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I havent read the full transcript, but I find it terrifyingly fascinating how the US has managed to turn Snowden into a pariah, owing in part to its own revokin

by dijit 3y ago

I havent read the full transcript, but I find it terrifyingly fascinating how the US has managed to turn Snowden into a pariah, owing in part to its own revoking of his passport while in transit through Russia. Anybody who saw him speak knows he was doing everything possible to make it about the content, and not him as a person- only putting his name to the light to prove it wasn't false or the result of some disgruntled employee trying to stick it to his manager. Yet the narrative very quickly focused on him; the content of his character, his upbringing, his connection to the government, the fact that he is in Russia and decidedly not on the content of the leaks which quickly got glossed over and to date I am unaware of single arrest due to it- despite clear evidence of lawbreaking (including but not limited to: deliberately lying to the Senate). Lets not forget that diplomatic plane that was downed across international territories because they suspected Snowden was inside. Despite posing no continued threat to the US, they sure spent a lot of effort making him as uncredible as possible yet anyone who has eyes sees it as completely transparent. The scariest part of it all is that people actually are falling for that narrative, do not look at the leaks for what they are (proof of unconstitutional behaviour by a branch of government) and call Snowden a plant or a terrorist- ironically the kinds of people who would otherwise argue against government interference. Boggles my mind, and scares me to death how clearly susceptible the population is to disinformation.

