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Comment by lern_too_spel | Hacker News Reader

> I'm sure he didn't give up his life for HTTPS everywhere and SMTP over TLS.

He gave up his life because he thought PRISM was a massive violation of the 4th Amendment, and a government that could so easily ignore the 4th Amendment could just as easily ignore the 8th. Now we know that he was completely wrong about PRISM.

> Sure, it was a bump in the road, but they aren't massively limited in what they can do.

The US intelligence agencies were limited by the 4th Amendment before the leaks and continued to be limited by the 4th Amendment after the leaks. The only problem is that the hysteria caused by people uncritically believing Snowden without looking at his documents helped lead to Trump taking over every branch of the US government. An absolute monarch is not limited by a construction, and we'll see how close Trump gets to that.

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> He gave up his life because he thought PRISM was a massive violation of the 4th Amendment, and a government that could so easily ignore the 4th Amendment could just as easily ignore the 8th. Now we know that he was wrong about PRISM.

The truth is that neither you or I know why he did so exactly, but it stands to reason that he cared about mass government surveillance in general and hoped that his leaking would prevent that through public outrage; that makes more sense than that he only cared about PRISM.

> The only problem is that the hysteria caused by people uncritically believing Snowden without looking at his documents helped lead to Trump taking over every branch of the US government.

Nonsense. Trump's demagoguery and subsequent rise had nothing to do with Snowden.

Given the dystopian path that the USA and the world are on with regard to mass government surveillance, I would say that the real problem was the lack of hysteria after his leaks. You also seem to be downplaying matters here.

> The truth is that neither you or I know why he did so exactly

I take him at his word.

> Trump's demagoguery and subsequent rise had nothing to do with Snowden

It had to do with people believing deep state conspiracy theories like Snowden did and espoused. None of that turned out to be true, but you can see that people in this very forum who have the technical background to know better still fell for it.

> I take him at his word.

Your interpretation of his words is lacking.

> It had to do with people believing deep state conspiracy theories like Snowden did and espoused.

1. Trump's rise was and is mostly about nativism, foreigners and money. It always is with demagogues.

2. "Deep state" is an incredibly badly defined term due to being used for almost anything the government does. Claiming its significance here just sets up a fruitless semantic discussion in which you can claim almost anything about whether it applies.

> Your interpretation of his words is lacking.

I'm willing to entertain this idea. Gellman says that Snowden explicitly asked him to publish the full PRISM slide deck within 72 hours as his first request. What is the correct interpretation of Snowden's words? Do you believe he cared about targeted surveillance of non-Americans enough to effectively renounce his citizenship and potentially become subject to that surveillance?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/05/11/2013-edwa...

> 1. Trump's rise was and is mostly [emphasis added] about nativism, foreigners and money. It always is with demagogues.

Then we agree. You originally said it had "nothing" to do with deep state conspiracy theories. I said that deep state conspiracy theories "helped lead" to Trump.

> 2. "Deep state" is an incredibly badly defined term due to being used for almost anything the government does.

As Trump has done. He specifically mentioned the security apparatus in his conspiracy theories. People blamed Obama for domestic spying that wasn't happening because they believed Snowden's nonsensical description of PRISM.

You disguise deflection with pedantry.

Let me repeat:

> I should have said "nothing fundamentally". I'm sure he didn't give up his life for HTTPS everywhere and SMTP over TLS..

> The reality is that the public moved on more or less unperturbed and that the US intelligence agencies did the same. Sure, it was a bump in the road, but they aren't massively limited in what they can do. The US being a surveillance state is closer than ever."

Both these ideas still stand.

Yes, PRISM was misinterpreted, but the larger matter was exposing a massively overpowered surveillance apparatus. An apparatus that is more powerful than before. Had Snowden known the lack of effect of his actions, he would not have taken them. This is what you seem to miss, tunneling on PRISM and deflecting to Trump's rise.

> The reality is that the public moved on more or less unperturbed

The public wasn't unperturbed. The ones who didn't know any better believed Snowden's PRISM cock and bull story and rabidly froth about it to this day. The ones who knew better got the phone metadata program shut down, just like the email metadata program that Obama had already shut down according to Snowden's leaks. There were no other programs that could possibly be interpreted as illegal, the government implemented oversight and reporting to make sure the legal programs weren't abused, and the tech companies fixed their security postures to account for state actors that can tap international WANs.

> but they aren't massively limited in what they can do

Once again, the 4th Amendment massively limited them in what they could do. Any recent reductions in the effectiveness of the 4th Amendment are due solely to the concentration of power in Trump, which was helped by conspiracy theorists like Snowden and those who fooloshly believed him.

> The public wasn't unperturbed. The ones who didn't know any better believed Snowden's PRISM cock and bull story and rabidly froth about it to this day.

You're in too deep. Most people don't even know about Snowden. The public is much larger than just a bunch of techies. And that public essentially didn't give a fuck.

> Once again, the 4th Amendment massively limited them in what they could do.

On paper, not in practice. Every since 9/11 the balance of security vs. liberty has been off. The point stands that Snowden changed nothing fundamentally about that (ongoing) slide into dystopia.

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