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Edward Snowden Reconsidered

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Re: Edward Snowden Reconsidered

#51
post #49
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we don't share the same premises, since I don't start from a place where ultimately you have to be able to leak arbitrary documents. I think leaking government secrets is an extremely big deal, and I can imagine few circumstances in which it's OK to leak them without even knowing what they contain --- which is what Snowden did. Again, it is my claim that Snowden didn't even know how many documents he leak…

I agree that the incorrect framing of what I understand is the claimed count of which documents Snowden "accessed" during his job (as opposed to "released," with an implied "to the public") does not make the entire article bad. I would also agree that it's a tragic situation when unelected NSA officials engaged in massive violations of privacy and didn't take internally-raised concerns seriously. It's tragic that Oba…

The first paragraph of this comment responds to things I actually said. The second looks like you may have accidentally spliced a reply to a different comment into this one.

Re: Edward Snowden Reconsidered

#52
post #8

I can come up with no better summation of the damage Snowden has done to liberal democracies and the rule of law than his quote near the end: "...Politics will take us only so far and if history is any guide, they are the least reliable means of achieving effective change" In other words Snowden's taught millions of young people he influences that working within the frameworks of politics and the law is pointless and…

When were there two global conflicts between "politics and the rule of law" on one side and "totalitarianism" on the other side? Perhaps the strategies you're referring to under the term "politics and the rule of law" are more effective at promoting some goals than they are at other goals?

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden Reconsidered

#53
So we're supposed to be OK with this?

>Snowden’s tweets and lectures have real-world impact. After his disclosures, Tor’s usership shot up from a million to six million. He repeatedly tweeted to his followers that they should use Tor and Signal. Tor’s default search engine DuckDuckGo, which claims to protect privacy by refraining from the profiling that other browsers do in order to provide personalized searches, saw a 600 percent increase in traffic over just a few months. One of DuckDuckGo’s partners is Yandex, Russia’s government-controlled search engine, although the company says it does not allow the collection or sharing of user data by its partners. Certification by the Snowden brand may well be the chief reason that so much faith is now placed uncritically in these platforms.

Really?

Re: Edward Snowden Reconsidered

#54
post #47
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you present any solid evidence to support your "plainly apparent" claim?

See, the typical tactic of Kremlinbots is to deny all existing evidence as fake, and then ask for proofs. So, I have to ask you first: do you find the current evidence that MH-17 was shot down by a Russian Buk launcher, and that Skripals were poisoned by Russian GRU agents "solid" enough? If you don't think the evidence for these two events is "solid" (I think it is solid), then I will be unable to provide you "solid…

I’m a long time reader but just registered to ask this. Could you share what evidence that Kremlin poisoned Scripals is solid in your view?

Re: Edward Snowden Reconsidered

#55
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, the typical tactic of Kremlinbots is to deny all existing evidence as fake, and then ask for proofs. So, I have to ask you first: do you find the current evidence that MH-17 was shot down by a Russian Buk launcher, and that Skripals were poisoned by Russian GRU agents "solid" enough? If you don't think the evidence for these two events is "solid" (I think it is solid), then I will be unable to provide you "solid…

I’m a long time reader but just registered to ask this. Could you share what evidence that Kremlin poisoned Scripals is solid in your view?

The interview of Petrov and Boshirov on Russia Today. They basically confirm that all evidence previously revealed by UK side is not made up, but was actually real all along. And their excuses for their itinerary are laughable. This was basically Russian government confirming "yes, we did it, and we don't give a shit". There's no way to spin that interview into Russia not being somehow involved with the poisoning.
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