Terr_ 3y ago
Not to wander too far off topic, but it also frustrates me when I encounter people who somehow rate Edward Snowden behind (in favorability) figures like Julian Assange. Edit: To clarify my own frustration, I see Snowden as more of a true whistleblower, and Assange as more of a fame-seeking middleman willing to promise or withhold information based on his own self-interest.
- dijit 3y ago
  the Assange thing also reeks of US/UK joint government interference. Its totally possible that he’s a massive rapist, and its a great cover to be a known enemy to governments with your journalistic endeavours. But its terribly convenient for the US government that the circumstances landed where they did, and it was even told to us that it would land this way and those saying it were branded as conspiracy theorists. One might consider that Snowden went in knowing exactly what was possible, came prepared was completely “clean”, additionally he has not had a particularly difficult living situation. Yet even he is able to get massacred by certain sections of the media. Assange is living in (self-imposed, sure) exile and doesnt have the luxury of maintaining a lifestyle that promotes mental well-being, and the media are very quick to jump on his transgressions and blow them to insane proportions. Please keep that in mind when talking about him.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Given what happened in Sweden when he was kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy and the UK arrested him for extradition to the US, I believe the Swedish accusations were made, and the prosecutions were done, in good faith. Assange's argument against going to Sweden should've logically also applied to the UK, where he physically was while trying to make the argument to avoid extradition to Sweden, as demonstrated by the UK not even bothering to inform the Swedish authorities when they finally did arrest Assange.
    - nobody9999 3y ago
      >Given what happened in Sweden when he was kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy and the UK arrested him for extradition to the US, I believe the Swedish accusations were made, and the prosecutions were done, in good faith. Just picking a nit here, but IIRC Assange was not arrested by UK authorities to be extradited to the US (that's just a "bonus" for the US), but because he broke UK law by "jumping bail,"[0] which is a crime in the UK. There are a raft of other details/issues around Assange and his Swedish/British/Ecuadorian odyssey, and those have been endlessly discusssed/litigated in the press. I won't address those issues, as I don't think it would add productively to this discussion. Assange did violate the terms of his bail in the UK and was convicted and sentenced accordingly, regardless of other issues. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail_in_the_United_Kingdom Edit: Clarified my thoughts.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        > Just picking a nit here, but IIRC Assange was not arrested by UK authorities to be extradited to the US Ok, fair. My recollection was that they did both at about the same time, though subsequent focus on the (clearly motivated) US extradition rather overshadow the Swedish issues (which don't look politically motivated to me; though obviously that's what they want me to think :P). That the UK didn't bother to tell Sweden is even more egregious given what you say.
        depressedpanda 3y ago
- fortuna86 3y ago
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- kome 3y ago
  you just did this mindless form of character assassination... let's focus on the crimes they both uncovered. please.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    > let's focus on the crimes they both uncovered. please. Well, since you phrase it that way, sure: * Snowden uncovered mass-surveillance programs and intelligence agencies lying to congress. * Manning uncovered Iraq War records, such as a helicopter attacking civilians. * Assange uncovered... What? What pieces of information do you specifically credit to Assange which puts him in the same position as those first two whistleblowers?
    - celtoid 3y ago
      > "Assange uncovered... What?" According to The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL, Assange exposed the corruption of the US State Department. This is apart from his exposing the war crimes committed by the US military in Iraq [1]. "Cable gate”, a set of 251,000 confidential cables from the US State Department disclosed corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale." [0] [0] https://www.nytco.com/press/an-open-letter-from-editors-and-publishers-publishing-is-not-a-crime/ https://www.nytco.com/press/an-open-letter-from-editors-and-... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw
      - Terr_ 3y ago
        Why are you taking credit from Chelsea Manning and giving it to Julian Assange? Maybe I wasn't explicit enough: Assange is categorically not a whistleblower, but rather a publicist at best, figurehead at worst. Other people did the important uncovering, putting themselves in far more legal jeopardy.
        celtoid 3y ago
        > "putting themselves in far more legal jeopardy." I have to disagree. The US govt and its national security state have done a pretty good job of persecuting Manning, Assange and Snowden alike albeit in differing ways.
- colordrops 3y ago
  I hope you are aware of the multi-pronged smear campaign against Assange. The US government hired Palantir and HB Gary to infiltrate WikiLeaks and cause rifts, and put out negative press about him. This is just what leaked, let alone their entire strategy. Even if he were guilty of some information crime, the level of persecution against him by the US government is way overboard and not in proportion to the supposed offense. But it is clear to me and many others that what he was doing was journalism, even if you don't like his message and methods. He should be protected at all costs.
  - nullfield 3y ago
    There are some (pretty much meme) videos on “proportional” destruction of the Iranian navy, after an incident. This kinda feels like the same thing, but politically. “You…” … “so we” … “and it’s gonna be ‘proportional’. Sorry-not-sorry.”
- wesapien 3y ago
  Assange is just a reporter/press. Someone gives him information and he publishes it. He didn't crack or break or copy or steal any of the information he published.
shadowgovt 3y ago
The population wants to be protected and honestly doesn't sweat the details much. In a big way, 9/11 robbed Americans of their belief they had control of the world's affairs and replaced the distrust that had been built up by Watergate with far, far more deference to authority than their predecessors demonstrataed. A nation that looked the other way when its leadership engaged in torture and relocation of people to nations where they could be tortured out of sight was already a nation that wasn't going to care over-much about being spied on. If civil rights mattered so little to them when it was actual pain and disfigurement being inflicted on human beings, why would we expect them to bust out the pitchforks for a little traffic-skimming?
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  How has the United States protected its people in the past, what, 30 years? They couldn't protect the World Trade Centers from a couple of cult members stealing planes. They couldn't protect us from the water problems in Flint, MI. They barely gave aid during Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters. They let children die in schools every year, the biggest one Uvalde, TX. By all means let's see the truth, but from my vantage point, America is not capable (or interested in) protecting her people.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    Only one of those is something that foreigners did to the people of the US on its own soil, and that's narrowly what those who are afraid of another 9/11 are willing to give up significant freedoms to escape. Americans feel much less existentially threatened by messes they make in their own backyards and things they do to themselves. I believe what you're vocalizing is a younger-generation mindset (one that didn't feel the whiplash of 9/10 being a day everyone felt safe in their beds and 9/12 being a day nobody did). That younger mindset is one that I'm only too eager to see become the dominant mindset in American politics.
    - pjmorris 3y ago
      From an older generation, we have: 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed' Governments are responsible for more than protection for foreign threats. I think the remaining items on the GP's list are legitimate in light of Jefferson's words.
zlg_codes 3y ago
Great points. I too saw it as very sus that, instead of addressing the content of leaks from WikiLeaks and Snowden, et al, the United States went on an offensive, because apparently it's more important to cover up embarrassing things than it is to get one's ship in proper working order. I have nothing but respect for individuals that put countries on blast. We all know they are corrupt in their dealings. You don't seize control of a territory and 300 million people by dotting your i's and crossing your Ts. Like it or not, every sovereign government had to engage in terrorism and one-sided treaties against natives to "build its country". They are not moral actors.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  It also makes very clear the fact that pro-US propaganda exists, it’s not just Russia and other quasi fascist states that engage in propaganda against their people. What Snowden did was very damaging to the Obama admin’s “hope and change” brand. Of course they were gonna go after him with everything they had.
  - throwaway2990 3y ago
    Every country has some form of propaganda. I’m not sure anyone has denied that US propaganda exists. But the US isn’t invading a country to wipe it off the planet nor is it committing genocide to an ethnic minority within its own borders.
    - LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
      Maybe not currently, but the US has been guilty of both of those things in the past. The thing is that nobody invades a country desiring to wipe it off the planet. One could argue the legitimacy of such invasions happening today, and many of those same arguments would apply to the US invasion of Iraq, or the fact that we destabilized the Middle East to the point that it allowed ISIS to come to power. Was our invasion for oil any more moral than what Putin is doing today? And genocide? Need we discuss the native Americans?
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pseudotrash 3y ago
