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Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

nytimes.com

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Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#81

Post by rorykoehler »

karmacondon wrote: post #42
jgrahamc wrote: post #6

I sometimes think that HN is pro-Snowden. Are there folks here who see him as less a hero more a villain?

Edward Snowden seems like a good guy, but what he did was wrong. Betrayal and theft should not be condoned under any circumstances. He made the wrong choices and should be held accountable for them in a court of law. If someone I trusted unilaterally decided that I was breaking the law and then used that as a justification to steal documents from me and give them to journalists, I would be very upset. That's just wro…

>We have a system of rules that must be enforced equally, for the good of all of us.

This line refutes the whole premise of your argument. Clearly the rules were not being enforced so Snowden had no choice but to leak the mass and systemic breaking of those rules or be complicit. Snowden wouldn't get a fair trial so it would be reckless for him to come home.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#82

Post by shit_parade2 »

atom-morgan wrote: post #67
dimino wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everyone I talk to in person thinks Snowden is a criminal. These people believe the US government was caught doing something it shouldn't have, but Snowden himself is a bad guy to these folks because he's seen as betraying his country. I think HN is much more pro-Snowden than the general population is, but I think the general population doesn't deny the value of exposing what the US government did. I live in D…

> These people believe the US government was caught doing something it shouldn't have, but Snowden himself is a bad guy to these folks because he's seen as betraying his country. That logic should scare the living hell out of people.

The commenter lives in DC, of course people there revile snowden, his exposure briefly threatened their daily lunch at the government trough.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#83

Post by smtddr »

deciplex wrote: post #69
striking wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common complaint from people who get downvoted, while it's been held in the community by dang and pg that people should downvote whatever they feel should be downvoted. There's no specific prescription to what can or can't be. Disagreement is often a bad reason for downvoting someone, but in this case it's disagreement with someone who is lacking facts. Also note that the guidelines note that you shouldn't…

Well, while we're throwing around logical fallacies, you just made an appeal to authority. I don't care what dang or pg say - downvoting someone because you disagree with them is stupid. That said, I did downvote blumkvist, firstly because he stated his opinion without really providing any reason for having it other than "oh we don't really know what's going on" (this is annoying, but everyone does it sometimes and i…

>>I don't care what dang or pg say - downvoting someone because you disagree with them is stupid.

Well... I don't care what you say, downvoting based on opinion is perfectly valid and I will continue to do so as I see fit. Especially when the opinion is based on assumptions that I believe has been proven false many times in the past and rehashing the debate on HN turns into a multi-page endless arguing.... kind like this is turning into.

So your opinion on downvoting is different from mine, where does that leave us?

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#84

Post by csandreasen »

toyg wrote: post #52
csandreasen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We really don't know how "legitimate" those descriptions of people hacking equipment in transit were. That's actually a perfect example of what I was talking about. When Greenwald initially published the short blurb talking about intercepting routers, he didn't say who they were being used against, implying that anyone's router might be intercepted and backdoored - maybe even your own! When the full document was re…

> implying that anyone's router might be intercepted and backdoored - maybe even your own! But that's exactly the point -- it could be . We now know that a body with almost no oversight not just can but does backdoor US-produced equipment. This is not conspiracy-theory territory anymore, it's hard fact and anyone making decisions on procurement from now on will have to deal with it, not just "hard targets" -- because…

Yes, it could be done, just like the police could go door-to-door shooting everyone they see. They have guns, after all. The military could take over the White House if a presidential candidate is elected that the Joint Chiefs of Staff don't like.

None of these things are actually happening, though...

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#85

Post by drzaiusapelord »

kr4 wrote: post #36
blumkvist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say I see him as a villain, but definitely not a hero. I hold back my judgement, because we are just too far away to know what's going on. He did expose some pretty bad practices to the general public, but asylum in Russia afterwards? Are you kidding me? That just looks super fishy to anyone with at least an ounce of critical thought in his brain. Especially in the context of the Crimea debacle.

Crimea debacle? You should go read GlobalResearch.ca, CounterPunch.org, WSWS.org ETC – non-MSM news outlets to get the other side of the picture. Crimea is a very strategic area to get hold of which NATO wants to break into Russia through color revolutions ETC just because Putin refused to be US dog. When Ukraine democratic government was forcefully overthrown by a US-backed Nazi military coup what choice Russia had?…

>was forcefully overthrown by a US-backed Nazi military coup

The ignorance here is mindblowing. Russians live in a perpetual conspiracy theory it seems. Autocratic states are known for their information control and propaganda it seems even when historically controlled media has been highly inaccurate, yet somehow the populace keeps buying into statements from state controlled media. I guess the state knows how to deliver information by exploiting both ignorance and patriotism. Two things Russia has high supplies of.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#86

Post by fweespeech »

jgrahamc wrote: post #6

I sometimes think that HN is pro-Snowden. Are there folks here who see him as less a hero more a villain?

I think its a huge gray area Snowden walked into and while he could have handled things better I suspect operational constraints have more to do with the flaws in his plan than an actual desire to disclaim ownership.

I'm pretty sure Snowden believed the NSA [among others] would catch onto him very quickly and he had to dump everything to keep it from falling into "hostile" hands as soon as practical. Given that, I think he made the only practical choice he could but he isn't a "good" guy in the sense of a hero. More of just a guy who made mistakes, like anyone else.

