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The basic problem is that the average non-technical user lacks the knowledge that these policies exist, much less their deleterious effects. This is the problem

The basic problem is that the average non-technical user lacks the knowledge that these policies exist, much less their deleterious effects. This is the problem with some of the valid points RMS has been raising for decades. Look at dragnet surveillance- ask the average person who Snowden is. Unfortunately I don't see that changing, especially since you can see the same dynamic in (nearly?) every other industry. The industry engages in widespread practices, sometimes legitimized by corrupt laws via regulatory capture, that harm our society and everyone is too busy trying to put food on the table to notice.

BuckRogers 4y ago
- user3939382 4y ago
  That’s very idealistic that you think “justice” is what the US has in mind for him. If you haven’t noticed from the Assange case, the US fed gov’t rewrites the laws and creates its own definition of justice to try its best to murder anyone who exposes its crimes. If the US was interested in “justice” for Snowden it would have awarded him a Congressional medal of honor instead of hunting and trying to prosecute him.
  - BuckRogers 4y ago
    The truth would prevail. Isn’t that what the weasel was fighting for? Navalny faced your “justice”, because he’s a true and actual hero of his nation. I can assure you, any true patriot would walk down Navalny’s path. Not Edward Snowden‘s path of treason and cowardice. I have no love for Benedict Arnolds.
    - user3939382 4y ago
      The truth already came out the day his material was released. He’s been isolated from his country, culture, family, everything he knows and loves and has to fear every day will be the day the US figures out a way to kill him or bargain with Russia to hand him over to death/lifetime imprisonment via a kangaroo court. He hasn’t sacrificed enough? He’s one of the few patriots. The traitors are the ones working for and especially managing these unconstitutional illegal programs that continue to this day.
      - BuckRogers 4y ago
        We don't have a kangaroo court waiting for him. This sacrificial lamb has easy street waiting for his crimes compared to Navalny. Navalny still returned home without fear, and may lose his life for it. Yet his spirit, unlike Snowden's, will live forever and cannot be killed. That's a hero vs a coward. Navalny inspires me, an American. Equating the US and Russian justice system is hilarious. We could kill any traitor, anywhere we so chose to kill one. He's safe and running from justice in Russia, but he's not safe from the blade. The government chooses to spare him. Never underestimate the long arm of Uncle Sam. I for one, think it's best that his true character is revealed through his self-imposed exile. He's too selfish to come home and bring attention to his cause. He's all about himself, and he hasn't suffered a lick, yet. He has spent a lot of time running though. And don't call him that. He's not American. Benedict Arnold died in England, hated by both the Americans and English. Even the British who benefitted from him didn't respect a man who would betray his own people. He died a traitor's death just as Snowden will.
        user3939382 4y ago
        > He's all about himself Wrong. He had a nice life in Hawaii with a big paycheck. If he was all about himself he wouldn't have done what he did, his life would have been far easier. The proof that it's a kangaroo court is that he's being charged in the first place when what he did wasn't a crime.
        BuckRogers 4y ago
        I can tell that you like to live in your own reality. He violated the Espionage Act. He is a foreign agent, he won't say but supposedly now has Russian citizenship. Quite the patriot, seeking shelter in one of the least free and most oppressive European nations he could find. He harmed the US and the UK, and assisted China and Russia. I realize you want to make that coward & villain out to be a freedom fighter, but I already provided a real freedom fighter. The comparison is stark. William Wallace didn't hide in Paris or Berlin. Neither did the modern day Wallace in Navalny. They stood in their homeland like men. Snowden? Good for a laugh, and will go down in history as such. He was just a boy who ended up harming, and outright turning on the nation he was supposedly liberating, then hid from the consequences.
- str34m 4y ago
- leeoniya 4y ago
  if you see snowden as a traitor (someone who violated the trust bestowed on him by his government) would you also consider that when the government did the illegal things we now know to its own citizens, that the government is also a traitor (having violated the trust bestowed on it by its citizens)? it's a two way street, is it not? by your definition all whistleblowers who take personal risks for the common good are traitors.
rektide 4y ago
Ignorance is by far the best breeding ground for FUD. Tech has gone so radically anti personal computing, exists mostly in modern mainframes (data-centers) once again. There's so little hope for good when so much of computing is so very very far away, when technics have all so swiftly effervesced up into the cloud.

