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

Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

ietf.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 395 posts

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#171

Post by bee_rider »

Zetice wrote: post #154
bee_rider wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about as a boring person who does think the state should be allowed to focus the Eye of Sauron on people? Sure. Not everyone has to agree with me. I think it is unpopular to be happy about intelligence agencies spying on us. So hopefully I can win over some of the in-between people by causing them to fully face their position. But if someone just fundamentally disagrees with me, I think this tactic won’t work.…

That's the thing; for someone who thinks "eye of Sauron" is acceptable, they don't think it means "writ large surveillance of everyone", they think it means "targeted surveillance via warrant of a credible threat to American interests domestic and abroad." So you really have a disagreement on terms, not on merits.

I’ve presented one possible rebuttal to the “I’m not interesting, so I don’t need to encrypt my communications” position. “It is OK to spy on some people sometimes” is a different position, so a different rebuttal would be necessary.

It isn’t really clear to me if you are actually trying to make these arguments in and of themselves, or if you think they add light to the first point. So, I’m not sure how to respond, sorry.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#172

Post by EFreethought »

pydry wrote: post #158
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Cheney's war was significantly more justified than Putin's war? People who start wars are legitimately bad, but let's not pretend that Russia is special here .

America would be a better place if it had more people furious that America is turning into Russia, and fewer people trying to justify that it's not quite as bad.

I think the problem is that a lot of people in America want America to be more like Russia.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#173

Post by rayiner »

pydry wrote: post #158
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Cheney's war was significantly more justified than Putin's war? People who start wars are legitimately bad, but let's not pretend that Russia is special here .

America would be a better place if it had more people furious that America is turning into Russia, and fewer people trying to justify that it's not quite as bad.

[flagged]

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#174

Post by opportune »

nyokodo wrote: post #160

[flagged]

I am not nearly as convinced as you that he was a Russian asset from the beginning. I think it’s also likely, absent more info, that he just had no other options than to align with and kowtow to Russia after he was in the US’ crosshairs.

But I don’t think you deserve the downvotes as I believe we need to be more cognizant that Russia/China/etc absolutely run their own intelligence operations and destabilizing the US + interfering with the US’ offensive and counterintelligence abilities is obviously gonna be one of their main goals.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#175

Post by nyokodo »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #165
nyokodo wrote: post #160

[flagged]

He was flying to Ecuador and his passport was revoked when he was in Russia. If you speak out against the war in Ukraine in Russia you get shot, and he has a wife and kids now. He's done his part imo

> He was flying to Ecuador and his passport was revoked when he was in Russia

Says who.

> If you speak out against Ukraine in Russia you get shot, and he has a wife and kids now.

That doesn’t mean he has to pledge allegiance during that period. Regardless it’s not what an American patriot does. That narrative is untenable now.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#176

Post by throwaway892238 »

Years ago, when I interviewed at places that did USG-related work, the stuff I heard about that I didn't have to sign an NDA to hear, scared me enough that I knew Snowden-scale stuff was entirely within the capabilities of the US Govt. I didn't realize they would use it against us just blatantly in direct violation of every law put in place to prevent it, though.

I think the lesson I learned from the Snowden leaks is, if the government can do it, the government will do it - if not now, one day soon. That's... kind of a value-changing, life-changing realization. That no law will stop a government from doing what it wants. We can't stop it. But what we can do is install enough peep-holes (transparency) that when it happens, we're more likely to find out about it, so we can do something about it.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#177

Post by dragonwriter »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #165
nyokodo wrote: post #160

[flagged]

He was flying to Ecuador and his passport was revoked when he was in Russia. If you speak out against the war in Ukraine in Russia you get shot, and he has a wife and kids now. He's done his part imo

> If you speak out against Ukraine in Russia you get shot

You mean, against the “special military operation”; speaking out against Ukraine is... quite acceptable.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#178

Post by roenxi »

Loquebantur wrote: post #143
FormerBandmate wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia commits countless war crimes on a daily basis (there is tons of documentation) and China has concentration camps. America is not perfect but they are legitimately much worse

The US has Guantanamo Bay. Among others. The US did commit various war crimes in about every of their foreign engagements. Those had to be leaked of course and weren't reported by some self-correction built into the system. The US uses false narratives like "national security" to justify unjustifiable actions regularly. See their economic sanctions, Huawei, etc. pp. The list goes on of course. Now, the one thing clea…

Even beyond the war crimes; just the wars themselves. The WMD thing in Iraq is nice because not only was the war flimsily justified, but that justification itself was a lie.

However, a lot of the other wars are just bizarre. Taking Afghanistan - the costs, suffering caused and damage to the global economy are completely absurd. Nothing was achieved. There isn't any reason for someone in the US to even feel better after that debacle. The decision makers had to know that was what they were triggering, they did it anyway and many of them are still treated like reasonable choices for leadership positions.

That decision making was worse than anything Russia or China did, it was just pointless killing and destruction.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#179

Post by Zetice »

bee_rider wrote: post #171
Zetice wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing; for someone who thinks "eye of Sauron" is acceptable, they don't think it means "writ large surveillance of everyone", they think it means "targeted surveillance via warrant of a credible threat to American interests domestic and abroad." So you really have a disagreement on terms, not on merits.

I’ve presented one possible rebuttal to the “I’m not interesting, so I don’t need to encrypt my communications” position. “It is OK to spy on some people sometimes” is a different position, so a different rebuttal would be necessary. It isn’t really clear to me if you are actually trying to make these arguments in and of themselves, or if you think they add light to the first point. So, I’m not sure how to respond, s…

I don't think you're being clear about what "eye of Sauron" means, but I think that's on purpose, as the argument in favor of the concept of using surveillance via warrants undermines your larger "right to privacy" point.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#180

Post by nyokodo »

opportune wrote: post #174
nyokodo wrote: post #160

[flagged]

I am not nearly as convinced as you that he was a Russian asset from the beginning. I think it’s also likely, absent more info, that he just had no other options than to align with and kowtow to Russia after he was in the US’ crosshairs. But I don’t think you deserve the downvotes as I believe we need to be more cognizant that Russia/China/etc absolutely run their own intelligence operations and destabilizing the US…

> he was a Russian asset from the beginning

I didn’t say he was a Russian asset from the beginning. I just said he was probably a traitor from the beginning. That may be quite complicated but he ended up a Russian asset.

Post reply on HN