I've watched the Twitter InfoSec crowd slowly turn from: supportive -> ambivalent -> hostile. Guess exposing XKeyScore, PRISM, TEMPORA really pissed off the hypocrites in the US. The intersection in the Venn diagram between Intel and Infosec community is substantial. And quite a number of accounts directly linked to US IC influence decisions of who is allowed to have a voice at DefCon and BlackHat. The same happened with public support for Assange. Nobody talks about the retaliation by proxy against Ola Bini. They should. If you stand up for them better prep yourself to either get labeled a tankie or get character assassinated¹ by some nutjob with pink hair and overly strong feelings about pronouns. Which is an odd hostile spectrum to find oneself in. Jacob Applebaum was especially torn down hard using manufactured content of blog posts of "rape victimes" coming forward. And until today he remains so: ¹ > In May 2013, Snowden was permitted temporary leave from his position at the NSA in Hawaii, on the pretext of receiving treatment for his epilepsy.[10] In mid-May, Snowden gave an electronic interview to Poitras and Jacob Appelbaum which was published weeks later by Der Spiegel.[119] -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
- howinteresting 3y ago
  I personally know, in real life, somewhere between 2 and 5 people who were raped by Jacob Appelbaum.
  - Exoristos 3y ago
    How interesting.
fortuna86 3y ago
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2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Snowden made himself a pariah. Two wrongs don't make a right, fleeing to Russia was a bad choice. Your suggestion that we are falling for some grand scheme or propaganda unless we subscribe to your opinion is dishonest.
- arianvanp 3y ago
  He didn't flee to Russia. He got stuck in Russia due to US revoking his passport.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    He shouldn't have fled anywhere. Why did the US revoke his passport?
    - int_19h 3y ago
      So you wanted him to become a martyr on top of exposing the crimes to prove... what exactly?
    - 9dev 3y ago
      The USA have initiated one of the biggest denouncement campaigns in its very history against this man. Nobody sane would have not fled in that situation.
  - 0xDEF 3y ago
    The goal was always to get into either China or Russia. They are the only geopolitical heavyweights that wouldn't have folded like Ecuador did with Assange. It's amazing how the "American whistleblower randomly ended up in Russia during transit" revisionism is being pushed.
    - dijit 3y ago
      You’re the only person claiming this, Snowden himself has said the opposite in 2014, on record.
nocoiner 3y ago
I guess I’m one of those easily misled sheep who has been cowed (sheeped?) by government propaganda. Or maybe it’s possible to disapprove of Snowden not as “a plant or a terrorist” but as an unwitting accomplice or a useful idiot who chose to make classified information public in a way that was extraordinarily favorable to what were obviously (even in 2013) two of the most repressive regimes in the world. Like, don’t flee to China after you supposedly blew the whistle to highlight abuses of government surveillance. And never ever transit through Russia! If Snowden had given 1% as much thought to factors like that as he had to stealing and disseminating classified information, maybe it would be easier for me to believe that his motives were completely pure and/or he hadn’t fallen under the sway of foreign intelligence services. Instead, the most charitable assessment I can give him is that he’s a guy who’s not nearly as bright as he thinks he is who got in way, way over his head. I have a hell of a lot more respect for Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner than I do Snowden.
- dijit 3y ago
  Firstly; I want to mention how extremely difficult it is to admit that you've been misled. It requires basically removing all stigma from being conceivably wrong then coldly looking at the facts. Most people simply cannot not do this as it triggers the same sections in the brain as a pain response; they will instead simply pick a side (usually the first one they hear) and not alter their opinion much. So if you are able to coldly assess the facts and you come up to the same conclusion - then I applaud you, that's more than most can do. However, some minor facts: 1) He was in Hong Kong when he blew the whistle, which as much China as Puerto Rico is the USA - its a special administrative region, there is a strict border when travelling to Szhenzen. 2) Whats your transit strategy if the US is trying to get you? Finally; that something is nice for an enemy doesn't mean that it shouldn't see the light of day, for example if your favourite fast food owner rapes a bunch of women but the company he represents is basically the only thing standing up to a big chain, well, unfortunately, you have to own up to it; not doing so is worse for everyone, including you as you are now complicit. Frankly: Laws were broken and the governments of the allied countries (colloquially: 5Eyes) should petition the law to be changed if that's what they require and it should go through our democratic system. You cant claim to be a democracy and then not permit your democratically elected leaders oversight or intentionally mislead them under oath, as General Alexander has knowingly proven to have done in the leaks.
ssss11 3y ago
There’s a playbook - it always focussed on the character. It’s probably the only way to deflect from the reality of the content of a leak… it’s amazing how influential narratives can be, I suppose is why media has such power.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  Exactly, there's a reason character assassination is a term at all. The more someone is damned for their character over the more meaningful topics in the context, the more your should consider someone is trying to deflect your attention.
0xDEF 3y ago
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- dijit 3y ago
  Sorry, I believe you to be mistaken. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/01/edward-snowden-escape-moscow-airport https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/01/edward-snowden... Notes: * Landed in Moscow, went to the transit zone which is used to change flights * Applied for asylum to Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. * Left HK due to agreements and good connections to the US (not that HK is China, but it would have been easier to go to China from HK than to Russia if thats the goal). Additionally: In an October 2014 interview with The Nation magazine, Snowden reiterated that he had originally intended to travel to Latin America: "A lot of people are still unaware that I never intended to end up in Russia."
gsatic 3y ago
Thats the general outcome with Info Overload. Just flooding the fields doesnt produce fruit. Producing fruit takes time, knowledge and skill. There are no shortcuts. Snowden should have spent time scanning the data to find allies high and low. Building networks of like minded folk. Regularly meeting to come up with better solutions. Testing them out till the good ones are shown to work. And then launch attacks on those most corrupted. That is what a character like Gandhi did. And the outcomes were very different.
- jandrese 3y ago
  Also compare with what Propublica has been doing with the Clarence Thomas corruption story. Every few days there is another story about a different time he took a $100+k bribe. They're going to beat the drum until Justice Thomas resigns or stops being openly corrupt, which may be a very long time.
  - dcormier 3y ago
    > They're going to beat the drum until Justice Thomas resigns or stops being openly corrupt, which may be a very long time. I don’t expect either of those things to happen, sadly. If everything stays as it is, he will remain in office and continue his behavior. He’ll stay there until he dies.
yafbum 3y ago
Two things can be true. Snowden likely committed acts of treason for which the govt will pursue him. Snowden did pose a threat to US national security interests. If you look at the Schneier essay, he shared privileged info with journalists with poor operational security experience, one of whom crossed borders with a USB thumb drive full of docs. As a whistleblower, he might have enjoyed some legal protections if he had stayed within the lines, which would've at last implied staying in the US and dealing with the possibility of being tried. By fleeing abroad (to the PRC no less, then Russia), he made it easy to write him off as a traitor. At the same time, he exposed behaviors that were clearly wrong in both government and industry, and spurred a number of people into actions that would not have been undertaken otherwise. For this he should be thanked. That doesn't erase everything.
- depressedpanda 3y ago
  I'm sorry, but that's not comparable. Whatever Snowden might have done wrong is nothing compared to the shit he exposed.
  - yafbum 3y ago
    Obviously he knew that this would not be a widely shared opinion.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Snitches get stitches ain’t just for folks in the bad part of town apparently.
- jalapenos 3y ago
  It does erase it. If you (Snowden in this case) take an unlawful action out of reasonable necessity to defend yourself and others from the criminal acts of another (the US gov in this case), the latter is responsible for it, not the former (subject to certain limits like murder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens).
Mistletoe 3y ago
And yet HN loves Snowden but hates Bitcoin and crypto. Let the cognitive dissonance seep in and realize maybe it does have a purpose other than scams. Maybe software devs making 400k a year working for tech giants don’t need it, but lots of other people do. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1444794906967486469 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1444794906967486469
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  Because Bitcoin never lived up to the hype. It’s nothing more than a scam. Nothing crypto or blockchain has done has advanced us forward in any meaningful way. But it has stolen 1000s of dollars from people and made a small number of people rich.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    You can buy grey market drugs overseas with Bitcoin. That alone makes it more useful than many modern tech "innovations".
  - Mistletoe 3y ago
    >Nothing crypto or blockchain has done has advanced us forward in any meaningful way. Snowden is literally saying how helpful and useful to him Bitcoin was. How can you make such a cognitive dissonant statement? Like I said in my original post, crypto hasn't been helpful to you, that doesn't mean it hasn't been helpful to everyone. Newspaper owners hated the internet, that doesn't mean the internet isn't useful.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  HN loves crypto, just not cryptocurrency. Cryptography can be the most venerable tech on the planet when implemented right. Good cryptosystems protect us everyday, and their continued development and research is necessary to truly ensure that personal security is attainable. Cryptocurrency is a more dubious system. It's trustless and has some cryptographic elements, which is cool and very nerd porn, but it's also intrinsically social and complicated beyond understanding for the layman. That's where custodial scams and interpersonal exploits crop up, along with the other problems of sharing a universal ledger. Wildly variable gas fees, fraudulent transactions, systemic abuse and non-canonical forks are all just a part of the Blockchain model. Combine that with a lack of implementation spec, an incentive to fleece your user and zero regulatory bodies, and you might see how people dislike cryptocurrency. I don't even like the startup culture this website worships, but trusting the Blockchain to be a solution is fatal overcompensation. I can recommend something like PGP or OpenSSL full stop. I cannot recommend cryptocurrency unless you know what you're doing, have a specific use for it, and treat your crypto-assets as disposable if you intend to keep them in the long-term. Those aren't just unacceptable terms for a successful currency; that's unacceptable for any online networked platform.
