5 ms·

I really hope they pardon him eventually. I could be wrong, but don't most americans support what he did? EDIT: you are probably all correct, plenty of people

by vlunkr 11y ago

I really hope they pardon him eventually. I could be wrong, but don't most americans support what he did? EDIT: you are probably all correct, plenty of people don't understand/care who he is or what he stands for. I still wish the government would recognize that the NSA is acting unconstitutionally and he called them out on it.

nbclark 11y ago
Anecdotal, but I have some friends in government jobs, and they definitely have a less favorable view of him. They view him as failing to respect the proper procedures in place to surface that kind of information, and throw the traitor word around liberally.
- finid 11y ago
  That's not surprising, if you consider that it became very unsafe for the guy that exposed the Abu Ghraib tortures and prisoner abuse to move around freely in his village, which was a military town. He was considered a traitor.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
CptJamesCook 11y ago
Most Americans probably do not even know who he is. Of those who do, I'd say roughly half support him and half think he should go to jail.
ghrifter 11y ago
Most "tech savvy" people support him and how he made us aware of the NSA bs, but a lot of normal people who just watch the news view him as a "traitor" to 'Murica (America). Sadly, people think "I have nothing to hide, so I don't care if the government/NSA monitors my internet usage/history/etc". Personally, I think the terrorists have won in a small sense. TSA is a joke (American airport security), NSA monitors everything so nothing is really secure, backdoors are built into all devices, encryption across several companies is being questioned because "terrorists" use it (even though the Paris attacks communication were over SMS). Edit: typos
- canistr 11y ago
  I wouldn't conflate tech-savviness with being a Snowden-supporter. And I wouldn't suggest people suddenly align themselves one way or the other based on the premise of tech-savviness, education-level, political-savviness, etc.
  - MagnumOpus 11y ago
    > I wouldn't conflate tech-savviness with being a Snowden-supporter. I would. You will find the correlation to be extremely high.
- eddieh 11y ago
  > he made us aware of the NSA bs I'm not sure I agree with that. The use of mass electronic surveillance by alphabet soup agencies was common knowledge before Snowden. Right now I'm looking at source code from 1987 that was used create false positives against NSA keyword scanners. All Snowden did was release "secret" official documents detailing these programs.
  - alexandercrohde 11y ago
    Mass surveillance was common knowledge? I'd encourage you to read about James R Clapper. To cite the wikipedia page: [During a senate hearing] Senator Wyden then asked Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He responded "No, sir." So here we have a representative of the executive branch lying to the legislative about mass surveillance 3 years ago (checks and balances please?). So no, it was not common knowledge. edit: spelling
- tptacek 11y ago
  I don't think it's particularly charitable to caricature people who don't support Snowden as being jingoist "'muricans". In fact, the term "'murica" is pretty classist; even the word itself mocks the accents of flyover country. There is a serious, defensible, coherent argument against what Snowden did. You don't have to be a low-information cable news consumer to agree with it, nor do you have to believe that "if you have nothing to hide surveillance is no problem". (To put my biases on the table: I understand what he did better, I think, than most HN people, and think the ideal outcome would be a felony conviction and an immediately commuted sentence; thus far, I think he's done more good than harm, but I think it would be better if what happened in 2013 never happened in exactly that way again.)
justaman 11y ago
If you ask most Americans who Edward Snowden is they won't know. Those that do know seem to largely support what he did even if the way he went about it wasn't the best.
tosseraccount 11y ago
No. Mostly. Some support him, but most polls show that Americans don't like him. https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=snowden%20polls https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=snowden%20polls Foreigners seem to support Snowden; however.
deedubaya 11y ago
I don't think most American's support what he did, because he's been painted a traitor by the government and media. It's a matter of perception and a lack of understanding.
- ssharp 11y ago
  Or people don't see the issue as black and white, where he either did nothing wrong or everything he did was wrong.
SuperChihuahua 11y ago
Are we sure that he didn't leak anything else to the Russians?
- strictnein 11y ago
  No, no one is sure about that. It's very unlikely that the Russians don't have copies of everything he took, unless you think he and Greenwald, et al are somehow masters of infosec that could withstand the actions of the FSB, SVR, etc.
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    You don't have to be an infosec master. According to Snowden, he didn't take the files with him to Russia in the first place. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/world/snowden-says-he-took-no-secret-files-to-russia.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/world/snowden-says-he-took...
    - strictnein 11y ago
      Because Russia wouldn't dare go after the materials if they weren't physically in Russia, right? The SVR operates outside of Russia, which is why I mentioned them. You really believe they weren't on him right away in Hong Kong, and they haven't gone after whatever materials he passed on to journalists? Come on.
      - ceejayoz 11y ago
        Let's take that a step further, though. The scaremongering over Snowden somehow giving Russia/China these documents is absurd for precisely the reason you cite - their intelligence agencies operate all over the world. Does anyone genuinely believe that with security so lax at NSA etc. to allow a Snowden-style leak that Russia/China haven't had spies with similar access levels in place for years now?
        caskance 11y ago
burkaman 11y ago
Definitely not. He's very popular abroad, but most Americans don't like what he did.
mcculley 11y ago
Most Americans don't understand what he did, in my experience. That is, I'm an American and I work with technology and from conversations with fellow Americans who don't work with technology, they have formed an impression based on media sound bites.
- finid 11y ago
  Isn't that how those who get their news from MSM get mislead, disinformed and brainwashed? The MSM just trot out "experts" who have been instructed to repeat key phrases designed to obscure the truth. Gullible viewers and listeners just soak it all in. That's how, even today, a significant percentage of Americans still believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11.
  - ksk 11y ago
    Its rather unfair to call them gullible. I'd say most people are "brainwashed" when it comes to things outside their immediate area of work/knowledge/expertise. Certainly geopolitical issues evoke a strong emotional response because of their direct link to human suffering, but even looking at nutrition or fitness or accounting or car maintenance or what have you, its all a mess ! Yes, even tech people aren't as objective as we like to think we are. Some topics bring out the similar religious fervor - UNIX vs Windows, iOS vs Android, Open Source vs Proprietary, etc. We have our own conspiracy nuts too - Blaming MS for everything, reading evil intentions into normal business decisions, etc.
- caskance 11y ago
  In my experience, the people who work with technology do the same, just with different sound bites.
mason240 11y ago
Unfortunately the got lumped in with PVT Manning.
strictnein 11y ago
Not entirely. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/04/21/edward-snowden-unpopular-at-home-a-hero-abroad-poll-finds http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/04/21/edward-snowde... http://morningconsult.com/2015/08/voters-want-edward-snowden-trial/ http://morningconsult.com/2015/08/voters-want-edward-snowden...
forgetsusername 11y ago
>but don't most americans support what he did?" Right or wrong, most young people do, most old people don't. It's just another in a long list of generational schisms that will be adjusted in the future.
puppetmaster3 11y ago
YES!

