My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

Yes and I also clarified that this is about optics. Anyway, since you are challenging the reference - I shall explain it. It is a bit complex and hinges on a few pieces of information and reasoning:

1) The whistleblowers I am advocating in favor of - Assange, Manning and Snowden, are being prosecuted because the US government is ensuring that there is justice served to those who would dare to expose their secrets to the public. The secrets have already been leaked. The genie cannot be put back into the bottle, so as such the persecution of these individuals is punitive, and to serve as a warning to others who would dare to do something like this in the future.

2) Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information. The FBI said that she did not do this intentionally (I am inclined to agree with the FBI here btw). HOWEVER, there is magically no interest in setting an example here, or being punitive, or serving any kind of warning to others who would dare to make a mistake like this. Director James Comey said that any reasonable person in her position would have known that this was wrong.

The US government wants to make an example out of Assange and Snowden when they leak classified information, but not of Hillary Clinton because she didn't intend to do any harm. As such, Assange (who is not even a US citizen) and Snowden leaked this information in the interest of the public exposing the apparent misdeeds of the US government. From an optics point of view, the moral of the story appears to be that if you are Hillary Clinton's housekeeper, you get to print out classified material for her convenience, but if you are a concerned citizen, you don't get to learn about the fact that your government collects your internet correspondence en-masse.

3) I quote from:

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11136

in which Neera Tanden writes to John Podesta:

> I know this email thing isn't on the level. I'm fully aware of that. But her inability to just do a national interview and communicate genuine feelings of remorse and regret is now, I fear, becoming a character problem (more so than honesty).

And also:

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150

In which Assistant Attorney General Peter J. Kadzik tips off Hillary Clinton's campaign manager about what the Department of Justice will be doing in the next couple of days, so that the campaign can get their communication ready in advance.

We see here that there is widespread agreement, even amongst allies, that some wrongdoing has been done, and we see the government's machinery springing into action to help this person out.

---

Perhaps you are a wealthy or fortunate person who sees things from a different perspective, but I am an ordinary person living in a third world country where government corruption regardless of party is the norm. I see a powerful person getting off easy and getting help from people inside t he government to clear their name. I also see good people who risked their lives and their families being persecuted by the most powerful government in the world, and all they did was help ordinary people like me understand what our governments are doing to us. Mr. Snowden has to live in Russia and may never get to go home again. Mr. Assange has lived in captivity for years. Mr. Clinton can give a speech in a single day and make $200,000 while his wife is in government. Maybe for you this is not shady at all, but for ordinary people like me, this is just emblematic of corruption and a broken system where government protects its own. The optics are terrible.

In the case of FB, I actually believe having Instagram and Facebook not e2e could be even work, if people are educated and made aware about it, while Whatsapp remains e2e.

Instagram and FB are mostly "public" facing so they offer a big surface for malicious activities. (Scammers, Groomers/People seeking CSAM which are always used as a reason for more surveillance/ Trolls etc.)

Whatsapp is more private and requires knowing one's phone number which ideally should be harder to get ahold of.

Messaging on Instagram/FB could be compared to whispering in a crowded place, private...but not fully private.

In an ideal world this would not be necessary, but there will always be a fight between surveillance and freedom. And perhaps giving up freedoms in some parts could allow us regain more freedom in others, as long as people are aware about it, which might be the biggest hurdle to tackle.

That's not the position that Haugen took testifying before Parliament in the UK -- where she expressed strong support for e2e encryption. She said her views had been misreported earlier -- that she'd questioned whether Facebook could be trusted to implement e2e properly, and that the reporters had garbled it.

See, e.g., https://twitter.com/sleepdefic1t/status/1452724217393434636

You're honestly comparing apples and oranges here. One side (whistleblowers) is a case where someone actively published and drew attention to classified material.

The other one is someone who was careless with classified material due to laziness and either A) not caring about the ramifications of that or B) not knowing.

I'm not defending Clinton, she's icky for many other reasons (not the least of which is her insincerity and power fixation), but your comparison is a non-sequitur.

You're leaving out that even though she asked her housekeeper to print out classified information (so you say, I'm not familiar with the story, but I'll take your word on it for this), she wasn't actively trying to undermine US security. She's just careless and ignorant of the ramifications of her actions.

I'm not defending Clinton or Assange. I think they should both be facing some sort of punishment for their actions. Neither is a saint.

Assange has a martyr complex that he's milking for support. Clinton is a megalomaniac that will say anything to get into power.

Neither are good people.