1) Non-attribution does not mean a different source per se. Some documents can be verified without any discussion of their source. (ie the NSA acknowledges their authenticity by demanding their takedown as "classified"). Powers are building cases against Snowden. Those releasing documents don't want to help that process.
2) Attribution to Snowden does is no guarantee that he is the source. Snowden is not the author, just the delivery means. And he doesn't know personally exactly which documents he handed over. There were just too many for that to be true. So to protect another source they may falsely attribute something to Snowden, with or without his permission. Not good journalism, but very possible.
There are so many documents in these agencies that leaks are inevitable. With tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand people in positions to read them, documents have appeared constantly. Snowden was simply a massive uptick in an ongoing stream, not the first and no doubt not the last.
My disappointment is that with all of these leaks I have to give up the childhood hope that aliens have visited us. Such secrets could never be kept by these agencies.
Our government's apparent ineptitude is largely a function of their graduated secrecy protocols. Isolating leaks is more important than serving their functions. Snowden knew this and attempted to demonstrate it directly. That's why he released things slowly at first. He tricked significant authorities into contradicting themselves several times as they attempted to firewall his revelations. If anything, my interest in radical conspiracy theories has only increased. That being said I heavily doubt we've been visited by aliens.
Lets look at a radical but more likely proposition: NTBMs [1]. If an international private security organization had these things they could construct LARGE underground installations. They could conduct psychological experiments akin to mk-ultra [2] on isolated populations. The under-people would experience this reality as simply: how things were. They would have always been underground. It would be all they knew. The explanatory pseudo-religion necessary to alleviate their condition wouldn't be that complicated. An agency could use these under-people to perfect it's propaganda methods. The power vectors granted by controlling large hidden facilities are pretty interesting; A significantly advanced and private awareness of causation would allow the manufacture of nearly certain events shrouded by ostensible ignorance. This would be much more effective, over time, if it were coupled with a massive and private surveillance network to close the feedback loop.
The existence of whistleblowers doesn't invalidate every possible conspiracy theory. We can't assume comprehensive awareness by proposing: If that were true then it would have been leaked. Every known government secret is eventually revealed. That's a tautology. Generalizing it to every imaginable secret is a failure to understand the limits of inductive reasoning. The people who know how much Snowden knew regularly indicate that they still have more to hide. I'm suggesting that our awareness is limited to a variety of "lesser" secrets. These secrets are callously and ineptly executed by design. They inspire whistleblowers to act before they become aware of "greater" secrets. Their revelation also, apparently, lulls the public into complacency. Exposure to "greater" secrets is gradual and divergent. We will never be fully aware of what mk-ultra involved. Most of the documentation has been destroyed. It was actually kept secret despite being far more sinister. It's the greatest (known) example of this fallacy. The documents with "tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand people in positions to read them" weren't leaked intentionally. They were discovered because they had been improperly filed and, for that reason alone, survived destruction. Alien visitation is extremely unlikely for numerous reasons. We don't have to go nearly that far to support a potentially actual conspiracy. We need only assume that the perpetrators are motivated by power and/or have advanced technology. They were able to hide a mind control program utilizing torturous methods 40 years ago. My point was that its worth conjecturing about what they may be doing now. They have apparent motives and we can extrapolate realisticly advanced technology. My second paragraph was just an example I threw together in the spirit of that activity.
TL;DR: Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get me.
This analysis seems OK. Be careful with this blog, though, as the author has shown selective, pro-NSA reporting on Schneier's blog where both he and other leakers frequent. His title is P/K. We've called him out repeatedly for ignoring the bad on one side in the leaks while criticizing Snowden. Blog bias was clear in original content which was just pictures of government, classified gear with fanboy comments.
Again, though, this is an exceptional one that seems more reliable. Probably because existence of extra leakers is important to both sides for different reasons.
I would contest your description of the blogger as an "NSA fanboy." The blog is about secure communications equipment, so that's what he spends most of his wordcount on. It's a technical blog, not a political one.
If P/K was blog owner, he or she was definitely an NSA fanboy due to constant, disinfo-using defence of them plus a blog originally containing their gear. It changed after I called that person out to point that it seems legit now. That's either genuine improvement or bait to get readers' guard down on future comments. Not sure yet as he or she comments rarely now.
That was name of person who always linked back to it with their name and IIRC indicated it was their posts. Could be wrong there. That started when Schneier was posting Snowden leaks on capabilities and overreach. Several people showed up trying to refute it by selectively quoting or ignoring as much data as possible to paint NSA in a positive light. Refuted them constantly with govt's own docs but they were persistent.
Called out the blog as NSA fanboy to max then content seemed to change with stuff like this. Given comments, I felt it was to look more objective when seeding disinformation rather than person doing a 180.
In recent years, the IC has made major strides toward enhancing transparency. These include establishing the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) IC on the Record, a repository for declassified documents, official statements, speeches and testimony on the Tumblr blogging platform. To date, more than 5,000 pages of officially released documents have been published on IC on the Record.
If I was an NSA employee and the Snowden leaks came out, I'd consider it my opportunity to leak information on the projects that had been making my skin crawl too. You could release the documents without attribution and most would assume it's just more Snowden.
1) Non-attribution does not mean a different source per se. Some documents can be verified without any discussion of their source. (ie the NSA acknowledges their authenticity by demanding their takedown as "classified"). Powers are building cases against Snowden. Those releasing documents don't want to help that process.
2) Attribution to Snowden does is no guarantee that he is the source. Snowden is not the author, just the delivery means. And he doesn't know personally exactly which documents he handed over. There were just too many for that to be true. So to protect another source they may falsely attribute something to Snowden, with or without his permission. Not good journalism, but very possible.
There are so many documents in these agencies that leaks are inevitable. With tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand people in positions to read them, documents have appeared constantly. Snowden was simply a massive uptick in an ongoing stream, not the first and no doubt not the last.
My disappointment is that with all of these leaks I have to give up the childhood hope that aliens have visited us. Such secrets could never be kept by these agencies.