5 ms·

Marc Andreessen says Snowden is a traitor

42 points by sabelo 12y ago

2close4comfort 12y ago
Well I guess he falls in the "I am complicit giving over your stuff to the government" side of things. Good to know if you are a conscious consumer.
contingencies 12y ago
Ooh! Big capitalist profiting vastly from status quo throws in lot with conservatism! News at 9. Trusting any of these filthy rich buffoons, including governments, is imbecilic. The only way to change the system is through decentralized, bottom-up, participation-based (ie. opt-in) change.
aerolite 12y ago
moron
Fuzzwah 12y ago
Currently active discussion going on in prior submission of same link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852246
- dang 12y ago
  Thank you. Burying this one as dupe. ("Burying" means lowering in rank, but not killing the item, so conversation can continue in the thread.)
gatehouse 12y ago
I'm inherently suspicious of a one-word quote, but it seems to be essentially what he said. I don't think "everybody knew" that the NSA was moonlighting in the drug war: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...
wutbrodo 12y ago
Leaving aside the meat of the article, I found this quote interesting: """ Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """ Does anyone else find this to be the case too? I feel like the actions of taxpayer-funded agencies like the CIA/NSA have been despicable for decades, and I'm puzzled as to why this is the first time that people seem to actually care (which, don't get me wrong, is great). For those of us who gave a shit before Snowden, I feel like there was a sense of being resigned to the fact that most people (even in tech circles like HN) simply don't care; similar to something like climate change. I know that these revelations are relatively novel in that they involve surveillance of Americans' data as well as foreign nationals, but that was the case for warrantless wiretapping in the 2000s. That made news, but there DEFINITELY wasn't as much fuss made about it (to my bafflement at the time).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jgon 12y ago
  This is now the bog standard reply of the closet fascists who support the NSA and their rampant spying. They've had to switch to this response because their previous response "You're just being paranoid", has been utterly blown apart by the Snowden revelations and thank god for that. Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of whether or not these activities are moral and something we should accept in our society, but at least the second reply doesn't actively shut down the conversation. Whereas before they could claim that we are being paranoid and there would be no real comeback to that, and thus our points could be safely dismissed, at least now one can reply "No we shouldn't be surprised, and now let's discuss whether or not it is something that should continue." I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world were the exact people talking about how not torturing was what separated our good hearted security agents from those savages employed by "evil empires" such as Russia or China. At the end of day, I am heartened because now at least the cards are on the table and these activities can't just be denied as the figments of paranoid imaginations. The conversation is moving along a bit, however slowly.
seanhandley 12y ago
A "textbook traitor".... and which textbook would that be?
higherpurpose 12y ago
I started disliking this guy since he coerced Oculus Rift into a sale to Facebook (and I'm assuming soon Imgur, too). He's probably too worried about his investments and what the Snowden revelations impact will be on them, and that's why he's calling him a traitor.
midhem 12y ago
History is written by the victors. Traitors? heroes? It is just a point of view, depending on who win at then end. We now know on which side Marc Andressen is seated.
jsmcgd 12y ago
I don't understand Marc's position. He says that foreign governments knew about the spying but that Edward Snowden is a traitor for telling them what they already knew? So what damage is ES supposed to have done exactly? It is public record that terrorist organizations knew about intelligence services surveillance against them, which I suspect everyone on the planet would guess would be happening. So how has ES acted against the interests of the American people? It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous. I'm deeply disappointed :(
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  Knowing that someone is spying on you is worth much less than knowing that they use Camera Model XYZ, which transmits on XYZ frequency and the camera is located at coordinates XX, YY.
  - jsmcgd 12y ago
    As far as I am aware no information has been revealed that is specific to a national security target only information that targets millions of innocent civilians. I would hope and expect that the intelligence community has much more invasive and targeted tools they deploy against genuine national security threats than what has been revealed so far. Edit: To clarify, I'm sure Al-Qaeda already knew not to trust any computer, or cell phone that they used because they were probably completely compromised. So nothing that has been revealed by ES would change their behaviour. Edit 2: Also, it doesn't matter. The most important thing for our civilization is not personal or national security but our democracy. A 'security state' is never democratic. Its people are never free.
tptacek 12y ago
I would not under almost any circumstances, including the revelation that he was working directly with the FSB† when he decided what to leak, use the word "traitor" to describe a national security leaker. In addition to being inaccurate, the word sucks all the oxygen out of the room and makes it impossible to have a dispassionate discussion about what happened. But if you can get past Andreesen's unfortunate choice of framing, this story is useful as an indicator of how captive we are to our filter bubbles. The valence of Andreesen's feelings about Snowden isn't at all weird. Lots of people share the perspective that Snowden is doing more harm than good, but people on HN seem to have a hard time believing that. † Which I doubt; it's too interesting, and the most boring narrative always wins.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - tptacek 12y ago
    The crime of treason, alone among all other crimes, is defined in the text of Article III, and that definition requires intent, either to harm the US or to overtly aid the cause of an enemy of the US. I don't think there's a credible fact pattern that supports such a charge in Snowden's case. I do think Snowden should face criminal charges. Treason is just not one of them.
kumar303 12y ago
"The fallout from the Snowden leaks have hurt U.S. technology firms' ability to sell their products overseas" What an idiotic, capitalistic claim. So Andreeson calls him a traitor because "business is now harder." Huh? Nevermind invasion of privacy and injustice.
napoleoncomplex 12y ago
Yes, let's worry about Silicon Valley's bottom line in all of this. Brave warriors, always on the ropes. It's always surprising when one discovers the Ellisons and the Andreessens of the world. Luckily their type is a rare exception in the Valley though.
hockeybias 12y ago
Traitor.
nabla9 12y ago
I'm an European and treason and espionage are political crimes. If Snowden is a traitor, then he spied on my behalf against U.S. government. For me and many other citizens of so called free word he is a hero. He should get a medal. In U.S. media the discussion centers around Americans being spied and if that is illegal. As a non-American, I see U.S. UK and other mass surveillance countries as constantly attacking me personally. As more and more people feel the same way, it will eventually have real consequences to U.S. interests. It might take generation or two, but it will happen. First world countries are very interdependent and this kind of attacking harms us all. Even in the cynical machtpolitik world view this can be seen as shortsighted strategy.