by vlunkr 11y ago

nbclark 11y ago

Anecdotal, but I have some friends in government jobs, and they definitely have a less favorable view of him. They view him as failing to respect the proper procedures in place to surface that kind of information, and throw the traitor word around liberally.

finid 11y ago
That's not surprising, if you consider that it became very unsafe for the guy that exposed the Abu Ghraib tortures and prisoner abuse to move around freely in his village, which was a military town. He was considered a traitor.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

CptJamesCook 11y ago

Most Americans probably do not even know who he is. Of those who do, I'd say roughly half support him and half think he should go to jail.

ghrifter 11y ago

Most "tech savvy" people support him and how he made us aware of the NSA bs, but a lot of normal people who just watch the news view him as a "traitor" to 'Murica (America). Sadly, people think "I have nothing to hide, so I don't care if the government/NSA monitors my internet usage/history/etc". Personally, I think the terrorists have won in a small sense. TSA is a joke (American airport security), NSA monitors everything so nothing is really secure, backdoors are built into all devices, encryption across several companies is being questioned because "terrorists" use it (even though the Paris attacks communication were over SMS). Edit: typos

canistr 11y ago
I wouldn't conflate tech-savviness with being a Snowden-supporter. And I wouldn't suggest people suddenly align themselves one way or the other based on the premise of tech-savviness, education-level, political-savviness, etc.
- MagnumOpus 11y ago
  > I wouldn't conflate tech-savviness with being a Snowden-supporter. I would. You will find the correlation to be extremely high.
eddieh 11y ago
> he made us aware of the NSA bs I'm not sure I agree with that. The use of mass electronic surveillance by alphabet soup agencies was common knowledge before Snowden. Right now I'm looking at source code from 1987 that was used create false positives against NSA keyword scanners. All Snowden did was release "secret" official documents detailing these programs.
- alexandercrohde 11y ago
  Mass surveillance was common knowledge? I'd encourage you to read about James R Clapper. To cite the wikipedia page: [During a senate hearing] Senator Wyden then asked Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He responded "No, sir." So here we have a representative of the executive branch lying to the legislative about mass surveillance 3 years ago (checks and balances please?). So no, it was not common knowledge. edit: spelling
tptacek 11y ago
I don't think it's particularly charitable to caricature people who don't support Snowden as being jingoist "'muricans". In fact, the term "'murica" is pretty classist; even the word itself mocks the accents of flyover country. There is a serious, defensible, coherent argument against what Snowden did. You don't have to be a low-information cable news consumer to agree with it, nor do you have to believe that "if you have nothing to hide surveillance is no problem". (To put my biases on the table: I understand what he did better, I think, than most HN people, and think the ideal outcome would be a felony conviction and an immediately commuted sentence; thus far, I think he's done more good than harm, but I think it would be better if what happened in 2013 never happened in exactly that way again.)

