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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

#291

Post by dclowd9901 »

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…

Security by obscurity has always been a bad, unsustainable policy. It also only happens to be the one method of security most idiots can understand.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#292

Post by ouiea »

Taylorious wrote: post #26
jmduke wrote: post #3

46 points in fifteen minutes and not a single comment? This NSA issue is seeming less and less like a discussion topic and more like a echo chamber, despite the rampant lack of information on all sides of the event.

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…

OK let's talk about Apple and their new NSA-sponsored iCloud keychain then :P

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#293

Post by nrivadeneira »

molloy wrote: post #174
nrivadeneira wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he was a true patriot, he'd have stood his ground and gone to trial. It doesn't seem very American to me to flee the country to avoid the repercussions of breaking the law. Mind you, I support him releasing this information.

I fail to see how that would have made him a "true patriot". Actually, fleeing the unjust wrath of a tyrannical government is about the most American quality there is. In any case, due to the Whistleblower Protection Act he broke no law.

I don't see how fleeing tyranny is more American than standing and fighting it.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#294

Post by hawleyal »

diek wrote: post #283
hawleyal wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You enjoy secret wars in your name, cool. That's not what I would call a functional society. It's not a dichotomy, let alone a false one. Please explain your objection.

One of many examples: Project Azorian During the Cold War the Soviets lost a nuclear submarine in international waters. The Soviets couldn't find it, the US (through its network of acoustic listening stations in the oceans) could. There was a multi-year effort to recover the sub, which required an elaborate cover story and operational security. If the Soviets knew what the recovery ship was doing, they would have blo…

The mission to do what exactly, who authorized it, who was running it, how much did it cost, what were the gains, what was the point.

Edit: If you need to keep public things that secret, maybe you shouldn't be doing them.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#295

Post by Anderkent »

danboarder wrote: post #222
aheilbut wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you stop playing the game Civilization and look back at history, you'll see that there are a lot of very bad people in the world who do very bad things. All of the freedoms that we enjoy in Western democracies were hard-won and continue to be backed up by guns, bombs, codes, and secrets. It's not pretty, but that's how things are. It might well be that the current approach to domestic surveillance is out of balanc…

"If you stop playing the game Civilization and look back at history, you'll see that there are a lot of very bad people in the world who do very bad things." When I look back at history, I see that the worst people that have done the worst things are in fact people in state governments, using the powers of government against civilians.

>When I look back at history, I see that the worst people that have done the worst things are in fact people in state governments, using the powers of government against civilians.

That's because you're looking at the largest damage influenced by a small group of people, instead of total amount over a period of time.

Obviously the most damage done by any single person was done by a person with a lot of power, and thus probably a member of the government. That doesn't mean more damage is done when a government is present rather than in total anarchy.

Consider a choice between:

1. A mad governor that kills 100 people yearly, but prevents any other killings (somehow)

2. An anarchy system where 100 mad people kill 10 people each every year

Your heuristic of 'the worst people that have done the worst things are in fact people in state governments' still holds, because any other murderer only killed 10 people. However, comparing the two options clearly shows the first one is better.

TL;DR - availability bias

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#296

Post by aheilbut »

Fargren wrote: post #275
ekianjo wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? I wonder where you conceived that strange idea. We never had as much security as we have now (compared to the hundreds of generations before us) yet we are losing our liberties at an alarming speed.

Hobbes made a case for that in Leviathan. It's certainly not a new idea.

I'm glad somebody did the reading...

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#297

Post by fmoralesc »

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #264
davidw wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom". I think that it follows that you do need some security in order to live a free life. Does that justify secret government spying programs? Probably not! People here seem to have awfully black and whit…

> If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom". These are orthogonal issues. There are strong reasons to believe that the modern stability that we enjoy is maintained by networks of mutual self-interest, soft social norms and overall cultural sophistication. The idea that we are being protected by…

> There are strong reasons to believe that the modern stability that we enjoy is maintained by networks of mutual self-interest, soft social norms and overall cultural sophistication.

You mean, stability is mantained by structures like the state?

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#298

Post by javajosh »

anigbrowl wrote: post #247
javajosh wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The government isn't really spying on us en masse Actually they are. >most people assume taht the government already has/had access to what you do on your cellphone/facebook/internet searches I think that most people assume that email is just like mail: private, and protected by the 4th amendment. I think most people assume that their phone records are similarly protected. And I doubt that most people, possibly incl…

I don't count trawling data as described so far to be spying, any more than I consider my back yard getting photographed by spy satellites to mean they're spying on my place of residence. I think that most people assume that email is just like mail: private, and protected by the 4th amendment. I think most people assume that their phone records are similarly protected. The law has said otherwise for >30 years, and I…

> are you just projecting what you think should be the case onto everyone else?

Projecting, mainly. Just like you. Pew did a phone survey that shows 56% of people believe it's okay to give up privacy to defeat terrorism. But even that doesn't really go to what people believe about their privacy right now.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#300

Post by baddox »

potatolicious wrote: post #287
JanezStupar wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment someone points a gun at you, your freedoms are completely intact. Moreover, this is the moment when you can show whether you are really free. Free men do not mind dying when their time comes.

That sounds nice. Let's hear you deliver that soliloquy when you're held by a mugger at gunpoint, about how you are your own master.

You realize that armed muggings and burglaries are thwarted a lot, right?
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