throw16180339 3y ago
Snowden's actions speak for themselves; he's the 21st century's Kim Philby.
- dijit 3y ago
  What action in particular?
  - throw16180339 3y ago
    What do you think? Leaking over 1 million classified documents because he objected to surveillance programs.
    - dijit 3y ago
      I'm not sure how to get this through to you; but let's try. Imagine that every time you go through airport security, a full body scan is made of your kids and wife and they are sent around to a thousand or so unknown people (most of whom aren't even directly employed by the government) for salacious reasons or to be mocked. Now, there's a law that protects your kids scans from being sent anywhere (like HIPPA for doctors!), but incidentally it's a government institution and thus, according to themselves they do not need to follow the law. - despite that law existing for the only purpose of protecting your kids from the government. When the information gets out that this is happening (this part happened before Snowden btw), everyone involved, including the head of the organisation, knowingly lies to the "Oversight committee" which is democratically elected, is transparent and wants to protect your kids. The "Oversight Committee" have no choice than to just trust airport security at their word, for "security" reasons. (this was one of the things proven to have happened in the Snowden leaks: IE; General Alexander knowingly lied to the US Senate). Lying to the "Oversight committe" in this case is also a crime, but such flagrant disregard for the law has become pretty standard. This is what we're discussing here, not just that there was laws being broken, not that there was surveillance after all: their job is surveillance. The fact is here: that you, dear citizen have a right to privacy enshrined in the constitution. The reason that protection exists at all is to protect the very democracy that you uphold: freedom of expression. A rogue government agency that lies to your democratically elected leaders, that breaks laws indiscriminately and does so under a thick blanket of secrecy -- while wielding a very powerful hammer to discredit and chase people to the ends of the earth -- that's what was exposed. Not "the good guys". If they were "good" they wouldn't be lying to the US Senate. They wouldn't be assassinating the character of the people that expose them- these things would have clear answers and when exposed people would shrug. Remember: people are using tools like XKeyscore to spy on people they personally know (ex-lovers, spouses etc; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog... ) You can't defend it by saying "it's national secrecy". Tell me how spying on your ex is in the national interest? Tell me why there can't be oversight? Disgusting, and so is anyone who defends it.
Aerbil313 3y ago
Same thing happened after Ted Kaczynski got arrested. Media deliberately avoided talking about his ideas, literally all they said about them was a brief mention that they are "unoriginal", like it concerns Kaczynski or anyone. They OTOH talked incessantly about his upbringing and childhood and personal problems and whatnot.
MikusR 3y ago
Look at his Twitter.
knorker 3y ago
Don't forget the shaming of his girlfriend. They pushed hard on the narrative of her being a slutty stripper.
ekianjo 3y ago
> Boggles my mind, and scares me to death how clearly susceptible the population is to disinformation. This was discovered long time ago and the three letters agencies use that as part of their playbook to control the narrative.
fefe23 3y ago
The same governments who told you that Snowden is a traitor, Assange is a hostile intelligence agency, the Iraq war was because Hussein was behind 9/11, and that he had WMD, are now very concerned about protecting you from disinformation from social media. They also want backdoors in your crypto on all your communication devices, so they can better protect you. It's quite scary how well government smear and disinformation campaigns work.
agentgumshoe 3y ago
And then we had The Twitter files, where once again the focus became attacking the journalists rather than the outrage that should have flowed from the content exposed.
hulitu 3y ago
> I find it terrifyingly fascinating how the US has managed to turn Snowden into a pariah Just normal Stalinist propaganda (made by the CIA) at work. The idea, just like in the case of Assange, was to turn the people away from their revelations and in turn, to turn people against Snowden by painting him as a vilain.
_8j50 3y ago
He leaked top secret information and fled to america's worst enemy Russia, where he enjoys a peaceful life now. His revelations are not as shocking to the public as they are to tech people. And the journalists he went to were not american. If he indeed exhausted legal options to report his findings he should have made his case in a US court. There several implications to his actions. One is that he has no faith in the US legal system and has rejected it, another is that he believed his revelations were unlawful and without precedent, both things are untrue, the intel oversight committee was aware of what the NSA was doing and it was not their first time spying on americans. Even before electronics, intel agencies opening the letters of americans and spying on them was a thing. Many regular people I talked to about this are actually glad because they hear about ISIS and terrorist bombings all the time (back then at least). When bombings like the boston marathon bombing happened, what did the public/media say? They all blamed the fbi for not stopping it beforehand, and after 9/11 the NSA and CIA were expected to work hand-in-hand with the FBI and domestic LE by lending/extending their capability to help them. You will all remember how this was not even a 2016 election issue. Personally, I am very glad snowden revealed what he did, and a lot of people in the USGOV should have been imprisoned for it. But the people voted and continued to vote in favor of the government, vindicating them and condemning snowden. Other leakers followed his way and they were appropriately jailed and then released as he would have. This is thr unfortunate reality of democracy and the state of mind of the majority of americans. Self included, the USGOV is not my enemy but Russia is. As much as I appreciste snowden's efforts, expecting americans to side with a person who defected to Russia is silly. He is someone who did what he thought was right but defecting to Russia makes him an enemy, not a hero, despite what he said. Let me put it in a very simple way: American's (self included, as much as I care about privacy -- I have been a victim of this more than you know!), compared to defecting to Russia or humiliating the US by fleeing to our enemy don't give a shit about the government spying on us unlawfully. The people are aware,every major media outlet and even major movies told them exactly what snowden did and revealed. Snowden is a pariah because that is the will of the plurality of americans.
- dijit 3y ago
  You've made a few false statements, so lets go through them to keep the record clean. > He leaked top secret information True, however it was detailing criminal behaviour and projects that were designed with criminal intent. The Government was not allowed to be running those programs as dragnet surveillance is against the constitution. > fled to america's worst enemy Russia False, there is ample evidence to support the fact that he was travelling somewhere else and was unable to continue passed Russia. Where he has decided to settle. > His revelations are not as shocking to the public as they are to tech people. True, Which is unfortunate, the tech industry taking notice has had positive impacts, like the taps that were placed on google datacenters being less effective due to TLS being deployed between all services inside google. A very serious undertaking. It also pushed us to create new TLS suites (TLS 1.3) with this in mind and was at least partially responsible for LetsEncrypts existence. So, despite the public taking less care than they should have; it has been for their benefit. > The journalists he went to were not american. Laura Poitras is not American? Glenn Greenwald is not American? > If he indeed exhausted legal options to report his findings he should have made his case in a US court. How did that go for William Binney? I'm fairly certain you never heard of him or his revelations. I think the point you've missed is that NSA is above oversight. It's "Enemy of the State" but.. actually, it's exactly like that. > but defecting to Russia makes him an enemy, not a hero This is so extremely childish that I am at a loss at how to argue this. He is in Russia, by the US's own doing, there is a lot of evidence to support that he preferred to be elsewhere. If the only thing you have to smear him on is the fact that he's in an enemy country then sir: you've missed the point. He was always going to end up in an enemy country if he was going to be safe from the US's agents. Assange was in an embassy in London and there was still discussion in the intelligence community (up to the president) on whether they should assassinate him. In an allied country, in a fucking embassy. Indefensible. ---- You're also making a cardinal sin, (as am I by responding to you). If a crackhead gives you a video tape of your child being raped by the local priest, you don't say that the crackhead is a crackhead and thus ignore the video tape. You fucking use the videotape to go to the police. This is not about how much integrity Snowden has, that's completely irrelevant. He shows that the NSA broke the law and knowingly lied to congress. This is absolutely not open for debate, it's a plain and simple fact, and yet we sit and bicker about how Snowden just "isn't american enough" and how "it's nice for our enemies". -- No. It's nice for our enemies because our governments are doing things they shouldn't be. Not holding them to account is not going to make our governments any better.
seppin 3y ago
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throwawayq3423 3y ago
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by dijit 3y ago