The hero/villain dichotomy is very...cliche. Good and evil are really points of view that depend on your perception of reality and the position you occupy within the framework of a global society. The reality is the US Government is as much a villain as Snowden is. At which point, is it really fair to call Snowden a villain as the weaker party?

To most of the world, Snowden was a clear "good" as its brought the spying of the US into the light where Governments no longer have to react privately [ I'm pretty sure every Government that claimed ignorance had some clue of the capability, they have spies too after all ] but can take proper public steps to counteract the US's capabilities.

From a US nationalistic perspective, Snowden harmed the national prestige and possibly tipped off what few adversaries the US has that were too small to have the capability to accurately estimate the US's capabilities. And no, that isn't a group like ISIS. I'm talking small groups. I'm pretty sure ISIS has a good estimate on the practical capabilities of US intelligence pre-Snowden.

But honestly, the US public [the tech illiterate ones who were oblivious to what was going on] needed to be aware of it to make an informed decision to consent to it. Sadly, the outcome is they care more about the illusion of perfect security, bread & circuses than they do being informed citizens.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/04/21/edward-snowde...

The part of all this I honestly find frightening is this:

The reality is the majority of the US population holds a negative opinion of Snowden. I find it frightening that the majority of the country happily makes an opinion formed entirely on propaganda. The reality is the US's security forces are the greatest to its citizenry. The fact the general population blindly takes their side is...disturbing on a level I can't really express.

http://www.cato.org/blog/youre-eight-times-more-likely-be-ki...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/04/police-killed...

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#87

Post by pluma »

toyg wrote: post #26
pluma wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He only had to take asylum in Russia because the US revoked his passport and prevented him from going anywhere else. Russia was never intended to be more than a stop-gap. Considering how disgustingly subservient all of Europe has been to bend over backwards to the US (e.g. forcing the landing of a presidential plane because someone suspected it was carrying Snowden) you can't really blame him. Russia is the only coun…

> and would even refuse to co-operate simply to flip them off Indeed -- the decision on Snowden came around the same time Obama was getting ready to invade Syria. Putin is a de-facto old-school dictator, but on this he did everything right. I wish he'd completed the job by sneaking Snowden to Ecuador via submarine, but I can understand why he didn't -- he can play that card next time he desperately needs a propaganda…

Incidentally, the decision not to get more involved in Syria was probably the better choice at the time. No matter what you think of the dictator's morals, a good portion of the rebels was basically made up of radical Islamists. Exactly who you don't want to be in charge when ISIS enters the scene.

It was interesting to see how suddenly our media (in Germany) stopped their sympathetic reporting on the Syrian rebels and how desperately they need our support (i.e. at least give them some guns) when ISIS began making headlines.

I remember thinking that supporting the rebels in Syria (though it viscerally felt like the "right thing" to do) was probably the worse bad choice to make even before Russia & al heavily spoke against it. It's easy to forget that both the direct intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the less direct support of the rebellions during the "Arab Spring" resulted in very unstable situations and a very disconcerting shift towards Islamist extremism in those regions.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#88

Post by Ao7bei3s »

karmacondon wrote: post #42
jgrahamc wrote: post #6

I sometimes think that HN is pro-Snowden. Are there folks here who see him as less a hero more a villain?

Edward Snowden seems like a good guy, but what he did was wrong. Betrayal and theft should not be condoned under any circumstances. He made the wrong choices and should be held accountable for them in a court of law. If someone I trusted unilaterally decided that I was breaking the law and then used that as a justification to steal documents from me and give them to journalists, I would be very upset. That's just wro…

> for the good of all of us

Except for us who are not US americans. Whose rights the US routinely tramples. Snowden is a hero.

> If a jury of Edward Snowden's peers are so taken by his celebrity and upstanding moral character that they find him not guilty

Like he'd get a fair trial.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#89

Post by derf_ »

dimino wrote: post #32
jgrahamc wrote: post #6

I sometimes think that HN is pro-Snowden. Are there folks here who see him as less a hero more a villain?

Almost everyone I talk to in person thinks Snowden is a criminal. These people believe the US government was caught doing something it shouldn't have, but Snowden himself is a bad guy to these folks because he's seen as betraying his country. I think HN is much more pro-Snowden than the general population is, but I think the general population doesn't deny the value of exposing what the US government did. I live in D…

Would this be the same population polled in 2010 when 41% of them could not name the vice president of the United States in an open-ended (not multiple choice) question? [0] Or last September when 64% of them could not name the three branches of government? [1] (35% could not name a single one)

My favorite poll is this one: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/03/16/americans-privacy-stra...

Buried near the bottom is, "60% believe it is acceptable to monitor the communications of American leaders."

Raise your hand if you think it's good for a healthy democracy for the executive branch to monitor the private communications of congresspeople, senators, and federal judges?

[0] http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-s...

[1] http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/americans-know-su...

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#90

Post by pluma »

blumkvist wrote: post #27
pluma wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He only had to take asylum in Russia because the US revoked his passport and prevented him from going anywhere else. Russia was never intended to be more than a stop-gap. Considering how disgustingly subservient all of Europe has been to bend over backwards to the US (e.g. forcing the landing of a presidential plane because someone suspected it was carrying Snowden) you can't really blame him. Russia is the only coun…

Yeah, I don't really believe in coincidences.

Right. He must be a Russian agent because that's the only reason he could get stuck in Russia on his way from Hong Kong to maybe-Venezuela.

Hanlon's razor kills conspiracies.

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