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> Had Snowden simply revealed unconstitutional domestic mass surveillance programs, perhaps he could be pigeonholed as a whistleblower. Multiple former officia

> Had Snowden simply revealed unconstitutional domestic mass surveillance programs, perhaps he could be pigeonholed as a whistleblower. Multiple former officials did this and society largely didn't believe them and didn't care. Thomas Drake, Bill Binney, and others came forward through the appropriate legal channels and lost their careers, faced prosecution, and absolutely nothing changed. Legally, you're technically correct. Snowden is a fugitive. That doesn't change the fact that he fundamentally changed the way we think about privacy and the government's role in digital privacy for the better. James Clapper lied to Congress weeks before Snowden's revelations, yet he never faced perjury charges. That's what a broken system looks like.

fandroid 6y ago
Power vacuums get filled. NSA was largely torched to the ground. Good or bad, there was a counterbalance between big tech and the NSA that is now gone. SV snatched up the power. Everyone connected to big tech, Graham and company, stood to gain immensely from Snowden's treason against his country. Naturally, "hero" is the word. I'd speculate that Snowden singlehandedly added trillions in value to big tech.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  > there was a counterbalance between big tech and the NSA that is now gone. What?!?! Big tech was the primary facilitator of NSA surveillance through PRISM, they worked together to spy on billions of people. The idea that the general public benefited from this relationship is laughable. > I'd speculate that Snowden singlehandedly added trillions in value to big tech. Care to elaborate on this? How did Snowden add trillions in value to the companies that enabled the NSA to spy on everyone?
  - cramexam 6y ago
    Big tech connected their data centers with cleartext links which NSA surveilled in secret, without their knowledge. Perhaps this isn't accurate? Big tech wises up to Big Brother snooping on them, locks down, then continues to accumulate all of that precious data, out of view of the IC. Control over that data is worth trillions.

fandroid 6y ago

Power vacuums get filled. NSA was largely torched to the ground. Good or bad, there was a counterbalance between big tech and the NSA that is now gone. SV snatched up the power. Everyone connected to big tech, Graham and company, stood to gain immensely from Snowden's treason against his country. Naturally, "hero" is the word. I'd speculate that Snowden singlehandedly added trillions in value to big tech.

save_ferris 6y ago
> there was a counterbalance between big tech and the NSA that is now gone. What?!?! Big tech was the primary facilitator of NSA surveillance through PRISM, they worked together to spy on billions of people. The idea that the general public benefited from this relationship is laughable. > I'd speculate that Snowden singlehandedly added trillions in value to big tech. Care to elaborate on this? How did Snowden add trillions in value to the companies that enabled the NSA to spy on everyone?
- cramexam 6y ago
  Big tech connected their data centers with cleartext links which NSA surveilled in secret, without their knowledge. Perhaps this isn't accurate? Big tech wises up to Big Brother snooping on them, locks down, then continues to accumulate all of that precious data, out of view of the IC. Control over that data is worth trillions.