42 points by sabelo 12y ago

Well I guess he falls in the "I am complicit giving over your stuff to the government" side of things. Good to know if you are a conscious consumer.

contingencies 12y ago

Ooh! Big capitalist profiting vastly from status quo throws in lot with conservatism! News at 9. Trusting any of these filthy rich buffoons, including governments, is imbecilic. The only way to change the system is through decentralized, bottom-up, participation-based (ie. opt-in) change.

aerolite 12y ago

moron

Fuzzwah 12y ago

Currently active discussion going on in prior submission of same link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852246

dang 12y ago
Thank you. Burying this one as dupe. ("Burying" means lowering in rank, but not killing the item, so conversation can continue in the thread.)

gatehouse 12y ago

I'm inherently suspicious of a one-word quote, but it seems to be essentially what he said. I don't think "everybody knew" that the NSA was moonlighting in the drug war: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...

wutbrodo 12y ago

Leaving aside the meat of the article, I found this quote interesting: """ Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """ Does anyone else find this to be the case too? I feel like the actions of taxpayer-funded agencies like the CIA/NSA have been despicable for decades, and I'm puzzled as to why this is the first time that people seem to actually care (which, don't get me wrong, is great). For those of us who gave a shit before Snowden, I feel like there was a sense of being resigned to the fact that most people (even in tech circles like HN) simply don't care; similar to something like climate change. I know that these revelations are relatively novel in that they involve surveillance of Americans' data as well as foreign nationals, but that was the case for warrantless wiretapping in the 2000s. That made news, but there DEFINITELY wasn't as much fuss made about it (to my bafflement at the time).

