Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pardon Snowden

pardonsnowden.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 814 posts

Re: Pardon Snowden

#561

Post by BFatts »

tomc1985 wrote: post #485
brashrat wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chilling effects need to be kept in perspective; for example, while I'm completely fearless about telling off the govt whenever I wish, no way I'm going to reveal how I feel about Snowden to the HN community: I'd be ostracized!

What about a negative opinions? OSTRACIZED! Didn't like someone's show HN? OSTRACIZED! Didn't make your post happy enough? OSTRACIZED! Cuss a bit? OSTRACIZED! Offend the army of apple/react/nodejs/cloud/social fanatics? OSTRACIZED! Not that it matters, ostracization means losing a few HN epeen points, so meh :) (In the interest of keeping topicality, one could argue the above are examples of chilling effects in a com…

You forgot the Android fanatics.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#563

Post by 794CD01 »

ultramancool wrote: post #260
captainmuon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I "love" how China actually tried to formalize this some time ago. Every citizen would get a citizen score, like our credit ratings, but grading how politically loyal they were. There was quite a bit of outrage on the western internet about this. The "funny" thing is, our governments are probably doing very similar things (though still to a lesser degree, and secretly). A big difference is that China often doesn't ha…

Reminds me of Psycho-Pass where everyone is basically assigned a criminality rating and you're arrested or killed on the spot if it gets too high.

And as a result, crime and unemployment are unheard of and the greatest risk to public health (aside from freedom-loving terrorists) is a debilitating LACK of mental stress.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#565

Post by [deleted] »

mintplant wrote: post #520
j2kun wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I won't name any names, I have heard a big reason is that he was indiscriminate about what he leaked.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Assange or Manning? Snowden and his team have been much more careful and restrained with what they release than, say, WikiLeaks.

[deleted]

Re: Pardon Snowden

#566

Post by slg »

mintplant wrote: post #520
j2kun wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I won't name any names, I have heard a big reason is that he was indiscriminate about what he leaked.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Assange or Manning? Snowden and his team have been much more careful and restrained with what they release than, say, WikiLeaks.

>Snowden and his team have been much more careful and restrained with what they release than, say, WikiLeaks

Maybe at the very start, but that eventually changed. For example, I'm not sure how you can justify leaking 9 years of NSA internal newsletters as whistleblowing. [1]

[1] - https://theintercept.com/snowden-sidtoday/

Re: Pardon Snowden

#567

Post by drjesusphd »

inklesspen wrote: post #531
drjesusphd wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I also agree Manning deserves a pardon, to be fair, he was significantly more careless than Snowden. Basically all the arguments (lies) they use to damn Snowden can be fairly applied to Manning.

Manning is a woman. She uses the pronoun "she".

I was using the past tense and am unaware of her preferences for previous gender identification.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#568

Post by alexbeloi »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #217

I cannot sign this. I'm happy there is a debate over our privacy, and the information has come to light, but I still believe this man to be a traitor and he should be punished. A pardon is out of the question.

If you believe he revealed this information for the purpose of debate, so the people can be made aware and have a choice/opinion in the matter, then you have to admit that he has acted on behalf of the country. It is unquestionable that he betrayed the government, but the distinction between government and country is an important one.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#569

Post by 794CD01 »

captainmuon wrote: post #117
JMCQ87 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're allowed your quota of one medium-impact dissident action per week, just like everyone else. As it helps to keep up maintaining the illusion of democracy and free speech, you are actually doing your country a great service. If you start to do more, however... Consider yourself warned. ^^ In this case, I can reassure you though: Online petition clicktivism has been shown to be very ineffective, so it's only cons…

I "love" how China actually tried to formalize this some time ago. Every citizen would get a citizen score, like our credit ratings, but grading how politically loyal they were. There was quite a bit of outrage on the western internet about this. The "funny" thing is, our governments are probably doing very similar things (though still to a lesser degree, and secretly). A big difference is that China often doesn't ha…

I would LOVE to have that kind of formally acknowledged scoring system. I could then actually weigh the decisions - "I'm currently at 523 risk points, which puts me at the 65th percentile of ethical divergence. I can sign this petition and go up 10 points. I'll only be at the 67th percentile and I don't plan on doing anything else subversive so I should be able to decay back down to below 500 before I need to book my vacation next spring."

Instead you have to guess "is this going to put me on a list? What does being on the list mean? Does the list exist?" Well, aside from the obvious list of the petition itself. You know what I mean.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#570

Post by Myrmornis »

captainmuon wrote: post #60

Maybe a naive question, but what would the risk be for me to sign this? I wonder if I (a US citizen) might get trouble the next time at the border? Or get a higher score in some database, that combined with other things might get me into trouble? Increased scrutiny from the IRS (which should have nothing to do with this, but "they" might say hell why not?)? Inability to get security clearances in future? Being target…

Even if there is some correlation between signing this petition and some of the things you say, the expected (in the statistical sense) damage to you is tiny compared to the cause in question and the principles, so frankly I think it is lame of you to even be writing about this, and I don't think it should be the top comment. It makes HN readers look like a bunch of #firstworldproblemers lacking perspective and fretting about minor inconveniences to their privileged lifestyles.
Post reply on HN