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Edward Snowden at IETF 93

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Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#71

Post by alextgordon »

superuser2 wrote: post #65
mike_hearn wrote: post #56

Ed's views on Bitcoin are a little surprising. I'm not sure what he means by "nobody likes to talk about Bitcoin any more". It's not that old! One of the problems Bitcoin solves is that you cannot have personas or unlinked identities in the traditional financial system. Governments, and therefore the banks they control, all view financial privacy or pseudonymity as only useful for criminals. That's a rather narrow vi…

Bitcoin does not solve this problem; you can follow the money from the exchange to the consumer's wallet to the merchant. It's only anonymous if you're using a tumbling service, and transferring your money to a tumbling service is an unambiguous broadcast to the entire world that you are committing the federal crime of money laundering. If they ever increase in popularity, you can bet that regulators will routinely t…

I am not intimate with US law, but what about altcoin exchanges? I don't think that converting your bitcoins to say Litecoins is illegal.

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#72

Post by ersii »

tptacek wrote: post #17

When asked about DNSSEC, which is a forklift upgrade of a core Internet protocol that has the deliberate effect of giving NSA and GCHQ control of TLS keys for hosts in .COM, .UK, .NET, .ORG, and .IO, this was Snowden's answer: Edward Snowden: So, I agree with you and I mean this is what's important about the IETF. Just because I say it, doesn't mean it's gospel. I can be wrong about an incredible amount of things. No…

Edward says this himself. Practically "Please be careful with my input". That said, his input is not nonsense. No one should take any writing at face value. Always ponder the message, the consequences and if there's an even better way.

Edward Snowden: [...] Just because I say it, doesn't mean it's gospel. I can be wrong about an incredible amount of things. Nobody should trust me. Nobody should grant any sort of outsized weight to what I say.

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#73

Post by eli »

travjones wrote: post #26

I think it's a shame how mainstream media suggests that Snowden is a "coward" for not "coming home to face his charges." It's clear that he released confidential docs to reporters and this would be incredibly easy to prove in court, thereby landing him in prison for the rest of his life. I don't know any sane person that would surrender to this type of treatment, considering that he wouldn't be able to defend his act…

I think this is something reasonable people can disagree about.

The rule of law should apply to everyone equally. I get that Ed Snowden is a likable guy and the documents he released may even have been a force of positive change in the world, but that doesn't necessarily absolve him of having to face trial. You can't go easy on him just because you agree with his politics.

Our whistleblowing laws are woefully inadequate, but I think it's generally a good thing that random government contractors aren't allowed to unilaterally declassify national security programs because they personally don't agree with them. It's easy to imagine examples where this would lead to a very bad situation.

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#74

Post by oakhaven »

travjones wrote: post #26

I think it's a shame how mainstream media suggests that Snowden is a "coward" for not "coming home to face his charges." It's clear that he released confidential docs to reporters and this would be incredibly easy to prove in court, thereby landing him in prison for the rest of his life. I don't know any sane person that would surrender to this type of treatment, considering that he wouldn't be able to defend his act…

I don't follow much but I haven't noticed Snowden being shamed in media in Europe.

US media call him a coward for exposing how much effort their government puts into breaking citizens' privacy, and then GTFOing from the country? That's not a stand one can come to while having brain in the head. To have media so much aligned with government witch-hunting seems borderline Russian.

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#75

Post by eli »

thomasahle wrote: post #51
kajecounterhack wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, did you see https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow... > If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and -- importantly -- accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a j…

Not just prison, the "Espionage Act of 1917", which is he charged with, has death penalty as a possible punishment. And it is pretty clear that he is guilty of this law. Not much room for whistleblowers in a wartime law.

The US has promised not to seek the death penalty if he returns to face trial.

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#76

Post by interactive_guy »

eli wrote: post #73
travjones wrote: post #26

I think it's a shame how mainstream media suggests that Snowden is a "coward" for not "coming home to face his charges." It's clear that he released confidential docs to reporters and this would be incredibly easy to prove in court, thereby landing him in prison for the rest of his life. I don't know any sane person that would surrender to this type of treatment, considering that he wouldn't be able to defend his act…

I think this is something reasonable people can disagree about. The rule of law should apply to everyone equally. I get that Ed Snowden is a likable guy and the documents he released may even have been a force of positive change in the world, but that doesn't necessarily absolve him of having to face trial. You can't go easy on him just because you agree with his politics. Our whistleblowing laws are woefully inadequ…

This seems to completely invalidate even the idea of justly disobeying unjust laws.

The rule of law as a principle has utility in political philosophy, but saying there can be no exception is arguing for a complete embrace of authoritarianism. And if there's no way for laws to be challenged, then all civil disobedience is illegitimate.

I like Hobbes as much as the next guy, but as a society we seem to have moved beyond his idea that the government can do whatever it wants to sustain itself, because it's better than no government.

This is not a personal attack, but this argument often infuriates me, because it's similar to people arguing that MLK was a troublemaker, and that the civil rights movement was just "agitators" who refused to play by the rules, even though the game was rigged to destroy them.

Why can't people just always obey authority, no matter how wrong, destructive, inhuman, or immoral it may be, amirite?

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#77

Post by ikeboy »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #46
travjones wrote: post #26

I think it's a shame how mainstream media suggests that Snowden is a "coward" for not "coming home to face his charges." It's clear that he released confidential docs to reporters and this would be incredibly easy to prove in court, thereby landing him in prison for the rest of his life. I don't know any sane person that would surrender to this type of treatment, considering that he wouldn't be able to defend his act…

Agreed, did you see https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow... > If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and -- importantly -- accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a j…

There have been plenty of abuses that came to light without the person who exposed them going to jail. There have even been NSA whistleblowers that stayed in the US and didn't get prosecuted (see e.g. William Binney, who has called Snowden a traitor http://www.businessinsider.com/william-binney-and-snowden-tr...).

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#78

Post by comrh »

NullCharacter wrote: post #39
agd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bulk collection of phone metadata (which he exposed) was subsequently ruled unlawful: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/07/nsa-phone-rec...

That's great and all, but what about the other one million+ documents he absconded with not related to the phone metadata record collection? At what point does he cease being a whistle blower?

I feel like this isn't a bad point. Anyone have a response because the whistlerblower tag gets used a lot but he did release a lot that seemed to be normal spying.

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#79

Post by [deleted] »

comrh wrote: post #78
NullCharacter wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great and all, but what about the other one million+ documents he absconded with not related to the phone metadata record collection? At what point does he cease being a whistle blower?

I feel like this isn't a bad point. Anyone have a response because the whistlerblower tag gets used a lot but he did release a lot that seemed to be normal spying.

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden at IETF 93

#80

Post by pfg »

comrh wrote: post #78
NullCharacter wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great and all, but what about the other one million+ documents he absconded with not related to the phone metadata record collection? At what point does he cease being a whistle blower?

I feel like this isn't a bad point. Anyone have a response because the whistlerblower tag gets used a lot but he did release a lot that seemed to be normal spying.

His argument was that it should be not his decision whether releasing a document is in the public interest, but rather something journalists should take care of (although he did select those journalists himself, so it's not fair to say it's a completely independent process).

Still better than a full dump à la WkiLeaks, but the big question is whether the journalists have the OpSec skills to avoid leaking the documents to other governments.

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