justaman 11y ago

If you ask most Americans who Edward Snowden is they won't know. Those that do know seem to largely support what he did even if the way he went about it wasn't the best.

tosseraccount 11y ago

No. Mostly. Some support him, but most polls show that Americans don't like him. https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=snowden%20polls https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=snowden%20polls Foreigners seem to support Snowden; however.

deedubaya 11y ago

I don't think most American's support what he did, because he's been painted a traitor by the government and media. It's a matter of perception and a lack of understanding.

ssharp 11y ago
Or people don't see the issue as black and white, where he either did nothing wrong or everything he did was wrong.

SuperChihuahua 11y ago

Are we sure that he didn't leak anything else to the Russians?

strictnein 11y ago
No, no one is sure about that. It's very unlikely that the Russians don't have copies of everything he took, unless you think he and Greenwald, et al are somehow masters of infosec that could withstand the actions of the FSB, SVR, etc.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  You don't have to be an infosec master. According to Snowden, he didn't take the files with him to Russia in the first place. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/world/snowden-says-he-took-no-secret-files-to-russia.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/world/snowden-says-he-took...
  - strictnein 11y ago
    Because Russia wouldn't dare go after the materials if they weren't physically in Russia, right? The SVR operates outside of Russia, which is why I mentioned them. You really believe they weren't on him right away in Hong Kong, and they haven't gone after whatever materials he passed on to journalists? Come on.
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      Let's take that a step further, though. The scaremongering over Snowden somehow giving Russia/China these documents is absurd for precisely the reason you cite - their intelligence agencies operate all over the world. Does anyone genuinely believe that with security so lax at NSA etc. to allow a Snowden-style leak that Russia/China haven't had spies with similar access levels in place for years now?
      - caskance 11y ago

burkaman 11y ago

Definitely not. He's very popular abroad, but most Americans don't like what he did.

mcculley 11y ago

Most Americans don't understand what he did, in my experience. That is, I'm an American and I work with technology and from conversations with fellow Americans who don't work with technology, they have formed an impression based on media sound bites.

finid 11y ago
Isn't that how those who get their news from MSM get mislead, disinformed and brainwashed? The MSM just trot out "experts" who have been instructed to repeat key phrases designed to obscure the truth. Gullible viewers and listeners just soak it all in. That's how, even today, a significant percentage of Americans still believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11.
- ksk 11y ago
  Its rather unfair to call them gullible. I'd say most people are "brainwashed" when it comes to things outside their immediate area of work/knowledge/expertise. Certainly geopolitical issues evoke a strong emotional response because of their direct link to human suffering, but even looking at nutrition or fitness or accounting or car maintenance or what have you, its all a mess ! Yes, even tech people aren't as objective as we like to think we are. Some topics bring out the similar religious fervor - UNIX vs Windows, iOS vs Android, Open Source vs Proprietary, etc. We have our own conspiracy nuts too - Blaming MS for everything, reading evil intentions into normal business decisions, etc.
caskance 11y ago
In my experience, the people who work with technology do the same, just with different sound bites.

mason240 11y ago

Unfortunately the got lumped in with PVT Manning.

strictnein 11y ago

Not entirely. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/04/21/edward-snowden-unpopular-at-home-a-hero-abroad-poll-finds http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/04/21/edward-snowde... http://morningconsult.com/2015/08/voters-want-edward-snowden-trial/ http://morningconsult.com/2015/08/voters-want-edward-snowden...

forgetsusername 11y ago

>but don't most americans support what he did?" Right or wrong, most young people do, most old people don't. It's just another in a long list of generational schisms that will be adjusted in the future.

puppetmaster3 11y ago

YES!