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On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

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Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it about Snowden discussions that brings out all the moral grandstanders and internet tough guys?

Maybe it's because of Snowden's moral grandstanding over leaking only a single extant US program that could possibly have been illegal (telephone metadata collection) and hundreds of others that very clearly weren't. People have every right to be disgusted with him.

Not illegal is not the same as nor morally wrong.

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of those rhetorical tricks being used to manipulate public opinion, where any criticism of the status quo is branded as "un-American" and "un-patriotic". But in fact it's the other way around, we criticize and are angry because we care about the country and the values it stands for. The sleight of hand, the sneakiness of how everything gets turned upside-down is impressive though, how quickly a hero becomes…

And the villains are responsible for propping up your 401k and cheap electric bills. Almost enough intrigue to make you giggle.

It's super small subset of humanity that have both of those.

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#233
post #182
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s an important distinction here. Most of the comments you read . You being the general you. Most people will read a few dozen comments at most. These comments are overwhelmingly written by bots or inauthentic participants in subreddits like r politics. And they’re the most visible because these same groups also upvote them inauthentically

I just don't think that's the case yet, but we probably have no evidence one way or the other. I don't know about /r/politics since I don't read it, but say in /r/worldnews, /r/europe, /r/ukrainewarvideoreport, /r/noncredibledefence, when I open a thread and pick ten comments at random and then take a look at their user histories I believe most are human.

I think /r/worldnews is 90% bots, judging by the repeating content and style of writing in comment section. And yes it looks like human would write.

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#234
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't think that's the case yet, but we probably have no evidence one way or the other. I don't know about /r/politics since I don't read it, but say in /r/worldnews, /r/europe, /r/ukrainewarvideoreport, /r/noncredibledefence, when I open a thread and pick ten comments at random and then take a look at their user histories I believe most are human.

I think /r/worldnews is 90% bots, judging by the repeating content and style of writing in comment section. And yes it looks like human would write.

>judging by the repeating content and style of writing in comment section

This is how reddit always has been.

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#235
post #182
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s an important distinction here. Most of the comments you read . You being the general you. Most people will read a few dozen comments at most. These comments are overwhelmingly written by bots or inauthentic participants in subreddits like r politics. And they’re the most visible because these same groups also upvote them inauthentically

I just don't think that's the case yet, but we probably have no evidence one way or the other. I don't know about /r/politics since I don't read it, but say in /r/worldnews, /r/europe, /r/ukrainewarvideoreport, /r/noncredibledefence, when I open a thread and pick ten comments at random and then take a look at their user histories I believe most are human.

Two things happen here:

1. bot farms buy stolen/sold accounts that have human comment history

2. bot farms re-post human content and then repost human comments on that content in a huge cycle to mimic the appearance of being human

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is confirmed they have lied under oath to Congress about the very thing Snowden blew the whistle on. So yes, they are perfectly acceptable sources of information regarding Snowden.

Since lying to Congress is a crime, who was charged?

Being charged with a crime would require the people who could charge him actually wanting to charge him. If congress wanted him to lie in the way that he did, clearly they wouldn't charge him after the fact.

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#237
post #148
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's not exactly a lie it comes from this 2013 Reddit blogpost http://redditblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-... >Most addicted city (over 100k visits total) Eglin Air Force Base, FL Oak Brook, IL South St. Paul, MN

So it is a total lie that it was "the biggest source of traffic".

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#238

The weirdest thing is that Drake had already whistleblown about the program in 2005. It was front page on the NYT and WP. But 8 years later everybody seemed to have completely forgotten that and acted like Snowden was revealing something new.

People keep forgetting because of this good old two-pronged psy-op: "Wow, you must wear a tinfoil hat, you really think the government is tapping your phones?" "Wow, you didn't already know that every phone is tapped? You're so behind the times. Every cool person is already jaded about that." There's almost no will from voters to fight this, so the discourse instantly leaps from "impossible" to "acceptable".

This is similar to the climate change problem.

First it was a problem for the people of 2050.

Then 2023 happened and it was too late so why bother doing anything.

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try at all to discover falsehoods yourself?[1] Snowden showed the intelligence committee were ineffective or complicit. And the chairman called him a traitor before the investigation. Truth was not the committee's goal. And their sources were established liars. Did you assume had contact meant initiated contact? [1] https://tcf.org/content/commentary/house-intelligence-commit...

I mostly believed in Snowden's cause until I looked at the facts objectively and read this report. It's part of why I urge others to read it.

How did you determine which claims in the report were facts?

Re: On the 10th anniversary of the Snowden revelations

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president's order expired in 2007. Some people thought it meant the illegal parts stopped. And some reports before 2013 said Trailblazer never operated fully.

Except after Drake's revelation Congress rushed back to DC for an emergency session to make the program legal.

What law do you believe made domestic spying legal?
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