Not to be a conspiracy-theory hipster, but I suggested this before we even knew who he was. I thought the timing was suspicious, how it completely erased the discussion of the completely-confirmed Verizon phone records business, and replaced with a whole load of doubt and speculation. The shittiness of the Powerpoints (supposedly for training but containing all the detail of "Illegal Surveillance for The Layman") and the choice of newspapers (Guardian and Washington Post? The hell? Someone trying to make the Post look good?) didn't encourage. Then this guy turns up with EFF and Tor stickers plastered all over his laptop, claiming he doesn't want to be the center of attention while making himself the center of attention, and the internet collectively creams their jeans.

Personally I think he's too over the top - a perfect caricature. I have met people who work the security services, and they are not the kind of people who put stickers on their laptops, EFF or otherwise. I additionally posit that if you worked for the NSA and really wanted to disclose secrets, and had the kind of access he is supposed to have had, you could have leaked much more specific, damaging things than this. His reluctance to reveal more detailed information about the NSA, even without proof, is fairly damning.

If I were him, and the cat were properly out of the bag now and there were talks of extra-judicial killings, and I was talking a big talk about dying for my country, I wouldn't be running my mouth about democracy. I'd be running my mouth about the damn NSA.

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