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

America’s Open Wound

edwardsnowden.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 349 posts

Re: America’s Open Wound

#251

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #228
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #227

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/15/494157921... Snowden is "a serial exaggerator and fabricator" who told a series of untrue stories about his health, education and performance reviews. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/03/... Obama, at an August news conference, specifically said that “I signed an executive order well before Mr. Snowden leaked this information that provided whi…

>* Snowden is "a serial exaggerator and fabricator" who told a series of untrue stories about his health, education and performance reviews.* Oh look, propaganda in the form of an ad hominem fallacy.

Have you read the intelligence report that the NPR article references? It's good. It even says Snowden had whistleblower protection but never tried to use it. Nobody he worked with remembers him bringing it up. Etc.

Had he gone to Congress he would be considered a whistleblower.

That report is what made me do a 180 on Snowden fyi

Pdf warning: https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pd...

Re: America’s Open Wound

#252

Post by timmytokyo »

trackflak wrote: post #140
humanistbot wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he denied it was going to happen and expressed skepticism at Western intel reports about the invasion. Then he was silent after the invasion.

A wiser choice under his circumstances. He knows the political climate in Russia.

If it's wiser for him to remain silent in the face of despicable actions by his host government, why isn't it also wiser for him to speak negatively about his host government's antagonists?

You can't really have it both ways. While I admire what Snowden did to expose abuses by the NSA, I also recognize that his credibility is severely tarnished by the physical location in which he currently resides.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#253

Post by Jaepa »

Jtsummers wrote: post #117
Jaepa wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's holed up in Russia because the United States stranded him there. He was in Hong Kong for the original reporting. When his identity was revealed the United States charged him under the Espionage Act, & revoked his passport. He was flying to Argentina through countries that didn't have extradition agreements with the United States. When he got off in Russia, his passport was confiscated as it was no-longer valid &…

Ecuador, not Argentina.

Thank you for the correction.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#254

Post by blantonl »

tootifrooti wrote: post #223
CodeMage wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or perhaps we don't need HN exceptionalism? It's not exceptionalism to lament the downfall of the tradition of carefully cultivated discourse. I still remember when this community used to be different, and this site was the one I went to first. > There's no reason why HN should have a higher quality discussion than some generic subreddit or FB comment sections. Yes, there is. HN uses to have a higher quality discus…

.

Don't read political threads either. One should have come to the conclusion long ago that no platform is "enlightened enough" to shy away from the basic human instincts of "us vs them."

Re: America’s Open Wound

#255

Post by somenameforme »

anoonmoose wrote: post #24
TeeMassive wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one? 2000? 2008? 2016? 2020?

I think they meant the one with the unprecedented violent riots in the Capitol that resulted in some folks dying. Could be wrong.

On the off chance you weren't aware, the story about an officer being bludgeoned to death by a rioter wielding a fire extinguisher was completely fabricated. [1]

He was uninjured during the riots, and died the following day of a stroke due to a preexisting blood clot. Kind of interesting the massive propaganda campaign following his death that was maintained for months, even though the coroner's report on his death would have been available within days of his death. And the powers that be obviously knew, whatever the cause, it had 0 to do with the lie that was told, and repeated for months by the media, to the American people.

The only people that died during the riot were unarmed rioters.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Sicknick

Re: America’s Open Wound

#256

Post by isx726552 »

CharlesW wrote: post #238
isx726552 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden is absolutely a hero for what he did to expose US surveillance. It is also right for people to be suspicious of anything he says at the moment given his current situation. There’s no contradiction between the two. As I wrote elsewhere in the comments on this story, the atrocities of the CIA are sadly well known. There’s nothing new here. The beginning of Snowden’s post is a surprisingly poor take on Biden’s r…

This is the kind of thoughtful, rational commentary I think the parent commenter was looking for. Thank you!

You’re welcome, although I think it’s kinda more than this essay really deserves. When it starts off with an already-deconstructed Nazi comparison and then had nothing new to add beyond that, it’s kind of a low effort shitpost. It shouldn’t be too surprising if most of the comments are also low effort shitposts. Happy to elevate things for a moment but this really doesn’t deserve much attention at the end of the day; it’s pretty trollish, sadly.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#258

Post by jonnybgood »

everforward wrote: post #236
jonnybgood wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s some misunderstanding here regarding US law and intel agencies. Intel agencies don’t actually do the killing. The military does. CIA as an intel agency only says where and who. That is essentially the function of an intel agency. These functions are outlined in USC Title law. So it already is as you state. CIA gathers info, military does the killing. It is the same reason there’s NSA and US Cyber Command. So…

> Intel agencies don’t actually do the killing. The military does. CIA as an intel agency only says where and who. Nope https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-gave-cia-power-to-launch-... The CIA has the authority and hardware to launch their own drone strikes. It was classified, so we don't know when it started, but Obama removed their power to do it and Trump gave it back. The US has two separate drone strike programs.…

This is an ongoing debate between the authorities of Title 50, which the CIA falls under, and Title 10, which the military falls under.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#259

Post by 20after4 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #221
slg wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he's stuck there with nowhere else to go except prison in the US, Meanwhile Chelsea Manning is walking the streets of the US as a free person. Why do people pretend that Snowden's only option was and is to live in Russia, a country that is diametrically opposed to everything he ostensibly stands for?

Chelsea Manning got a presidential pardon - what was Snowden's option?

And many years of torture in solitary confinement.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#260

Post by pwinnski »

President Biden gave a speech about a specific person and what he perceives that person's threat to America to be, and Snowden omits any mention of that person, describes Biden's speech as being only about "his political opposition" and uses that as a springboard for... stuff. It's almost as if he didn't watch or read the speech, but only saw screen grabs and headlines from people who hate Biden.
Post reply on HN