Terr_ 3y ago

Not to wander too far off topic, but it also frustrates me when I encounter people who somehow rate Edward Snowden behind (in favorability) figures like Julian Assange. Edit: To clarify my own frustration, I see Snowden as more of a true whistleblower, and Assange as more of a fame-seeking middleman willing to promise or withhold information based on his own self-interest.

dijit 3y ago
the Assange thing also reeks of US/UK joint government interference. Its totally possible that he’s a massive rapist, and its a great cover to be a known enemy to governments with your journalistic endeavours. But its terribly convenient for the US government that the circumstances landed where they did, and it was even told to us that it would land this way and those saying it were branded as conspiracy theorists. One might consider that Snowden went in knowing exactly what was possible, came prepared was completely “clean”, additionally he has not had a particularly difficult living situation. Yet even he is able to get massacred by certain sections of the media. Assange is living in (self-imposed, sure) exile and doesnt have the luxury of maintaining a lifestyle that promotes mental well-being, and the media are very quick to jump on his transgressions and blow them to insane proportions. Please keep that in mind when talking about him.
- ben_w 3y ago
  Given what happened in Sweden when he was kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy and the UK arrested him for extradition to the US, I believe the Swedish accusations were made, and the prosecutions were done, in good faith. Assange's argument against going to Sweden should've logically also applied to the UK, where he physically was while trying to make the argument to avoid extradition to Sweden, as demonstrated by the UK not even bothering to inform the Swedish authorities when they finally did arrest Assange.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >Given what happened in Sweden when he was kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy and the UK arrested him for extradition to the US, I believe the Swedish accusations were made, and the prosecutions were done, in good faith. Just picking a nit here, but IIRC Assange was not arrested by UK authorities to be extradited to the US (that's just a "bonus" for the US), but because he broke UK law by "jumping bail,"[0] which is a crime in the UK. There are a raft of other details/issues around Assange and his Swedish/British/Ecuadorian odyssey, and those have been endlessly discusssed/litigated in the press. I won't address those issues, as I don't think it would add productively to this discussion. Assange did violate the terms of his bail in the UK and was convicted and sentenced accordingly, regardless of other issues. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail_in_the_United_Kingdom Edit: Clarified my thoughts.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      > Just picking a nit here, but IIRC Assange was not arrested by UK authorities to be extradited to the US Ok, fair. My recollection was that they did both at about the same time, though subsequent focus on the (clearly motivated) US extradition rather overshadow the Swedish issues (which don't look politically motivated to me; though obviously that's what they want me to think :P). That the UK didn't bother to tell Sweden is even more egregious given what you say.
      - depressedpanda 3y ago
fortuna86 3y ago
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kome 3y ago
you just did this mindless form of character assassination... let's focus on the crimes they both uncovered. please.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > let's focus on the crimes they both uncovered. please. Well, since you phrase it that way, sure: * Snowden uncovered mass-surveillance programs and intelligence agencies lying to congress. * Manning uncovered Iraq War records, such as a helicopter attacking civilians. * Assange uncovered... What? What pieces of information do you specifically credit to Assange which puts him in the same position as those first two whistleblowers?
  - celtoid 3y ago
    > "Assange uncovered... What?" According to The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL, Assange exposed the corruption of the US State Department. This is apart from his exposing the war crimes committed by the US military in Iraq [1]. "Cable gate”, a set of 251,000 confidential cables from the US State Department disclosed corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale." [0] [0] https://www.nytco.com/press/an-open-letter-from-editors-and-publishers-publishing-is-not-a-crime/ https://www.nytco.com/press/an-open-letter-from-editors-and-... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw
    - Terr_ 3y ago
      Why are you taking credit from Chelsea Manning and giving it to Julian Assange? Maybe I wasn't explicit enough: Assange is categorically not a whistleblower, but rather a publicist at best, figurehead at worst. Other people did the important uncovering, putting themselves in far more legal jeopardy.
      - celtoid 3y ago
        > "putting themselves in far more legal jeopardy." I have to disagree. The US govt and its national security state have done a pretty good job of persecuting Manning, Assange and Snowden alike albeit in differing ways.
colordrops 3y ago
I hope you are aware of the multi-pronged smear campaign against Assange. The US government hired Palantir and HB Gary to infiltrate WikiLeaks and cause rifts, and put out negative press about him. This is just what leaked, let alone their entire strategy. Even if he were guilty of some information crime, the level of persecution against him by the US government is way overboard and not in proportion to the supposed offense. But it is clear to me and many others that what he was doing was journalism, even if you don't like his message and methods. He should be protected at all costs.
- nullfield 3y ago
  There are some (pretty much meme) videos on “proportional” destruction of the Iranian navy, after an incident. This kinda feels like the same thing, but politically. “You…” … “so we” … “and it’s gonna be ‘proportional’. Sorry-not-sorry.”
wesapien 3y ago
Assange is just a reporter/press. Someone gives him information and he publishes it. He didn't crack or break or copy or steal any of the information he published.

shadowgovt 3y ago

The population wants to be protected and honestly doesn't sweat the details much. In a big way, 9/11 robbed Americans of their belief they had control of the world's affairs and replaced the distrust that had been built up by Watergate with far, far more deference to authority than their predecessors demonstrataed. A nation that looked the other way when its leadership engaged in torture and relocation of people to nations where they could be tortured out of sight was already a nation that wasn't going to care over-much about being spied on. If civil rights mattered so little to them when it was actual pain and disfigurement being inflicted on human beings, why would we expect them to bust out the pitchforks for a little traffic-skimming?

