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I'm a little shocked that even here on Hacker News, most of the top-level comments fell for the headline, rather than focusing the attention back where it belon

• oinksoft 13y ago
  People are commenting on the linked article. That's how it works, no?
• Goopplesoft 13y ago
  >It's truly a sad state of reporting and public discourse. I think your problem is that you're seeing one article as the indicator of the state of public discourse. Heres a bunch more: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=nsa https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0... This article is a brief update on Snowden's asylum status and it conveys just that. Not every article on the matter needs to discuss the full depth of the issue.
• gasull 13y ago
  I agree with the sentiment, but this is an important development. If whistle-blowers get protection, we will likely see more of them. I'm OK with some news about Snowden from time to time as long as the number of stories about surveillance largely outnumber the ones about Snowden. I think HN has a healthy ratio.
  • threeseed 13y ago
    You serious ? It should be clear that if you have information to share you should do so quietly without making yourself the target. Where would Snowden be without the legal and financial assistance of the Wikileaks team ? Likely rotting away for the rest of his life in a US jail. Furthermore since Snowden's revelations has resulted in basically zero change to the status quo (no legislation, no change in policies, no change in diplomatic relations, no mass uprising by the public) you have to imagine he's wondering what the whole point of it was.
    • anigbrowl 13y ago
      no legislation, no change in policies, no change in diplomatic relations, no mass uprising by the public It's only been 5-6 weeks, how fast were you expecting things to happen? The Watergate scandal took over two years to unfold even though many of the major revelations took place during a general election campaign.
      • threeseed 13y ago
        Watergate involved criminal activity. Everything the NSA has done is completely legal and vetted. Also the majority of the public support the policies, the protests have been weak to say the least and the EU is not going to do anything to upset the EU-US FTA. So it's hard to see where the drivers of change are going to come from. I actually think the problem is the messaging. Rather than argue specific policy changes e.g. "ban monitoring of social media" or "transparent FISA courts" opponents have opted for the vague and somewhat vapid "restore the fourth".
        • anigbrowl 13y ago
          My point was that even with pretty obvious criminal activity in the Watergate scandal, it still took a long time for it to reach crisis point, so it's a bit early to judge how the NSA thing might play out. I agree with you about the messaging, and don't think the fourth amendment has ever supplied the broad privacy protection that its boosters seem to imagine. I think we need a more explicit privacy amendment, but haven't really thought about how to effectively promote this idea so far.
          • fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
            There is always the Communications Act of 1934.
        • tmzt 13y ago
          I find it very hard to argue that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy (business records exceptions notwithstanding) in a public Twitter or Facebook feed. You could possibly allow for it in tightly restricted Twitter or Facebook feeds where a small number of users are allowed access, such as Close Friends in the case of Facebook. Sometimes getting the public to accept a particular argument is not the hard part, it's laying out the alternatives factually in a way that shows the public how they contrast. I find it very difficult to argue positions that take extremes of the type you laid out. I would also agree that vague notions are a waste of time. Even with the revelations in 2004 and '05, it was clear that the focus of the program was traffic analysis by completely automated means, and we should have been willing to legislate the extent to which we will allow that activity in public laws in the public domain. The role of the FISC should be to allow for warrants in very uncommon cases of foreign espionage or international terrorism, not as a general mechanism to allow the presentation and consideration of secret evidence. And it doesn't end with that court, the state secret privilege has been used commonly and repeatedly (see the work of Steven Aftergood for more details) to quash cases that the government considers inconvenient, and the Congress has essentially wiped away the complicity of common carriers in violating their implied assurance of the privacy of voice communication. The President called, after these revelations, but nonetheless, for a renewed and expanded debate of these tradeoffs. Do we consider this over now that the broadcast and print media (of all political stripes) have left it alone? Have we now decided that the American people have accepted this as the new normal and moved on? At every opportunity we conflate the mostly benign traffic analysis and ignore the very real threat (by those we call government) of a persistent and permanent archive of all of our most private conversations. These tools in the wrong hands would be devastating to any free people, placing so many of us in deadly danger of a government that may take our past words as proof of our treason. This is not theory, this is history. (The traffic analysis would also contribute to the ends of such a government, where guilt by association may be sufficient for punishment.)
  • laureny 13y ago
    > I agree with the sentiment, but this is an important development. If whistle-blowers get protection, we will likely see more of them. There has never been any doubt that whistle blowers can seek refuge in countries that are enemies of the United States.
    • pavs 13y ago
      To state the obvious. Enemy of the USA is not the same as being enemy of the people of the USA, its more like being enemy of the government of the USA. What constitues a country to be an enemy of the USA, and who gets to decide who is the enemy of the USA? On one side, 15 individual from Saudi Arabia was involved with 9/11, 2 from UAE, one from lebanon and one from Egypt. One could argue that so many of the terrorists and their organization originated from Saudi Arabia, they should be considered as the enemy of the people of USA. Yet they are not. To the best of my knowledge, they received no rebuffs from the USA government. Why is Venezuela and other so called socialist latin american countries enemy of the USA? What did they do to harm the people of the USA? Nothing, yet they are considered the enemy of the USA. On the contrary USA over many decades wreaked havoc in latin america, caused many economical, political and human misery.
