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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

#151

Post by Steko »

d23 wrote: post #103
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.

"I don't know in what twisted stretch of the imagination someone can consider Snowden a traitor, unless he is blatantly lying."

So you couldn't imagine X would be true about Y unless Y did something that many people do all the time?

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#152

Post by nano111 »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #83
michaelwww wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's another bunch of billions down the drain, unless it's designed for another purpose entirely. A certain segment of the elite have always dreamed about tracking every citizen. Larry Ellison of Oracle famously proposed a National Identity Card. So it goes...

Well not all terrorists take precautions, many are quite stupid and it only takes one to bring a whole network the attention of the NSA. The bigger problem is that even if their false positive rate is really low, they are hoovering so much data that the true positives (dumb terrorists) get drowned out by the noise. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8153539.stm It's why this sort of large scale surveillance…

they can't even catch internal leaks

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#155

Post by reidmain »

grecy wrote: post #140
guelo wrote: post #104

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 c…

My girlfriend works for a branch of the Canadian government. All of her emails, meeting minutes, agendas, etc. are all on the public record. Anyone can search/read/whatever them at any time.

As a Canadian I'm curious where I can search this information.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#156

Post by Taylorious »

hkmurakami wrote: post #149
Taylorious wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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", "Am…

The entire frontpage was Aaron Swartz links when he died earlier this year.

Ahhh that's the event I couldn't think of. Yes the Aaron Swartz totally took over HN for a while.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#157

Post by untog »

grecy wrote: post #140
guelo wrote: post #104

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 c…

My girlfriend works for a branch of the Canadian government. All of her emails, meeting minutes, agendas, etc. are all on the public record. Anyone can search/read/whatever them at any time.

Right. But the work of the CSIS is not that accessible. There isn't one blanket rule you can apply to "government".

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#158

Post by rustydoorknobs »

guelo wrote: post #104

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 c…

What? What about the location of strategic military operations? Well "too bad" if a categorically transparent gov't inhibits the NSA's ability to process intelligence without alerting extremist groups. "Too bad" if a few thousand people die because you believe there should be no government secrets. Wait, I forgot that running a country is like playing Civilization...

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#159

Post by md224 »

JamisonM wrote: post #124
guelo wrote: post #104

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 c…

There are an absurd number of things that it makes sense for the government to keep from the public and not divesting that information but keeping the people who have that information accountable is what elections are for. You want to know what officers are working under cover in the police force? Who are informants on terrorist organizations working against the state? The home phone numbers and addresses of all publ…

How about a middle ground where information private to the government is allowed but there is no NSA or CIA, or at least no intelligence operations beyond keeping an eye on the military movements of other countries?

Honest question: What danger would that put us in? My instinct says a moderate amount, but I guess none of us know for sure, which makes it a little scary to imagine.

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