zlg_codes 3y ago
How has the United States protected its people in the past, what, 30 years? They couldn't protect the World Trade Centers from a couple of cult members stealing planes. They couldn't protect us from the water problems in Flint, MI. They barely gave aid during Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters. They let children die in schools every year, the biggest one Uvalde, TX. By all means let's see the truth, but from my vantage point, America is not capable (or interested in) protecting her people.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  Only one of those is something that foreigners did to the people of the US on its own soil, and that's narrowly what those who are afraid of another 9/11 are willing to give up significant freedoms to escape. Americans feel much less existentially threatened by messes they make in their own backyards and things they do to themselves. I believe what you're vocalizing is a younger-generation mindset (one that didn't feel the whiplash of 9/10 being a day everyone felt safe in their beds and 9/12 being a day nobody did). That younger mindset is one that I'm only too eager to see become the dominant mindset in American politics.
  - pjmorris 3y ago
    From an older generation, we have: 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed' Governments are responsible for more than protection for foreign threats. I think the remaining items on the GP's list are legitimate in light of Jefferson's words.

zlg_codes 3y ago

Great points. I too saw it as very sus that, instead of addressing the content of leaks from WikiLeaks and Snowden, et al, the United States went on an offensive, because apparently it's more important to cover up embarrassing things than it is to get one's ship in proper working order. I have nothing but respect for individuals that put countries on blast. We all know they are corrupt in their dealings. You don't seize control of a territory and 300 million people by dotting your i's and crossing your Ts. Like it or not, every sovereign government had to engage in terrorism and one-sided treaties against natives to "build its country". They are not moral actors.

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
It also makes very clear the fact that pro-US propaganda exists, it’s not just Russia and other quasi fascist states that engage in propaganda against their people. What Snowden did was very damaging to the Obama admin’s “hope and change” brand. Of course they were gonna go after him with everything they had.
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  Every country has some form of propaganda. I’m not sure anyone has denied that US propaganda exists. But the US isn’t invading a country to wipe it off the planet nor is it committing genocide to an ethnic minority within its own borders.
  - LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
    Maybe not currently, but the US has been guilty of both of those things in the past. The thing is that nobody invades a country desiring to wipe it off the planet. One could argue the legitimacy of such invasions happening today, and many of those same arguments would apply to the US invasion of Iraq, or the fact that we destabilized the Middle East to the point that it allowed ISIS to come to power. Was our invasion for oil any more moral than what Putin is doing today? And genocide? Need we discuss the native Americans?

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pseudotrash 3y ago

I've watched the Twitter InfoSec crowd slowly turn from: supportive -> ambivalent -> hostile. Guess exposing XKeyScore, PRISM, TEMPORA really pissed off the hypocrites in the US. The intersection in the Venn diagram between Intel and Infosec community is substantial. And quite a number of accounts directly linked to US IC influence decisions of who is allowed to have a voice at DefCon and BlackHat. The same happened with public support for Assange. Nobody talks about the retaliation by proxy against Ola Bini. They should. If you stand up for them better prep yourself to either get labeled a tankie or get character assassinated¹ by some nutjob with pink hair and overly strong feelings about pronouns. Which is an odd hostile spectrum to find oneself in. Jacob Applebaum was especially torn down hard using manufactured content of blog posts of "rape victimes" coming forward. And until today he remains so: ¹ > In May 2013, Snowden was permitted temporary leave from his position at the NSA in Hawaii, on the pretext of receiving treatment for his epilepsy.[10] In mid-May, Snowden gave an electronic interview to Poitras and Jacob Appelbaum which was published weeks later by Der Spiegel.[119] -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

howinteresting 3y ago
I personally know, in real life, somewhere between 2 and 5 people who were raped by Jacob Appelbaum.
- Exoristos 3y ago
  How interesting.

fortuna86 3y ago

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2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Snowden made himself a pariah. Two wrongs don't make a right, fleeing to Russia was a bad choice. Your suggestion that we are falling for some grand scheme or propaganda unless we subscribe to your opinion is dishonest.

arianvanp 3y ago
He didn't flee to Russia. He got stuck in Russia due to US revoking his passport.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  He shouldn't have fled anywhere. Why did the US revoke his passport?
  - int_19h 3y ago
    So you wanted him to become a martyr on top of exposing the crimes to prove... what exactly?
  - 9dev 3y ago
    The USA have initiated one of the biggest denouncement campaigns in its very history against this man. Nobody sane would have not fled in that situation.
- 0xDEF 3y ago
  The goal was always to get into either China or Russia. They are the only geopolitical heavyweights that wouldn't have folded like Ecuador did with Assange. It's amazing how the "American whistleblower randomly ended up in Russia during transit" revisionism is being pushed.
  - dijit 3y ago
    You’re the only person claiming this, Snowden himself has said the opposite in 2014, on record.

nocoiner 3y ago

I guess I’m one of those easily misled sheep who has been cowed (sheeped?) by government propaganda. Or maybe it’s possible to disapprove of Snowden not as “a plant or a terrorist” but as an unwitting accomplice or a useful idiot who chose to make classified information public in a way that was extraordinarily favorable to what were obviously (even in 2013) two of the most repressive regimes in the world. Like, don’t flee to China after you supposedly blew the whistle to highlight abuses of government surveillance. And never ever transit through Russia! If Snowden had given 1% as much thought to factors like that as he had to stealing and disseminating classified information, maybe it would be easier for me to believe that his motives were completely pure and/or he hadn’t fallen under the sway of foreign intelligence services. Instead, the most charitable assessment I can give him is that he’s a guy who’s not nearly as bright as he thinks he is who got in way, way over his head. I have a hell of a lot more respect for Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner than I do Snowden.

dijit 3y ago
Firstly; I want to mention how extremely difficult it is to admit that you've been misled. It requires basically removing all stigma from being conceivably wrong then coldly looking at the facts. Most people simply cannot not do this as it triggers the same sections in the brain as a pain response; they will instead simply pick a side (usually the first one they hear) and not alter their opinion much. So if you are able to coldly assess the facts and you come up to the same conclusion - then I applaud you, that's more than most can do. However, some minor facts: 1) He was in Hong Kong when he blew the whistle, which as much China as Puerto Rico is the USA - its a special administrative region, there is a strict border when travelling to Szhenzen. 2) Whats your transit strategy if the US is trying to get you? Finally; that something is nice for an enemy doesn't mean that it shouldn't see the light of day, for example if your favourite fast food owner rapes a bunch of women but the company he represents is basically the only thing standing up to a big chain, well, unfortunately, you have to own up to it; not doing so is worse for everyone, including you as you are now complicit. Frankly: Laws were broken and the governments of the allied countries (colloquially: 5Eyes) should petition the law to be changed if that's what they require and it should go through our democratic system. You cant claim to be a democracy and then not permit your democratically elected leaders oversight or intentionally mislead them under oath, as General Alexander has knowingly proven to have done in the leaks.

ssss11 3y ago

There’s a playbook - it always focussed on the character. It’s probably the only way to deflect from the reality of the content of a leak… it’s amazing how influential narratives can be, I suppose is why media has such power.

xboxnolifes 3y ago
Exactly, there's a reason character assassination is a term at all. The more someone is damned for their character over the more meaningful topics in the context, the more your should consider someone is trying to deflect your attention.