      • cema 13y ago
        No, they are not considered enemies. Simply not friends, but that is obvious, just listen to their leaders.
        • gasull 13y ago
          Venezuela sells oil to the US. There isn't an embargo like with Cuba.
          • cema 13y ago
            Exactly! The rhetoric is there, of course. Actions are somewhat different.
• rfugger 13y ago
  I don't see that his personal drama detracts from the NSA story at all. If he was being painted as a liar or a Chinese pawn, or mentally ill, or a sociopath, that would be sheer distraction -- but what happens to him is of great importance, especially to those who might follow in his footsteps.
  • no-opinion 13y ago
    This is very true. If Snowden can avoid the Bradley manning treatment, whistle blowers in the future may be more inclined to come forward.
    • btilly 13y ago
      You think it is attractive to accept a lifetime of exile, and fear that your physical safety could be compromised at any time by a (possibly forced) change in the government of the place where you live? The only outcome which would encourage future whistleblowers is being allowed to live in honor in his own country, like Daniel Ellsberg has been able to. Unfortunately it does not look like any branch of the US government is willing to offer assistance, nor does there appear to be any prospect that either political party will ever embrace that idea, no matter what happens in polls (which currently are slightly against Snowden).
      • cabalamat 13y ago
        > You think it is attractive to accept a lifetime of exile If I lived in an oppressive state then a lifetime of exile would not be too unwelcome. During the cold war, the USA was somewhere persecuted people fled to. Now it's somewhere persecuted people flee from. While it is not yet as bad as the USSR was, it seems to me that it is sleepwalking to authoritarianism.
        • btilly 13y ago
          The thing is that the USA remains a prosperous pleasant place to live..as long as you do not challenge authority. We even remain outwardly tolerant of random criticism of authority so long as there is no actual threat to power structures. Those facts are unlikely to change until we are much farther down the road to authoritarianism than we currently are.
• untog 13y ago
  This Reuters news release does not even mention the nature of the leaks that put Mr. Snowden in this situation. Does every article need to recount all the events leading up to the current situation? Where do we draw the line, exactly?
  • gasull 13y ago
    At least a paragraph, for context, would have been nice.
• downandout 13y ago
  CNN, and many other liberal "news sources" whose primary charter is to support the Obama administration can be blamed for most of this. They were minimizing the importance of the scandal, relegating those who were upset over it to the tinfoil hat club, and focusing on smearing Snowden personally from Day 1. This just shows that they have been successful in their endeavor.
  • deleted 13y ago
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  • threeseed 13y ago
    Give us a break. The reason why ALL the news sources (liberal and otherwise) covered this is because it is newsworthy. It's human nature to want to put a face to a scandal. And to be honest it's a great face. Snowden is young, exciting, mysterious, less than perfect. Add the fact that he is jetsetting around the world, visiting exciting countries with great visuals, upsetting foreign leaders and creating lots of mini scandals just keeps his story rolling. CNN especially is just a business. And Snowden is a money maker. No conspiracy needed to work this one out.
    • mc32 13y ago
      Exactly. Look at any other case like Paula Deen, or the McCann Cases or N. Holloway. They squeeze as much juice out of the stories as possible. Some are crimes deserving of _some_ attention, some are just stupidity, but they don't deserve as much coverage as they get. Yet, other than taking advantage of people's insatiable appetitive for salaciousness, scandal and the travails of the rich or pretty or the gruesome there were no conspiracies or 'invisible hand' of the [TLA agency] coordinating any of these news cycles.
    • downandout 13y ago
      That doesn't change the fact that their coverage has been incredibly friendly to the Obama administration, while being very critical of Snowden. That's called bias.
  • mmanfrin 13y ago
• pitiburi 13y ago
  I understand what you say. I really do. But you see, the thing is that the way things are, the chance of having future revelations from new whistleblowers is -I fear- very much related to the ways Snowden finds -or not- to avoid getting caught and jailed by his government.
• kintamanimatt 13y ago
  We will always tend to gravitate towards the human aspect of any event, particularly individuals. This is why we donate to charities that depict a lone starving African child instead of millions of starving children in a hot country halfway around the world. He's the face of the leaks in the same way that Colonel Sanders is the face of KFC, and a single limping dog is the face of an animal charity. Without the human and individual element people lose interest entirely. Having said that, every time his name is mentioned it needs to be tied in to the worldwide wholesale surveillance by various governments. Just like businesses need both a product and a brand, the stories should be just as much about him (the brand) and the revelations (the product). I think there's the fact that a lot of people care about what happens to someone who has delivered some vitally important information to the world at large. In a sense, by keeping him in the public spotlight he's a little bit more protected. It's also likely that this latest grant of asylum is a PR stunt, one that wouldn't have materialized had it not been for the ongoing media circus.
