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NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

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Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#101

Post by neltnerb »

I find this kind of thing particularly interesting because I am the same age as Snowden.

For reference, 9/11 is one of the defining events of my adult life. It happened during freshman physics lecture on my second week of classes at MIT. I considered joining the military, I protested in the streets against the war in Iraq. I remember the Patriot act being passed very well, and remember wishing people could see how shortsighted it was at the time. There is a particularly clarity (cough naivete) that comes with being 18 years old.

I feel like people who are much older than me remember previous major government corruption issues like Iran-Contra which I was only three years old for.

I feel like people who are much younger than me don't have any frame of reference for a time when surveillance wasn't the assumed state of affairs.

So, this fellow is particularly interesting to me because it seems like he, like me, has had his perspective on what the USA is defined by 9/11, the Patriot Act, the Afghanistan and Iraq not-wars, and a financial collapse.

I don't know that I really have a point; these issues are so multifaceted that I can't really consider them without being overwhelmed.

I do hope that this combined with the IRS scandal and the phone taps on reporters will push the electorate in a more libertarian direction. But I'm not counting on it, people are incredibly selfish in practice and vote for their perceived short-term interests even when their interests violate the liberties of others. That seems to in this culture just be standard practice, and if that's part of the culture I don't think things are going to go anywhere good.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#102

Post by Taylorious »

md224 wrote: post #58
Taylorious wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole story has had a baffling effect on HN. For the last few days 4/5ths of everything on the frontpage has been related to the NSA. I'm not saying that its not an important issue, but Christ do we need to have every bloggers opinion upvoted to the top? Even Apple was only able to make the top of front page for a short time. This is HN and Apple's latest news is not the top story. It's like I'm on a completely…

Devil's Advocate: are we really upset that an unfolding scandal involving the right to privacy is displacing content about a shiny new product launch? It's kind of interesting to witness the interaction between HN's overlapping circles of technologists, civil libertarians, and entrepreneurs. To be fair, I agree that we need to avoid letting this discussion devolve into a frenzied mob of speculation. Misinformation ca…

I'm not saying its terrible that HN is in an uproar over this, its just that I haven't seen HN this dominated by one topic since Steve Jobs died. There does seem to be a major lack of information on the issue though and unfortunately this topic always brings out some of the more "eccentric" members of the tech industry. I'm sick of seeing hyperbole comments like "we need a revolution", "we are in a police state", "America is done for time to move", etc. If all of our worst fears turn out to be true then it should be a call to action not a call to abandon ship.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#103

Post by d23 »

freerobby wrote: post #8

"Is Snowden a hero or a traitor? Stay tuned if you can only hold one simplistic juvenile idea in your head at a time." https://twitter.com/pourmecoffee/status/344202042019045377

I don't know in what twisted stretch of the imagination someone can consider Snowden a traitor, unless he is blatantly lying. He didn't reveal anything that would be bad enough to actually harm anyone's life. And if he's telling us the truth, he did nothing less than a public service service, putting his own life at risk.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#104

Post by guelo »

We don't need an NSA or CIA or any other spy agency. I know I'm an extremist on government secrets, but I think there should be none. Nothing should be outside the reach of a FOIA request. In my ideal world all government officials' documents and emails would be made publicly accesible in real time, they're working for us. Any exception or loophole to transparency gets abused, every time. If that makes it harder to conduct wars or espionage, well too bad. If you remember from the game Civilization, democracy is not a good system for a warmongering state. And that's a good thing.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#106

Post by windexh8er »

michaelwww wrote: post #92
windexh8er wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic? Not in the least. Even if he only mildly knew about the things he described he has an understanding of the points of tap the state actors have free access to. In all generalities hiding from the NSA should be trivial with simple precautions (as it pertains to the Internet). Part of the problem is that those points of access are generally revered as daily can't-live-withouts and present trivial access and coll…

You don't understand irony. Many people don't (Alanis Morissette.) If my house burns down, that's unfortunate. If I install a fire detection system in my house and through a fault in itself it burns my house down, that's ironic.

Really? It's not ironic because it's obvious - just not to you apparently. So in that regard it's not ironic that you misunderstood the response.

-- an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#107

Post by dllthomas »

neltnerb wrote: post #101

I find this kind of thing particularly interesting because I am the same age as Snowden. For reference, 9/11 is one of the defining events of my adult life. It happened during freshman physics lecture on my second week of classes at MIT. I considered joining the military, I protested in the streets against the war in Iraq. I remember the Patriot act being passed very well, and remember wishing people could see how sh…

"push the electorate in a more libertarian direction"

Everyone agrees things should be more libertarian along certain axes, but most object to things being more libertarian along other axes, and there's not as much overlap as one would hope.

This is not mostly meant as a criticism of anything you've said, just a tangent...

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#108

Post by michaelwww »

windexh8er wrote: post #106
michaelwww wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand irony. Many people don't (Alanis Morissette.) If my house burns down, that's unfortunate. If I install a fire detection system in my house and through a fault in itself it burns my house down, that's ironic.

Really? It's not ironic because it's obvious - just not to you apparently. So in that regard it's not ironic that you misunderstood the response. -- an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

I see you're point but mine's funnier. It's ok to take a little license in humor. You sucked all the funny out of it.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#109

Post by Tangaroa »

suyash wrote: post #9

In my opinion, he is a Traitor just like Bradley Manning for jeopardizing National Security.

I disagree, but I gave you an upvote because your mindless rhetoric is as equally valuable and informative to this conversation as the other mindless rhetoric posts that do nothing more than agree with TFA and yet have not been marked down as far as your post.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#110

Post by cmiles74 »

robotjosh wrote: post #91

Why does everyone assume China is doing industrial espionage, but nobody imagines PRISM is being used for that. If a low level employee has such access, the only question is how many people are using this to cheat the stock market? Are there trading algorithms that have access to PRISM?

I took it for granted that PRISM is also used for industrial espionage. It seems like this is the "low hanging fruit" for such a system. I'm not surprised that this isn't something the media is talking about since we're giving China such a hard time about it.
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