] that "The evidence points to a massive government cover-up." Jones asked her "if 9/11 was an inside job" and "Do you think the evidence is leaning towards that?" to which she replies "... I would say yes." Of course when editing Wikipedia Petrachan47 describes Edmonds solely a a "whistleblower" as opposed to "9/11 Truther." The time Wikipedia devotes to Wikipedia:Fringe theories must be subject to the appropriate WP:WEIGHT.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Please stop, bdell555. You must know by now that your POV is fine, but cannot be used to spin articles and it has no place on an article talk page. If Sibel is called a truther rather the a respected whistleblower, you'd have a point. And this isn't an invitation to go smear her wiki bio as you did Russ Tice originally. I am sick of cleaning up after you, and am not going to read your original research conspiracy crap on this talk page. You can't seem to keep it simple short and sweet because your points simply aren't supported by RS. petrarchan47tc 18:54, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Allow me to quote from Wikipedia:Edit_warring since you continue to misrepresent that policy: "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions, rather than trying to resolve the disagreement by discussion." You continue to evade the call to discuss because the discussion is not "short and sweet" enough for your tastes. Where in the policy is party A advised to tell the party B that party A is "not going to read" B? The issue here is both complex and detailed. If you don't have the time to engage it, you don't have to as long as you also cease edit warring. If my points are not supported by RS and sound analysis of their reliability then point out where and why. With respect to just who is pushing "conspiracy" theories here, I've asked to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard to weigh in on that.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

You wanted help from the noticeboard, you've got it. Now please, kindly Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass before you get even more wound up and wind up needing a time-out. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you have anything substantive to say about the Wikipedia edits being disputed here, Hector? Please DO seek my getting banned as doing so might involve more editors and perhaps one of them will decide to get into the weeds here and address what is supposed to be the issue here, which is the editing of this article.--Brian Dell (talk) 20:13, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia cannot in good conscience tell the reader how to kill Snowden with a bullet or a poison. Any text toward that goal is a gross violation of WP:BLP. Certainly we can talk about the existence of death threats but there is no call to quote them, or describe them. Binksternet (talk) 16:33, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that I kicked off this particular thread by saying that the level of detail Petrarchan wanted in the poisoning fantasy was excessive. So why is this response of yours directed at me instead of to Petrarchan's comment, above, that "what is being reported in media... is that some wanted to put "a bullet in his head". If media wasn't going into detail about the assassination ideas, we wouldn't have the right to here either"? You are now edit warring with me to restore a cite to Mike Masnick without any comment on your part in the Talk page thread "Mike Masnick/Techdirt", below, where including cites to Masnick is objected to. You are also edit warring with me to remove the elements from the Buzzfeed story that give specific reasons for the anger of the anonymous employees without your having ever replied to me on this Talk page to explain why you think that material should be excluded. You are also edit warring with me to so as to have Wikipedia not quote the State Department spokeswoman saying the threats were "totally inappropriate" and had “no place in our discussion of these issues." Why? What is your objection here?--Brian Dell (talk) 18:00, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

If you find I agree with you on some point, then let it be. Regarding Harf saying the death threats were "totally inappropriate", my first version today had an unnamed Harf saying the death threats were unacceptable. My second version today stitched two versions together; it has a named Harf saying the death threats were "totally inappropriate". Nothing wrong with that. Binksternet (talk) 22:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Why are you trying to "stitch two versions together" here? There is not a "my" version and a "Petrarchan" version since neither of us own this article. There is solely content here. This means that each element of the content needs its own justification without reference to some sort of "package" linked to a particular editor. If you insist on reverting, break it down into each element you believe needs reversion, each with its own justification.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The two versions were yours and mine. I saw redundancies between them, and I saw material that gave undue weight to the BuzzFeed article by quoting it. That's why I said I "stitched" the two versions together. Don't make this personal; it's about content. Binksternet (talk) 01:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

So you chose all of those words yourself and it is just an amazing coincidence that they match what Petrarchan chose! No "team play" here you say, "it's about content." Glad to hear that. How is it, though, that if the Buzzfeed article would be receiving undue attention here by offering some quotes from it (that would more accurately present what the article was about than excluding the brief quotes), you want to expand the quotes of REACTION to the story you think should get less play? If the BuzzFeed article is receiving undue weight here, in other words, why are you increasing the size of this paragraph, which is all about the Buzzfeed article and wouldn't exist but for its publication?--Brian Dell (talk) 02:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I see that your latest claim is that it is a "misrepresentation" for Wikipedia to refer to Kucherena making an issue out of threats in August 2013 subsequent to his making an issue out of them in January 2014. There is no "misrepresentation" here as the chronology is clearly given, or did you miss the "previous August" part? The current order reflects an entirely sensible thematic organization: Kucherena making an issue out of threats. If you want to open the paragraph with August 2013, it wouldn't be something I would edit war over, but it seems you are not inclined to change the chronology in order to correct what you imagine to be a "misrepresentation" anyway, rather, you just want Soldatov's view deleted. Why should it be deleted with the Associated Press thought his view notable? If there is any "misrepresentation" here, it is in your demand to not draw on more material from the Buzzfeed article that would indicate that what Kucherena makes of the Buzzfeed story is not the only possible reading.--Brian Dell (talk) 01:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I really liked your opinion on the topic at hand. I however thought it was unnecessary that when you pointed out the fact that millions of people want to put a bullet in Snowdens head. I found this to be unnecessary because seeing as there are so many people involved on this topic, all of which have an opinion on the actions of Snowden I found it unnecessary to point out the people who felt negative on the topic. While yes what they are feeling is justified because of the things released by Snowden, I just thought it could have been said better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nikole 919 (talk • contribs) 15:38, 24 February 2014 (UTC)