• javajosh 13y ago
  One problem here is that Snowden is one side, and "the NSA" is the other. It's not a person. It's not a drama. There is no coverage of how the people on the other side are scrambling to explain and excuse their behavior. That's what needs to change: the wrong-doers here need to be named and a microscope put on them, their careers, and their lives.
  • obstacle1 13y ago
    Disagree entirely. What needs to change is the current culture of individual worship. If we continue our insatiability for personal narratives, we run into situations where organizations like the NSA can choose scapegoats and blame everything on them. That would be bad, because mass surveillance programs are not the work of individuals, they are systemic constructs. So the NSA gets to hold one or two out people for crucifixion, say "see, we've made things right by punishing X and Y", and continue doing things exactly as they've always done them.
    • javajosh 13y ago
      Criminal penalties cannot be levied against organizations, only the individuals that make up those organizations. The NSA might say, "Well, I was only following orders," but that wasn't a cogent defense at Nuremberg and it's not a cogent defense now. Given that prior NSA director (Hayden) threatened to resign rather than implement similar schemes, it seems that Alexander is indeed culpable.
    • w_o 13y ago
      shhh, i think the greeks are calling. (in case this falls flat, individual worship is nothing new.)
      • obstacle1 13y ago
        Heh. I hope I didn't imply that this attitude is something new. I think, frankly, that it's too engrained in our collective consciousness by now to ever change. But offering criticism that could be acted on is, I think, more productive than expressing the fatalist position that we're all fucked.
• michaelwww 13y ago
  Everyone knows why he is on the run, so they don't need to repeat it ad nauseam. Everybody loves a good chase and his run serves to keep the story front and center.
• bajsejohannes 13y ago
  This is a very common reply for any HN post about Snowden. I agree that it would be a shame if we focused only on him, but the truth is that we don't! There is tons of coverage here about NSA, spying, restore the 4th, etc. I'd say there much, much more of that than there is about Snowden. And we do get to talk a little bit about him, no?
  • verroq 13y ago
    1. Trend gets very popular on HN 2. Somebody calls out the trend 3. Somebody calls out the `the person that calls out the trend` 4. Repeat as long as neccessary 5. Somebody calls out the meta Every time, every single time.
    • EdSharkey 13y ago
      Gettin' my meta-gripe fix for the day!
    • nsns 13y ago
      Now try to out-meta that
      • stcredzero 13y ago
        It's better to switch to something else to benefit mankind for awhile.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
• wavesounds 13y ago
  Where he ends up is very important to the goal of ending these programs. If a democratic country like Iceland or France were to take him it makes it much easier for a US Senator or Congressmen to agree that he is a whistleblower and not a traitor then if he's taken in by one of our so-called enemies. Getting some more Senators and Congressmen on his side would add tremendous energy to stoping these programs.
• quantumpotato_ 13y ago
  But we want him to survive, safely and legally
• fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  There can never be any serious political dissent in the US or the EU, or anywhere else really, when it is impossible for a person to travel freely against the wishes of any one powerful government. As Maduro puts it: "The European people have seen the cowardice and the weakness of their governments, which now look like colonies of the United States," It's an important issue in its own right.
• Kiro 13y ago
  Most people don't care about the NSA snooping but do care about the Snowden drama. Who are you to tell what's more important?
• nos4A2 13y ago
  Actually I am worried about Snowden's fate, because that will determine if there will be future whistleblowers or not. There can always be secrets, even now the NSA can just say "ok guys, we are winding all this down", while actually it continues in secret.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• danbruc 13y ago
  Just abandon him after he served his purpose seems not nice, to say the least. He did the world a favor and the world really should care that he remains well. And not talking about him may increases the risk that he just disappears when nobody looks - and I am not talking about disappearing from the media.
• cwp 13y ago
  Sure, the revelations of NSA overreach are important. But I think the Snowden story is important as well, perhaps even more important. It's not really about Snowden, personally. It's about the power and secrecy of the government. It's about individual conscience and defiance. It's about how we, as a society, deal with non-conformity. Compare Snowden with Bradley Manning. Compare Manning with previous whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg, Mark Fein or Thomas Drake. Manning's leaks were much more consequential than those that came before him, but things turned out pretty badly for Manning himself. Snowden clearly thought about how to increase the impact of the information he released, as well as how to decrease the negative consequences for himself. The next leaker, whoever it turns out to be, will undoubtedly learn from Snowden's example, just as Snowden learned from Manning. Snowden's story is important for the rest of us as well. Most of us will never have the chance to do what Snowden did. But we all face situations where doing the right thing could lead to negative consequences. Seeing what happens to Snowden, seeing how we collectively react to what he did, in the media and in person, who can avoid putting himself in Snoweden's shoes? Who can help asking, "What would my family say about me if I did something like that?" I think the focus on Snowden's story can help us figure out what kind of society we want to have, as 911 recedes into the past. Ultimately that's more important than the news that the NSA, the government's largest spy organization, is actually spying.