5 ms·

It's really up to us citizens that benefited from his whistleblowing to bail him out. But of course we don't because we're not as good a society as we might be.

ta17711771 6y ago
Want to start a foundation?
ultrarunner 6y ago
Could you elaborate? His revelations were that the government kinda does what it wants despite the law; what is it that is up to me (or any other individual) to right the wrongs of that same government?
- chrisco255 6y ago
  "It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." -Benjamin Franklin Protests and social pressure do work with the right amplitude.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    There is no evidence that Benjamin Franklin ever said that. Please do not perpetuate spurious quotations.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      Didn't realize that it wasn't sourced to him. I still think it's a good quote either way and given my understanding of Franklin from reading his autobiography, I reckon he would agree with it in spirit. He spent much of his life pushing against the British Empire and fighting for liberty.
- irishcoffee 6y ago
  This the guy everyone on this site defends: https://www.twincities.com/2013/06/15/tracking-edward-snowden-from-high-school-dropout-to-leaker-of-national-secrets/amp/ https://www.twincities.com/2013/06/15/tracking-edward-snowde... It’s hard for me to read that and think his motives were pure and unbiased.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I see nothing in that article other than random tidbits about his life.
    - irishcoffee 6y ago
      I see nothing in your comment but a sentence made up of words.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        (That was an invitation for you to explain why you thought the article showed some sort of ulterior motive, if you didn't catch it.)
  - na85 6y ago
    It's hard for me to read the article you linked and draw any conclusions whatsoever about his motives. The whole article is just a series of vague insinuations hoping the reader is stupid enough and lacking in enough critical thinking skills to see two apparently contradictory facts like "he liked attention but played a lot of video games" and from there jump to the conclusion that he's a villain.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    Is this supposed to be anything other than some sort of ad hominem? Why should his motives or character matter?
- pembrook 6y ago
  Any democratic government is simply a body elected to represent the wishes of the people. If the government isn't righting its wrongs, it's because you (not necessarily you specifically, but "the people" as a whole) have explicitly put in power the people who are doing the bad things. This is everybody's fault. Yours included. We all enabled this to happen. That's the beauty of a democratic system. It clarifies and cuts through to the core of our culture. Americans fear the idea of foreign terrorists more than we fear privacy encroachment, and thus, we were delivered the results of that belief. The system worked! It represented our wishes perfectly. The problem isn't "them" (the government). It's us.
  - akiselev 6y ago
    That may have been true for Americans living two hundred years ago when constituents voted for the people who birthed the two party system, but it certainly isn't today. Gerrymandering of House districts, the limit on the number of Representatives, the nature of the Senate in our bicameral legislature, and the electoral college all guarantee that some votes will count significantly more than others. That's not a democracy, it's a facade that replaced democracy a long time ago (and one could argue was never a democracy to begin with, since many people alive today gained the right to vote in living memory).
    - godelski 6y ago
      There's two options when your government isn't doing what you (read "the people") want them to do: 1) Vote them out 2) Revolution I'm rather a firm believer that option 1 is still on the table and we don't have to resort to likely bloody methods. But in either case it is up to the people in the end. I am not convinced that there's been coalitions formed to actually do #1. I'm not actually convinced most people are upset, even though I think they should be.
    - agensaequivocum 6y ago
      We are not a democracy nor were we supposed to be.
      - 6y ago
choward 6y ago
How many citizens outside of people who understand tech actually understand how big of a deal it was? Also, the media hardly covered it and pretty much presented him as a traitor every time they did. What percent of the U.S. population would you guess has heard of the name Edward Snowden?
- ddingus 6y ago
  This. A high percentage of Americans are informed by domestic "news" and that newstainment has declared Snowden to be the bad guy as you said. Among ordinary people not into politics and or tech, few know his name. If they do, they almost always also talk about him being a traitor, threat, etc.
- nmfisher 6y ago
  Snowden disclosed programs that were unsavoury to some. But that doesn’t mean they’re illegal (even if only by reason of black letter law technicality). That’s not to mention all the other unrelated classified information. It’s not surprising that he has zero defence under whistleblower laws. To take advantage of whistleblower laws (or at least, gain public sympathy as one), the criminality you’re uncovering would need to be far, far worse.
  - dgellow 6y ago
    The NSA has been revealed to gather and store crazy amount of US citizens data with zero oversight. That was completely illegal at the time, and I hope that it still is.
    - nmfisher 6y ago
      We may want that to be true, but some US courts have disagreed. https://www.lawfareblog.com/second-circuit-rules-united-states-v-hasbajrami https://www.lawfareblog.com/second-circuit-rules-united-stat... See this for one recent decision indicating that the NSA bulk collection program was both constitutional and legal. The unfortunate reality is that it falls into a legal grey area and has, in fact, been held by certain courts to be legal. Which comes back to my original point - any whistleblower who wants to exit with a clean slate really needs to be uncovering unambiguously and horrendously illegal activity. “Possibly illegal” PRISM just wasn’t bad enough for Snowden to get the political or legal protection of public sympathy.

