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Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

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Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#41

Post by john_b »

spitx wrote: post #6

CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." "That's a little different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away." "What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he…

Someone who can't see the "point" Snowden is trying to make obviously shouldn't offer him advice. But hey, if I got paid to rattle off my opinion on national TV regardless of its merit, I might bloviate too.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#42

Post by mpyne »

Joeri wrote: post #31
spitx wrote: post #6

CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." "That's a little different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away." "What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he…

Snowden knows exactly what the consequences would be, because he's not the first whistleblower. Bradley Manning is still potentially facing the death penalty, and at the very least he will never see the outside of a jail again. And still plenty of people found enough reason to label him a coward. It is way too easy to be in a comfy chair and say that other people should throw their life away to stand by their princip…

Manning is not facing the death penalty, is not a "whistleblower" by any reasonable stretch of the term (except perhaps by lucky accident), and his actions were different from Snowden's, at Snowden's own admission.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#43

Post by nwh »

anonymfus wrote: post #38
steve19 wrote: post #12

Somewhat disingenuous to suggest swapping sim cards to avoid being tracked. This myth is one that law enforcement love. They just track phones with IMEI numbers.

If you can patch firmware of your phone you can forge IMEI. Most of phones have IMEI in OTP flash, but with unlocked boot loader modification of code which actually send it to network is usually possible. Many cheap Chinese phones on MTK chipsets produced at non-working time without knowledge of factory owners don't have unique IMEIs, they have all zeroes or all ones in it so user can flash it itself one time; loads…

> produced at non-working time without knowledge of factory owners don't have unique IMEIs

I've had odd troubles with USB devices for the same reason; a bunch of them with identical or overlapping serial numbers. I wonder how much of a problem it causes for the operators, I doubt their systems were originally designed to accept duplicate IMEI.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#44

Post by [deleted] »

spitx wrote: post #6

CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." "That's a little different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away." "What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he…

[deleted]

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#45

Post by genwin »

jivatmanx wrote: post #30
spitx wrote: post #6

CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." "That's a little different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away." "What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he…

MLK was protected by his fame. Rosa Park's act was entirely symbolic. Ellsberg was protected by the fact that he had given the information to a number of extremely influential Senators; something I'm sure Snowden would have loved to have done, if he was lucky enough to have that kind of access, and if there were still such thing as a senator who is honest and cares about the constitution. (Or if "journalists" still b…

Except that MLK wasn't protected by his fame. It's not just the gov't that is the risk.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#46

Post by jlgreco »

spitx wrote: post #33
david_shaw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." That's correct, and I agree that participating in civil disobedience, by nature, requires being willing to "do the time" as part of making a point. Whistleblowers, however, are a different story. I don't believe that Snowden was trying to be a martyr for Americans' right to privacy; I think he saw something tha…

What about Bradley Manning? That's as pristinely analogous a case as it gets to Snowden's, with diametrically opposed approaches the actors took to pursue their causes. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bradley_Mannin...

Why should we want him to end up like Manning? Why would anybody wish that upon another human? It is a barbaric thing to suggest.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#47

Post by jfoutz »

spitx wrote: post #6

CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." "That's a little different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away." "What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he…

It's a tough spot. Now days, you need at least 1.5 million to defend yourself against a federal prosecution, after the feds have seized your assets. Very few people can do that. Without the cash, it would turn into "guy did some stuff, then went to jail".

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#48

Post by chengiz »

pyre wrote: post #24
crazygringo wrote: post #7

I'm curious... is there anything currently preventing him from flying to a further country as well? I'm not aware of there being a warrant out for his arrest or anything yet... What would happen today if he just hopped on the next flight to Iceland or Ecuador or wherever else (or let's just assume nonstop flights)?

- If the country he moves to doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US, that doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. If the country is small enough politically, then they will either be pressured into giving him up, or the US will just send in a strike team to kill/capture him. Heck, the US had no qualms about sending a strike team into Pakistan to assassinate Osama bin Laden, do you think that some country a lot…

This is in conspiracy theory territory. You really think there's no difference between sending strike teams to kill (a) the number one wanted war criminal responsible for the second biggest attack on your soil into a country where you already have troops for the same purpose, and (b) a regular old whistleblower into an independent country that owes you nothing?

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#49

Post by rdouble »

msg wrote: post #14
spitx wrote: post #6

CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." "That's a little different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away." "What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he…

Martin Luther King didn't live in a world where we imprison innocent men in legal limbo without trial or habeas corpus, or where we officially sanctioned torture and the oubliette. He could trust that he would be vindicated by the justice system. The whole point of the Snowden story is that the government is not trustworthy in this era. I would not trust the US government to give him justice any more than they did Aa…

Right, MLK lived in a world where innocent men got strung up in trees.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#50

Post by prollyignored »

unreal37 wrote: post #22
spitx wrote: post #6

CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." "That's a little different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away." "What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he…

I think Snowden did the best he could do under the circumstances. Expose the truth, run to a safe place, and then identify himself publicly. He's not running, he just prefers freedom to a jail cell. Who doesn't? MLK and Rosa Parks weren't facing 100 years in jail or the death penalty, were they?

The reason why propaganda works, in my opinion is, you send a "simple" message a 1000 times.

Here the message is "young narcissistic man, who ran away"

"But bob, you are only arguing the means, not the end. Do you think, the idea of a surveillance-free America should be stiffled ?"

That question, will never be asked with equal flair, in a one way propaganda.

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