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jgon 12y ago
This is now the bog standard reply of the closet fascists who support the NSA and their rampant spying. They've had to switch to this response because their previous response "You're just being paranoid", has been utterly blown apart by the Snowden revelations and thank god for that. Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of whether or not these activities are moral and something we should accept in our society, but at least the second reply doesn't actively shut down the conversation. Whereas before they could claim that we are being paranoid and there would be no real comeback to that, and thus our points could be safely dismissed, at least now one can reply "No we shouldn't be surprised, and now let's discuss whether or not it is something that should continue." I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world were the exact people talking about how not torturing was what separated our good hearted security agents from those savages employed by "evil empires" such as Russia or China. At the end of day, I am heartened because now at least the cards are on the table and these activities can't just be denied as the figments of paranoid imaginations. The conversation is moving along a bit, however slowly.

seanhandley 12y ago

A "textbook traitor".... and which textbook would that be?

higherpurpose 12y ago

I started disliking this guy since he coerced Oculus Rift into a sale to Facebook (and I'm assuming soon Imgur, too). He's probably too worried about his investments and what the Snowden revelations impact will be on them, and that's why he's calling him a traitor.

midhem 12y ago

History is written by the victors. Traitors? heroes? It is just a point of view, depending on who win at then end. We now know on which side Marc Andressen is seated.

jsmcgd 12y ago

I don't understand Marc's position. He says that foreign governments knew about the spying but that Edward Snowden is a traitor for telling them what they already knew? So what damage is ES supposed to have done exactly? It is public record that terrorist organizations knew about intelligence services surveillance against them, which I suspect everyone on the planet would guess would be happening. So how has ES acted against the interests of the American people? It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous. I'm deeply disappointed :(

mikeyouse 12y ago
Knowing that someone is spying on you is worth much less than knowing that they use Camera Model XYZ, which transmits on XYZ frequency and the camera is located at coordinates XX, YY.
- jsmcgd 12y ago
  As far as I am aware no information has been revealed that is specific to a national security target only information that targets millions of innocent civilians. I would hope and expect that the intelligence community has much more invasive and targeted tools they deploy against genuine national security threats than what has been revealed so far. Edit: To clarify, I'm sure Al-Qaeda already knew not to trust any computer, or cell phone that they used because they were probably completely compromised. So nothing that has been revealed by ES would change their behaviour. Edit 2: Also, it doesn't matter. The most important thing for our civilization is not personal or national security but our democracy. A 'security state' is never democratic. Its people are never free.

tptacek 12y ago

I would not under almost any circumstances, including the revelation that he was working directly with the FSB† when he decided what to leak, use the word "traitor" to describe a national security leaker. In addition to being inaccurate, the word sucks all the oxygen out of the room and makes it impossible to have a dispassionate discussion about what happened. But if you can get past Andreesen's unfortunate choice of framing, this story is useful as an indicator of how captive we are to our filter bubbles. The valence of Andreesen's feelings about Snowden isn't at all weird. Lots of people share the perspective that Snowden is doing more harm than good, but people on HN seem to have a hard time believing that. † Which I doubt; it's too interesting, and the most boring narrative always wins.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- tptacek 12y ago
  The crime of treason, alone among all other crimes, is defined in the text of Article III, and that definition requires intent, either to harm the US or to overtly aid the cause of an enemy of the US. I don't think there's a credible fact pattern that supports such a charge in Snowden's case. I do think Snowden should face criminal charges. Treason is just not one of them.

kumar303 12y ago

"The fallout from the Snowden leaks have hurt U.S. technology firms' ability to sell their products overseas" What an idiotic, capitalistic claim. So Andreeson calls him a traitor because "business is now harder." Huh? Nevermind invasion of privacy and injustice.

napoleoncomplex 12y ago

Yes, let's worry about Silicon Valley's bottom line in all of this. Brave warriors, always on the ropes. It's always surprising when one discovers the Ellisons and the Andreessens of the world. Luckily their type is a rare exception in the Valley though.

hockeybias 12y ago

Traitor.

nabla9 12y ago

I'm an European and treason and espionage are political crimes. If Snowden is a traitor, then he spied on my behalf against U.S. government. For me and many other citizens of so called free word he is a hero. He should get a medal. In U.S. media the discussion centers around Americans being spied and if that is illegal. As a non-American, I see U.S. UK and other mass surveillance countries as constantly attacking me personally. As more and more people feel the same way, it will eventually have real consequences to U.S. interests. It might take generation or two, but it will happen. First world countries are very interdependent and this kind of attacking harms us all. Even in the cynical machtpolitik world view this can be seen as shortsighted strategy.