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Comment by Tyrannosaur | Hacker News Reader

Interesting way to put the blame on someone exposing the crimes, instead of those actually doing the crimes.

The parent comment can only be read as assigning blame if you think that ISO rejecting the NSA's proposal is a bad thing. I'd say it's a good thing since we know that the NSA's proposals are sometimes backdoored.

Irrespective of the proposal being backdoored, it was clear that the NSA refused to follow standard procedure by providing the necessary supporting materials for their proposal, so it's not difficult to see why the ISO rejected the proposal.

Your rush to judgement here is unwarranted. OP said nothing about whether what Snowden did was good or bad, just that it was a factor in the ISO's decision.

Still off. The NSA’s behaviours made this decision happen. Snowden exposing those behaviours isn’t really relavent.

True. Snowden made it happen :)

Unless you're trying to thank him.

You're arguing over proximate vs. ultimate causes, when both are causes.

This was proximately caused by Snowden disclosing what the NSA was doing. It was ultimately caused by NSA monitoring major swaths of the population.

ETA: decent summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causati...

Thanks for thatuseful distinction

I agree with other guy, that is a useful distinction and I didn’t know that’s what it was called.

I’ll still argue for ultimate cause because if it wasn’t Snowden it seems likely would have been someone else.

I’m a firm believer in don’t shoot the messenger, even if they are flawed.

Snowden helped bring those behaviors to light by being someone people could 'relate' to. Thus, calling attention to past, present, and future actions by certain agencies.

"Snowden causing this" is not a bad thing, it's a good thing. Personally, I like to be blamed for good things...

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