0xDEF 3y ago

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dijit 3y ago
Sorry, I believe you to be mistaken. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/01/edward-snowden-escape-moscow-airport https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/01/edward-snowden... Notes: * Landed in Moscow, went to the transit zone which is used to change flights * Applied for asylum to Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. * Left HK due to agreements and good connections to the US (not that HK is China, but it would have been easier to go to China from HK than to Russia if thats the goal). Additionally: In an October 2014 interview with The Nation magazine, Snowden reiterated that he had originally intended to travel to Latin America: "A lot of people are still unaware that I never intended to end up in Russia."

gsatic 3y ago

Thats the general outcome with Info Overload. Just flooding the fields doesnt produce fruit. Producing fruit takes time, knowledge and skill. There are no shortcuts. Snowden should have spent time scanning the data to find allies high and low. Building networks of like minded folk. Regularly meeting to come up with better solutions. Testing them out till the good ones are shown to work. And then launch attacks on those most corrupted. That is what a character like Gandhi did. And the outcomes were very different.

jandrese 3y ago
Also compare with what Propublica has been doing with the Clarence Thomas corruption story. Every few days there is another story about a different time he took a $100+k bribe. They're going to beat the drum until Justice Thomas resigns or stops being openly corrupt, which may be a very long time.
- dcormier 3y ago
  > They're going to beat the drum until Justice Thomas resigns or stops being openly corrupt, which may be a very long time. I don’t expect either of those things to happen, sadly. If everything stays as it is, he will remain in office and continue his behavior. He’ll stay there until he dies.

yafbum 3y ago

Two things can be true. Snowden likely committed acts of treason for which the govt will pursue him. Snowden did pose a threat to US national security interests. If you look at the Schneier essay, he shared privileged info with journalists with poor operational security experience, one of whom crossed borders with a USB thumb drive full of docs. As a whistleblower, he might have enjoyed some legal protections if he had stayed within the lines, which would've at last implied staying in the US and dealing with the possibility of being tried. By fleeing abroad (to the PRC no less, then Russia), he made it easy to write him off as a traitor. At the same time, he exposed behaviors that were clearly wrong in both government and industry, and spurred a number of people into actions that would not have been undertaken otherwise. For this he should be thanked. That doesn't erase everything.

depressedpanda 3y ago
I'm sorry, but that's not comparable. Whatever Snowden might have done wrong is nothing compared to the shit he exposed.
- yafbum 3y ago
  Obviously he knew that this would not be a widely shared opinion.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Snitches get stitches ain’t just for folks in the bad part of town apparently.
jalapenos 3y ago
It does erase it. If you (Snowden in this case) take an unlawful action out of reasonable necessity to defend yourself and others from the criminal acts of another (the US gov in this case), the latter is responsible for it, not the former (subject to certain limits like murder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens).

Mistletoe 3y ago

And yet HN loves Snowden but hates Bitcoin and crypto. Let the cognitive dissonance seep in and realize maybe it does have a purpose other than scams. Maybe software devs making 400k a year working for tech giants don’t need it, but lots of other people do. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1444794906967486469 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1444794906967486469

throwaway2990 3y ago
Because Bitcoin never lived up to the hype. It’s nothing more than a scam. Nothing crypto or blockchain has done has advanced us forward in any meaningful way. But it has stolen 1000s of dollars from people and made a small number of people rich.
- int_19h 3y ago
  You can buy grey market drugs overseas with Bitcoin. That alone makes it more useful than many modern tech "innovations".
- Mistletoe 3y ago
  >Nothing crypto or blockchain has done has advanced us forward in any meaningful way. Snowden is literally saying how helpful and useful to him Bitcoin was. How can you make such a cognitive dissonant statement? Like I said in my original post, crypto hasn't been helpful to you, that doesn't mean it hasn't been helpful to everyone. Newspaper owners hated the internet, that doesn't mean the internet isn't useful.
smoldesu 3y ago
HN loves crypto, just not cryptocurrency. Cryptography can be the most venerable tech on the planet when implemented right. Good cryptosystems protect us everyday, and their continued development and research is necessary to truly ensure that personal security is attainable. Cryptocurrency is a more dubious system. It's trustless and has some cryptographic elements, which is cool and very nerd porn, but it's also intrinsically social and complicated beyond understanding for the layman. That's where custodial scams and interpersonal exploits crop up, along with the other problems of sharing a universal ledger. Wildly variable gas fees, fraudulent transactions, systemic abuse and non-canonical forks are all just a part of the Blockchain model. Combine that with a lack of implementation spec, an incentive to fleece your user and zero regulatory bodies, and you might see how people dislike cryptocurrency. I don't even like the startup culture this website worships, but trusting the Blockchain to be a solution is fatal overcompensation. I can recommend something like PGP or OpenSSL full stop. I cannot recommend cryptocurrency unless you know what you're doing, have a specific use for it, and treat your crypto-assets as disposable if you intend to keep them in the long-term. Those aren't just unacceptable terms for a successful currency; that's unacceptable for any online networked platform.

throw16180339 3y ago

Snowden's actions speak for themselves; he's the 21st century's Kim Philby.

dijit 3y ago
What action in particular?
- throw16180339 3y ago
  What do you think? Leaking over 1 million classified documents because he objected to surveillance programs.
  - dijit 3y ago
    I'm not sure how to get this through to you; but let's try. Imagine that every time you go through airport security, a full body scan is made of your kids and wife and they are sent around to a thousand or so unknown people (most of whom aren't even directly employed by the government) for salacious reasons or to be mocked. Now, there's a law that protects your kids scans from being sent anywhere (like HIPPA for doctors!), but incidentally it's a government institution and thus, according to themselves they do not need to follow the law. - despite that law existing for the only purpose of protecting your kids from the government. When the information gets out that this is happening (this part happened before Snowden btw), everyone involved, including the head of the organisation, knowingly lies to the "Oversight committee" which is democratically elected, is transparent and wants to protect your kids. The "Oversight Committee" have no choice than to just trust airport security at their word, for "security" reasons. (this was one of the things proven to have happened in the Snowden leaks: IE; General Alexander knowingly lied to the US Senate). Lying to the "Oversight committe" in this case is also a crime, but such flagrant disregard for the law has become pretty standard. This is what we're discussing here, not just that there was laws being broken, not that there was surveillance after all: their job is surveillance. The fact is here: that you, dear citizen have a right to privacy enshrined in the constitution. The reason that protection exists at all is to protect the very democracy that you uphold: freedom of expression. A rogue government agency that lies to your democratically elected leaders, that breaks laws indiscriminately and does so under a thick blanket of secrecy -- while wielding a very powerful hammer to discredit and chase people to the ends of the earth -- that's what was exposed. Not "the good guys". If they were "good" they wouldn't be lying to the US Senate. They wouldn't be assassinating the character of the people that expose them- these things would have clear answers and when exposed people would shrug. Remember: people are using tools like XKeyscore to spy on people they personally know (ex-lovers, spouses etc; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog... ) You can't defend it by saying "it's national secrecy". Tell me how spying on your ex is in the national interest? Tell me why there can't be oversight? Disgusting, and so is anyone who defends it.

