<story><title>Booz Allen fires leaker Snowden</title><url>http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/11/news/companies/snowden-booz-allen/index.html?hpt=hp_t2</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>staunch</author><text>This is seriously the weirdest part of this story so far. Why is it news that this guy, who clearly has resigned, is being &amp;quot;fired&amp;quot;? And why was his precise salary released? Why is it being reported on? Why does it matter that he did, or did not, finish high school?&lt;p&gt;It feels like some kind of desperate attempt to disparage him. As if someone hopes it will sound like he&amp;#x27;s a disgruntled former employee that was fired. Or that he was some low level hack of an employee.&lt;p&gt;And yet no one is disputing that he worked for our spy agencies for the better part of a decade, or that he had a job that would tend to give him significant access. No one is disputing anything he&amp;#x27;s said at all, as far as I can tell. This shit is irrelevant.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kintamanimatt</author><text>I was going to say that looking at it through a more cynical lens it&amp;#x27;s to discredit him, but I&amp;#x27;m not sure such a lens is required. The difference in reported income, the firing, the criminal investigation, and his job being re-listed as a junior level position are tools to do this. The reason for this smearing could be a PR stunt to shore up investors&amp;#x27; confidence (and therefore the stock price), or it could be character assassination and to make casual readers think this was a low-level employee with problems telling the truth and holding down a job.&lt;p&gt;The article that&amp;#x27;s linked half way through paints Booz Allen as a wonderful, benevolent employer that was gracious enough to hire someone without formal credentials (in this job climate, no less!). It&amp;#x27;s most certainly to bolster its reputation on Wall Street and also to make people think Snowden was an ungrateful chump for giving up such a cushy position.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen it reported in other articles, but I didn&amp;#x27;t see mention in this article about him not finishing HS. Was this original article edited?</text></comment>
<story><title>Booz Allen fires leaker Snowden</title><url>http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/11/news/companies/snowden-booz-allen/index.html?hpt=hp_t2</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>staunch</author><text>This is seriously the weirdest part of this story so far. Why is it news that this guy, who clearly has resigned, is being &amp;quot;fired&amp;quot;? And why was his precise salary released? Why is it being reported on? Why does it matter that he did, or did not, finish high school?&lt;p&gt;It feels like some kind of desperate attempt to disparage him. As if someone hopes it will sound like he&amp;#x27;s a disgruntled former employee that was fired. Or that he was some low level hack of an employee.&lt;p&gt;And yet no one is disputing that he worked for our spy agencies for the better part of a decade, or that he had a job that would tend to give him significant access. No one is disputing anything he&amp;#x27;s said at all, as far as I can tell. This shit is irrelevant.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jrockway</author><text>This is called the twenty-four hour news cycle.  People want to hear more about this story, but there is nothing more that anyone knows.  So we dive into the human element, speculate as to &amp;quot;why&amp;quot;, and so on.  People keep clicking the ads, so it must be what they want.  (We read it, right?)</text></comment>