On Wednesday, Sept. 9, Amazon hired the former chief of the National Security Agency (NSA), General Keith Alexander, as the board member of Amazon's audit committee. Then, ex-CIA member and known whistleblower Edward Snowden tweets about his disapproval about this decision. But why?
Amazon hires ex-NSA chief as board
The logo of Amazon is pictured inside the company's office in Bengaluru, India, April 20, 2018.
On Wednesday, Sept. 9, Amazon announced a new board officers for its audit committee.
The Verge reported that ex-NSA chief General Keith Alexander would be the one filling in the position. But the masses seemed to be shocked with this decision.
After all, this same man was the face behind the issue of 'Snowden leaks' in 2013. Alexander was once the head of NSA starting from the year 2005 up to 2014.
His name was dragged with the issue of broad data collection for the government agency. Those systems include the popular PRISM, that held info from widely-used online sites like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook.
Edward Snowden gestures as he speaks via livestream at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, November 4, 2019.
Edward Snowden, a former CIA sub-contractor, was the man that leaked all this info to the press and to the world. This expose did a global outrage from the US agency.
Of course, Alexander denied all these claims and even called Snowden as a Russian spy in 2013.
The media wasn't exactly friends with Alexander after he recommended the press to be left out with all the evidence presented by the whistleblower.
"I think it's wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000-whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these - you know it just doesn't make sense," Alexander in an interview in 2013. "We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policymakers but, from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on."
Snowden speaks out: "Hey Alexa" vs. "Hey Keith Alexander"
It turns out "Hey Alexa" is short for "Hey Keith Alexander." Yes, the Keith Alexander personally responsible for the unlawful mass surveillance programs that caused a global scandal. And Amazon Web Services (AWS) host ~6% of all websites. https://t.co/6hkzsHjxh9 — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 9, 2020
In the height of the issue of Amazon's newly-appointed official, Snowden himself tweeted about his side on the matter.
Snowder was not happy with the online retail store's decision to appoint him, especially with his last issues of breaking user privacy.
Snowden even compared common Amazon's phrase "Hey Alexa," as short to "Hey Keith Alexander."
Amazon has not yet commented on the matter, until now.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Jamie Pancho
