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I agree with the sentiment, minus Snowden. We should be talking about this issue. Snowden is at this point immaterial to the larger issues unless he leaks more

I agree with the sentiment, minus Snowden. We should be talking about this issue. Snowden is at this point immaterial to the larger issues unless he leaks more details. Discussing himself distracts from his purposes. His movements and people's opinions about his movements (which dominated HN this weekend) are of no consequence to PRISM and the NSA. The honest truth is we are no closer to discovering the truth about what the government does than we were on day one of the leak while entertaining ourselves with platitudes about how "America is now a place where people seek asylum from" and Bourne movie fantasies.

goblin89 13y ago
To me Snowden's story looks like a ‘meta-issue’, arguably even more important. There might be more problems in addition to what he helped uncover, but whether they are voiced might depend on what happens to Snowden. You wouldn't halt QA process until you fix a critical security issue in your production system, especially if the fix might take some time. You'd probably be paying even more attention to improving bug visibility after such an incident, to make sure other problems are noticed in time.
ISL 13y ago
If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. If what he leaked is important and worthwhile, then he ought to be defended. The probability that he'll receive fair treatment by our government and a fair trial is directly related to his presence in a spotlight. How the government treats Snowden is a proxy for how the government may treat each one of us in the future; he's now committed to being the test case for our possible future. I'm not stoked about discussing a random dude's travel plans either, but it would appear that the court of public opinion is more transparent than the system which would otherwise judge the man.
- deleted 13y ago
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- davidw 13y ago
  > If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. No he won't, because in the grand scheme of things, no one cares whether HN talks about him or not.
damarquis 13y ago
I agree that all the short term updates don't have relevance to larger issues. However, if discovering the truth about what the government is doing does matter to you then Snowden's long term fate should be important. There are likely a few people in government agencies contemplating leaking vital information about these programs. The extent to which the US government can make the rest of Snowden's life unpleasant will determine what they do.
clarky07 13y ago
Snowden and his movements are not immaterial. I won't repeat why as the top comment does a good job of explaining it so I'll just link it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933175

goblin89 13y ago

To me Snowden's story looks like a ‘meta-issue’, arguably even more important. There might be more problems in addition to what he helped uncover, but whether they are voiced might depend on what happens to Snowden. You wouldn't halt QA process until you fix a critical security issue in your production system, especially if the fix might take some time. You'd probably be paying even more attention to improving bug visibility after such an incident, to make sure other problems are noticed in time.

ISL 13y ago

If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. If what he leaked is important and worthwhile, then he ought to be defended. The probability that he'll receive fair treatment by our government and a fair trial is directly related to his presence in a spotlight. How the government treats Snowden is a proxy for how the government may treat each one of us in the future; he's now committed to being the test case for our possible future. I'm not stoked about discussing a random dude's travel plans either, but it would appear that the court of public opinion is more transparent than the system which would otherwise judge the man.

deleted 13y ago
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davidw 13y ago
> If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. No he won't, because in the grand scheme of things, no one cares whether HN talks about him or not.

damarquis 13y ago

I agree that all the short term updates don't have relevance to larger issues. However, if discovering the truth about what the government is doing does matter to you then Snowden's long term fate should be important. There are likely a few people in government agencies contemplating leaking vital information about these programs. The extent to which the US government can make the rest of Snowden's life unpleasant will determine what they do.

clarky07 13y ago

Snowden and his movements are not immaterial. I won't repeat why as the top comment does a good job of explaining it so I'll just link it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933175