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Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

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Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#111

Post by ISL »

Kylekramer wrote: post #54
swombat wrote: post #28

Please post more about Snowden, PRISM, NSA, GCHQ, and all the rest. I will upvote every one of them. For those who think that "we all know essentially how this will end", think about what the world would look like if every major change had been met with this kind of pitiful attitude. Every revolution, every change for the better, has come out of people rejecting that sentiment. It's not too late to turn away from the…

I agree with the sentiment, minus Snowden. We should be talking about this issue. Snowden is at this point immaterial to the larger issues unless he leaks more details. Discussing himself distracts from his purposes. His movements and people's opinions about his movements (which dominated HN this weekend) are of no consequence to PRISM and the NSA. The honest truth is we are no closer to discovering the truth about w…

If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. If what he leaked is important and worthwhile, then he ought to be defended. The probability that he'll receive fair treatment by our government and a fair trial is directly related to his presence in a spotlight.

How the government treats Snowden is a proxy for how the government may treat each one of us in the future; he's now committed to being the test case for our possible future.

I'm not stoked about discussing a random dude's travel plans either, but it would appear that the court of public opinion is more transparent than the system which would otherwise judge the man.

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#112

Post by outworlder »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #100

Yeah we need to clear out this news about the most important case of domestic spying in the history of the world so that I can finally see some stories about which startup raised money...? Perspective please.

Agreed. This is better and more relevant than the usual Techcrunch parroting.

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#113

Post by glenstein »

ebbv wrote: post #41
swombat wrote: post #28

Please post more about Snowden, PRISM, NSA, GCHQ, and all the rest. I will upvote every one of them. For those who think that "we all know essentially how this will end", think about what the world would look like if every major change had been met with this kind of pitiful attitude. Every revolution, every change for the better, has come out of people rejecting that sentiment. It's not too late to turn away from the…

You can disagree with his statement about PRISM, and that doesn't really have much to do with his original point. He wasn't saying don't post thoughtful op-eds about PRISM (and if he was I think he'd get no support here at all), he's saying enough with the tabloid like articles about the people at the center of controversies, which have nothing to do with the larger issue.

OP seems to be issuing a blanket request that we slow down with any stories related to either Snowden or the NSA. If he's really only against frivolous reporting his subject line ought to have said "Please post good stories on the NSA and post them as frequently as possible" and then explained what he felt were good stories.

But even then I would object to drawing too sharp a distinction between Snowden's story and the NSA story. There's an integral relationship between the two, because how the US handles leaks and leakers has everything to do with the national debate on how the US gov handles secrecy in general.

Some reporting might boil over into frivolous details; I truly don't care what he eats and I think those details trivialize the story. But in terms of driving attention to relevant details, I think Snowden's story and the NSA surveillance story command attention symbiotically as opposed to being mutually exclusive. It's like the thesis advanced by Alex Gibney in his Wikileaks documentary We Steal Secrets: the allegations against Julian Assange and subsequent attempts at extradition probably had the effect of bringing much more attention to Wikileaks. Similarly here with Snowden.

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#114

Post by [deleted] »

ISL wrote: post #111
Kylekramer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sentiment, minus Snowden. We should be talking about this issue. Snowden is at this point immaterial to the larger issues unless he leaks more details. Discussing himself distracts from his purposes. His movements and people's opinions about his movements (which dominated HN this weekend) are of no consequence to PRISM and the NSA. The honest truth is we are no closer to discovering the truth about w…

If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. If what he leaked is important and worthwhile, then he ought to be defended. The probability that he'll receive fair treatment by our government and a fair trial is directly related to his presence in a spotlight. How the government treats Snowden is a proxy for how the government may treat each one of us in the future; he's now committed to b…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#115

Post by evanlivingston »

davidw wrote: post #102
cletus wrote: post #91

I'm not normally in favour of "political" stories on HN but this one is an exception for three reasons. Firstly, mass surveillance and the end-run around the Constitution is a technological as well as social and political issue that also touches on the hot button issue of privacy and how the legal system is increasingly at odds with the Internet (eg distinguishing between "US persons" and "foreign persons" is increas…

> This issue matters and it's germane to HN on several fronts. If you don't feel the same, just don't click on the links. I agree that it matters, and it's important, and so on. I also feel that it's something of a watershed in the site's history in that there are a lot more unrelated political articles appearing in its wake, with negative consequences for the quality of discourse and content here. I feel that, long…

HN is one of the leading tech news sites. The recent events clearly demonstrate that citizens need to be more involved in the political process, or at least less blasé. As leaders of the tech community, do we not have an obligation to act responsibly, to be informed? I don't believe a shift in HN to be more political would be a shift toward lower quality content, but instead a shift for the better, onto more important things.

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#117

Post by pvnick »

> But we all know essentially how this will end: Prism isn't going away and Edward Snowden's fate is grim

Not only do I disagree with this point, I would go so far as to say your defeatist attitude will make this terrible outcome a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more we talk about these things the more we can fix them.

Shoving your head in the sand will guarantee the programs stay and Snowden's outcome be grim. Talk about the issue enough, forcing it into the spotlight, and only then is an effective debate possible.

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#118

Post by DavideNL »

Unwarranted surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the foundations of a democratic society.

People are commenting and upvoting because they are angry; not only because of the above, but also because on top of that the US government wants to punish Edward Snowden for telling the truth to the world.

Just adding my 50 cents...

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#119

Post by pvnick »

cletus wrote: post #91

I'm not normally in favour of "political" stories on HN but this one is an exception for three reasons. Firstly, mass surveillance and the end-run around the Constitution is a technological as well as social and political issue that also touches on the hot button issue of privacy and how the legal system is increasingly at odds with the Internet (eg distinguishing between "US persons" and "foreign persons" is increas…

I agree with everything you just said (and I can't claim that about anybody very often). Like someone else said, I will upvote every Snowden-related story because only by talking about this and taking action can we have even the slightest possibility of change. And this issue is far too important to let it slip through the cracks. We are literally at a turning point between free societies and totalitarianism. Are we really going to stick our heads in the sand and be "good Germans?" (no offense intended to current German citizens)

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#120

Post by damarquis »

Kylekramer wrote: post #54
swombat wrote: post #28

Please post more about Snowden, PRISM, NSA, GCHQ, and all the rest. I will upvote every one of them. For those who think that "we all know essentially how this will end", think about what the world would look like if every major change had been met with this kind of pitiful attitude. Every revolution, every change for the better, has come out of people rejecting that sentiment. It's not too late to turn away from the…

I agree with the sentiment, minus Snowden. We should be talking about this issue. Snowden is at this point immaterial to the larger issues unless he leaks more details. Discussing himself distracts from his purposes. His movements and people's opinions about his movements (which dominated HN this weekend) are of no consequence to PRISM and the NSA. The honest truth is we are no closer to discovering the truth about w…

I agree that all the short term updates don't have relevance to larger issues. However, if discovering the truth about what the government is doing does matter to you then Snowden's long term fate should be important. There are likely a few people in government agencies contemplating leaking vital information about these programs. The extent to which the US government can make the rest of Snowden's life unpleasant will determine what they do.
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