Aerbil313 3y ago

Same thing happened after Ted Kaczynski got arrested. Media deliberately avoided talking about his ideas, literally all they said about them was a brief mention that they are "unoriginal", like it concerns Kaczynski or anyone. They OTOH talked incessantly about his upbringing and childhood and personal problems and whatnot.

MikusR 3y ago

Look at his Twitter.

knorker 3y ago

Don't forget the shaming of his girlfriend. They pushed hard on the narrative of her being a slutty stripper.

ekianjo 3y ago

> Boggles my mind, and scares me to death how clearly susceptible the population is to disinformation. This was discovered long time ago and the three letters agencies use that as part of their playbook to control the narrative.

fefe23 3y ago

The same governments who told you that Snowden is a traitor, Assange is a hostile intelligence agency, the Iraq war was because Hussein was behind 9/11, and that he had WMD, are now very concerned about protecting you from disinformation from social media. They also want backdoors in your crypto on all your communication devices, so they can better protect you. It's quite scary how well government smear and disinformation campaigns work.

agentgumshoe 3y ago

And then we had The Twitter files, where once again the focus became attacking the journalists rather than the outrage that should have flowed from the content exposed.

hulitu 3y ago

> I find it terrifyingly fascinating how the US has managed to turn Snowden into a pariah Just normal Stalinist propaganda (made by the CIA) at work. The idea, just like in the case of Assange, was to turn the people away from their revelations and in turn, to turn people against Snowden by painting him as a vilain.

_8j50 3y ago

He leaked top secret information and fled to america's worst enemy Russia, where he enjoys a peaceful life now. His revelations are not as shocking to the public as they are to tech people. And the journalists he went to were not american. If he indeed exhausted legal options to report his findings he should have made his case in a US court. There several implications to his actions. One is that he has no faith in the US legal system and has rejected it, another is that he believed his revelations were unlawful and without precedent, both things are untrue, the intel oversight committee was aware of what the NSA was doing and it was not their first time spying on americans. Even before electronics, intel agencies opening the letters of americans and spying on them was a thing. Many regular people I talked to about this are actually glad because they hear about ISIS and terrorist bombings all the time (back then at least). When bombings like the boston marathon bombing happened, what did the public/media say? They all blamed the fbi for not stopping it beforehand, and after 9/11 the NSA and CIA were expected to work hand-in-hand with the FBI and domestic LE by lending/extending their capability to help them. You will all remember how this was not even a 2016 election issue. Personally, I am very glad snowden revealed what he did, and a lot of people in the USGOV should have been imprisoned for it. But the people voted and continued to vote in favor of the government, vindicating them and condemning snowden. Other leakers followed his way and they were appropriately jailed and then released as he would have. This is thr unfortunate reality of democracy and the state of mind of the majority of americans. Self included, the USGOV is not my enemy but Russia is. As much as I appreciste snowden's efforts, expecting americans to side with a person who defected to Russia is silly. He is someone who did what he thought was right but defecting to Russia makes him an enemy, not a hero, despite what he said. Let me put it in a very simple way: American's (self included, as much as I care about privacy -- I have been a victim of this more than you know!), compared to defecting to Russia or humiliating the US by fleeing to our enemy don't give a shit about the government spying on us unlawfully. The people are aware,every major media outlet and even major movies told them exactly what snowden did and revealed. Snowden is a pariah because that is the will of the plurality of americans.

dijit 3y ago
You've made a few false statements, so lets go through them to keep the record clean. > He leaked top secret information True, however it was detailing criminal behaviour and projects that were designed with criminal intent. The Government was not allowed to be running those programs as dragnet surveillance is against the constitution. > fled to america's worst enemy Russia False, there is ample evidence to support the fact that he was travelling somewhere else and was unable to continue passed Russia. Where he has decided to settle. > His revelations are not as shocking to the public as they are to tech people. True, Which is unfortunate, the tech industry taking notice has had positive impacts, like the taps that were placed on google datacenters being less effective due to TLS being deployed between all services inside google. A very serious undertaking. It also pushed us to create new TLS suites (TLS 1.3) with this in mind and was at least partially responsible for LetsEncrypts existence. So, despite the public taking less care than they should have; it has been for their benefit. > The journalists he went to were not american. Laura Poitras is not American? Glenn Greenwald is not American? > If he indeed exhausted legal options to report his findings he should have made his case in a US court. How did that go for William Binney? I'm fairly certain you never heard of him or his revelations. I think the point you've missed is that NSA is above oversight. It's "Enemy of the State" but.. actually, it's exactly like that. > but defecting to Russia makes him an enemy, not a hero This is so extremely childish that I am at a loss at how to argue this. He is in Russia, by the US's own doing, there is a lot of evidence to support that he preferred to be elsewhere. If the only thing you have to smear him on is the fact that he's in an enemy country then sir: you've missed the point. He was always going to end up in an enemy country if he was going to be safe from the US's agents. Assange was in an embassy in London and there was still discussion in the intelligence community (up to the president) on whether they should assassinate him. In an allied country, in a fucking embassy. Indefensible. ---- You're also making a cardinal sin, (as am I by responding to you). If a crackhead gives you a video tape of your child being raped by the local priest, you don't say that the crackhead is a crackhead and thus ignore the video tape. You fucking use the videotape to go to the police. This is not about how much integrity Snowden has, that's completely irrelevant. He shows that the NSA broke the law and knowingly lied to congress. This is absolutely not open for debate, it's a plain and simple fact, and yet we sit and bicker about how Snowden just "isn't american enough" and how "it's nice for our enemies". -- No. It's nice for our enemies because our governments are doing things they shouldn't be. Not holding them to account is not going to make our governments any better.

seppin 3y ago

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throwawayq3423 3y ago

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