ta17711771 6y ago

Want to start a foundation?

ultrarunner 6y ago

Could you elaborate? His revelations were that the government kinda does what it wants despite the law; what is it that is up to me (or any other individual) to right the wrongs of that same government?

chrisco255 6y ago
"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." -Benjamin Franklin Protests and social pressure do work with the right amplitude.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  There is no evidence that Benjamin Franklin ever said that. Please do not perpetuate spurious quotations.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Didn't realize that it wasn't sourced to him. I still think it's a good quote either way and given my understanding of Franklin from reading his autobiography, I reckon he would agree with it in spirit. He spent much of his life pushing against the British Empire and fighting for liberty.
irishcoffee 6y ago
This the guy everyone on this site defends: https://www.twincities.com/2013/06/15/tracking-edward-snowden-from-high-school-dropout-to-leaker-of-national-secrets/amp/ https://www.twincities.com/2013/06/15/tracking-edward-snowde... It’s hard for me to read that and think his motives were pure and unbiased.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I see nothing in that article other than random tidbits about his life.
  - irishcoffee 6y ago
    I see nothing in your comment but a sentence made up of words.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      (That was an invitation for you to explain why you thought the article showed some sort of ulterior motive, if you didn't catch it.)
- na85 6y ago
  It's hard for me to read the article you linked and draw any conclusions whatsoever about his motives. The whole article is just a series of vague insinuations hoping the reader is stupid enough and lacking in enough critical thinking skills to see two apparently contradictory facts like "he liked attention but played a lot of video games" and from there jump to the conclusion that he's a villain.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  Is this supposed to be anything other than some sort of ad hominem? Why should his motives or character matter?
pembrook 6y ago
Any democratic government is simply a body elected to represent the wishes of the people. If the government isn't righting its wrongs, it's because you (not necessarily you specifically, but "the people" as a whole) have explicitly put in power the people who are doing the bad things. This is everybody's fault. Yours included. We all enabled this to happen. That's the beauty of a democratic system. It clarifies and cuts through to the core of our culture. Americans fear the idea of foreign terrorists more than we fear privacy encroachment, and thus, we were delivered the results of that belief. The system worked! It represented our wishes perfectly. The problem isn't "them" (the government). It's us.
- akiselev 6y ago
  That may have been true for Americans living two hundred years ago when constituents voted for the people who birthed the two party system, but it certainly isn't today. Gerrymandering of House districts, the limit on the number of Representatives, the nature of the Senate in our bicameral legislature, and the electoral college all guarantee that some votes will count significantly more than others. That's not a democracy, it's a facade that replaced democracy a long time ago (and one could argue was never a democracy to begin with, since many people alive today gained the right to vote in living memory).
  - godelski 6y ago
    There's two options when your government isn't doing what you (read "the people") want them to do: 1) Vote them out 2) Revolution I'm rather a firm believer that option 1 is still on the table and we don't have to resort to likely bloody methods. But in either case it is up to the people in the end. I am not convinced that there's been coalitions formed to actually do #1. I'm not actually convinced most people are upset, even though I think they should be.
  - agensaequivocum 6y ago
    We are not a democracy nor were we supposed to be.
    - 6y ago

choward 6y ago

How many citizens outside of people who understand tech actually understand how big of a deal it was? Also, the media hardly covered it and pretty much presented him as a traitor every time they did. What percent of the U.S. population would you guess has heard of the name Edward Snowden?

ddingus 6y ago
This. A high percentage of Americans are informed by domestic "news" and that newstainment has declared Snowden to be the bad guy as you said. Among ordinary people not into politics and or tech, few know his name. If they do, they almost always also talk about him being a traitor, threat, etc.
nmfisher 6y ago
Snowden disclosed programs that were unsavoury to some. But that doesn’t mean they’re illegal (even if only by reason of black letter law technicality). That’s not to mention all the other unrelated classified information. It’s not surprising that he has zero defence under whistleblower laws. To take advantage of whistleblower laws (or at least, gain public sympathy as one), the criminality you’re uncovering would need to be far, far worse.
- dgellow 6y ago
  The NSA has been revealed to gather and store crazy amount of US citizens data with zero oversight. That was completely illegal at the time, and I hope that it still is.
  - nmfisher 6y ago
    We may want that to be true, but some US courts have disagreed. https://www.lawfareblog.com/second-circuit-rules-united-states-v-hasbajrami https://www.lawfareblog.com/second-circuit-rules-united-stat... See this for one recent decision indicating that the NSA bulk collection program was both constitutional and legal. The unfortunate reality is that it falls into a legal grey area and has, in fact, been held by certain courts to be legal. Which comes back to my original point - any whistleblower who wants to exit with a clean slate really needs to be uncovering unambiguously and horrendously illegal activity. “Possibly illegal” PRISM just wasn’t bad enough for Snowden to get the political or legal protection of public sympathy.