BuckRogers 4y ago

user3939382 4y ago
That’s very idealistic that you think “justice” is what the US has in mind for him. If you haven’t noticed from the Assange case, the US fed gov’t rewrites the laws and creates its own definition of justice to try its best to murder anyone who exposes its crimes. If the US was interested in “justice” for Snowden it would have awarded him a Congressional medal of honor instead of hunting and trying to prosecute him.
- BuckRogers 4y ago
  The truth would prevail. Isn’t that what the weasel was fighting for? Navalny faced your “justice”, because he’s a true and actual hero of his nation. I can assure you, any true patriot would walk down Navalny’s path. Not Edward Snowden‘s path of treason and cowardice. I have no love for Benedict Arnolds.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    The truth already came out the day his material was released. He’s been isolated from his country, culture, family, everything he knows and loves and has to fear every day will be the day the US figures out a way to kill him or bargain with Russia to hand him over to death/lifetime imprisonment via a kangaroo court. He hasn’t sacrificed enough? He’s one of the few patriots. The traitors are the ones working for and especially managing these unconstitutional illegal programs that continue to this day.
    - BuckRogers 4y ago
      We don't have a kangaroo court waiting for him. This sacrificial lamb has easy street waiting for his crimes compared to Navalny. Navalny still returned home without fear, and may lose his life for it. Yet his spirit, unlike Snowden's, will live forever and cannot be killed. That's a hero vs a coward. Navalny inspires me, an American. Equating the US and Russian justice system is hilarious. We could kill any traitor, anywhere we so chose to kill one. He's safe and running from justice in Russia, but he's not safe from the blade. The government chooses to spare him. Never underestimate the long arm of Uncle Sam. I for one, think it's best that his true character is revealed through his self-imposed exile. He's too selfish to come home and bring attention to his cause. He's all about himself, and he hasn't suffered a lick, yet. He has spent a lot of time running though. And don't call him that. He's not American. Benedict Arnold died in England, hated by both the Americans and English. Even the British who benefitted from him didn't respect a man who would betray his own people. He died a traitor's death just as Snowden will.
      - user3939382 4y ago
        > He's all about himself Wrong. He had a nice life in Hawaii with a big paycheck. If he was all about himself he wouldn't have done what he did, his life would have been far easier. The proof that it's a kangaroo court is that he's being charged in the first place when what he did wasn't a crime.
        BuckRogers 4y ago
        I can tell that you like to live in your own reality. He violated the Espionage Act. He is a foreign agent, he won't say but supposedly now has Russian citizenship. Quite the patriot, seeking shelter in one of the least free and most oppressive European nations he could find. He harmed the US and the UK, and assisted China and Russia. I realize you want to make that coward & villain out to be a freedom fighter, but I already provided a real freedom fighter. The comparison is stark. William Wallace didn't hide in Paris or Berlin. Neither did the modern day Wallace in Navalny. They stood in their homeland like men. Snowden? Good for a laugh, and will go down in history as such. He was just a boy who ended up harming, and outright turning on the nation he was supposedly liberating, then hid from the consequences.
str34m 4y ago
leeoniya 4y ago
if you see snowden as a traitor (someone who violated the trust bestowed on him by his government) would you also consider that when the government did the illegal things we now know to its own citizens, that the government is also a traitor (having violated the trust bestowed on it by its citizens)? it's a two way street, is it not? by your definition all whistleblowers who take personal risks for the common good are traitors.

rektide 4y ago

Ignorance is by far the best breeding ground for FUD. Tech has gone so radically anti personal computing, exists mostly in modern mainframes (data-centers) once again. There's so little hope for good when so much of computing is so very very far away, when technics have all so swiftly effervesced up into the cloud.