Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero | Hacker News Reader

Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero

newyorker.com

410 pointsdanboarder40 comments

I have to agree that in his actions the public benefit by far outwieghs the "security" risk. In a country where people have been blocked from travelling for mentioning "bomb" and "airport" in the same tweet it's not really shocking that the security apparatus is monitoring the internet. Like he mentioned there's a reason Osama's home had no internet or phone connection. So this leak only does one thing, show the extent that American's civil liberties have been eroded for something that has killed less people in total since 2000 than chocking

One can have little doubt that the real terrorists look upon all this with glee.

I imagine the perpetrators of extremist based terrorism see this erosion of civil liberties as an enormous win.

Yes. Snowden is definitely a hero, of dare I say it, historic proportions.

"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in -- and the West in general -- into an unbearable hell and a choking life." - Osama bin Laden, October 2001 http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/31/gen.binladen.interview...

When a hardcore terrorist calls the future correctly you have a huge problem

I'm suggesting that it was a planned outcome (of terrorism) to make our governments to mistrust us like this.

Bin Laden wasn't the first person to predict that an increase in terrorism would lead to an increase in "Orwellian" practices.

Takes one to know one.

There's a difference between telling the future and saying things that happen to turn out correct. That sentence has no information content beyond disliking the US. (And in general quoting Bin Laden as ambassador for human rights may also not be a very good idea.)

I have plenty of doubt.

It might be worth an ironic smirk to real terrorists, but Al Quaeda etc. are surely not out to reduce our civil liberties but to establish governments to their own liking, primarily in certain definite regions. The revelations may teach them something about the reach of US intelligence, but they'd have been foolish not to assume something like this was going on.

Will he still be a hero of historic proportions if it turns out he misconstrued the four power point slides?

There are more than four slides; only four have been released to date.

Bologna. Tell that to a veteran who sustained bodily injury.

What?

"I imagine the perpetrators of extremist based terrorism see this erosion of civil liberties as an enormous win."

You are almost certainly wrong. Most terrorists have political goals that have nothing to do with US civil liberties and more to do with foreign policy.

Regardless of his fate or the consequences of his revelations, he scarified his life for us. My respect for him is boundless.

It's also a reminder of the vital and essential difference between fighting for liberty and Ayn Rand-ish "libertarianism", which is probably what many in government believe in.

I fail to see how you managed to make a connection to "Ayn Rand-ish libertarianism" and why you think many people in government believe in it. Don't libertarians dislike government?

e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan#Objectivism

Libertarians (unlike anarchists) don't "dislike government." They dislike government that has more than a specific set of responsibilities.

That said, I don't get the Rand connection here either. I will say that NSA spying isn't necessarily incompatible with a libertarian government. Libertarians don't reject the law & order or security functions of the state. Even a libertarian government would have the power to issue warrants, subpoenas, etc. Given that, something like the recent NSA incident couldn't have been prevented with a "small libertarian government." It's cheap as hell (Google, etc, do all the work!) and leverages basic powers that would exist in the "smallest" governments.

"I will say that NSA spying isn't necessarily incompatible with a libertarian government."

I would believe it is against the very definition of libertarianism as a belief and not any political party with libertarian in its name. Taken from Wikipedia:

"Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free")[1] is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end.[2][3] This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty,[4][5] political freedom, and voluntary association. It is the antonym to authoritarianism.[6] Libertarians advocate a society with a greatly reduced state or no state at all.[7]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

I assume from your comment you never read Atlas Shrugged. If anything it calls out the issues we are seeing today in the NSA and especially the IRS. The threat of, if not use of, government power to regulate, dictate, and confiscate. The intimidation of people and thoughts not acceptable to those in power.

Her books are about personal freedom. Whether the freedom she espoused is too much for some people is another question

I still don't understand this whole thing.

Why oh why didn't Snowden's interviewer ask him to explain the tech giant's denial of PRISM? And their denial in general of government access to their data beyond the court-ordered variety we all knew about?

I really doubt all the tech giants are spinning the same prepared lie about not knowing anything. And if they're not lying, then where does that leave Snowden's accusations?

Maybe PRISM does exist, but maybe it has limits and can't access everything it wants to, but only everything that can already be scraped? In which case, who the hell cares, we all know mass data scraping and mining is going on with our public shares and comments. Maybe PRISM does this really well, but then, again.. what's the big deal?

The alternative is almost too far-fetched... that the tech giants are all lying (unlikely); that PRISM has access to their protected data without their knowledge (still unlikely); or that PRISM is fed the data via insiders within the tech giants who are like IT spies - which would make the best hollywood movie. I'd call it PRISM GAMES. Oliver Stone, stay away... you're not touching this after your 9/11 effort.

Or, quite simply, that "PRISM" is the name of the automated system for facilitating FISA requests.

Isn't the biggest challenge to this idea the letter from GOOG that made the rounds yesterday asking DoJ for the ability to publish aggregate numbers of these, which it implies will be evidence that this kind of large scale automation isn't happening?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/asking-us-government-...

Well there is a third alternative; the NSA has agents within these companies that covertly acquire the information requested and/or give direct access to the NSA without these companies' knowledge.

For some services such as Google, a single network administrator and a single fiber drop close to Google HQ would probably be all that is necessary. At that point, their own hackers could go to work.

It isn't like a well-trained NSA employee would have trouble getting a job at any of these companies.

Am I the only one who finds the hero/traitor dichotomy that the New Yorker, CNN, etc. are advancing is unhelpful and perhaps disingenuous?

Is there an article or initial analysis somewhere summarizing all that's known right now about this scary NSA/PRISM business (with links to sources ideally)? Or is it still too soon for such a thing?

I'm participating in a Google Student Ambassador program at my university and since I've always stressed the importance of privacy (especially in the era of the cloud) I feel obligated to educate my friends and colleagues about this.

All that exists so far is four vaguely worded power point slides, although their is allegedly a lot more which is not being released for unknown reasons.

He took a massive risk, to advance our society.

I would re-word that to:

He took a massive risk, to prevent further degradation of our society

Sounds like a very nasty and clever way of publishing: One of 'em calls Snowden a traitor and then another calls him a hero. Two opposing stories, all for the eyeballs.

I'd much prefer media to choose a side/ideology and then stick to it. New Yorker went in bed with snoopers earlier, so I don't see any reason to up-vote this story; even if the second author has written in favor of the people.

Choice of the medium to broadcast is, I believe, a very important factor when it comes to context of writing on state control, public policy etc.

[Edits] I've flagged this story.

The title steers the people who are interested in the story of the man himself.

But I thought the content was steering people to the real issues.

I think this article one of the better ones on the front page here now today.

The majority of of the article discusses the latest information about the NSA, and how we should hold NSA officials responsible for repeatedly lying to congress. Did you even bother to read it?

monsterix is talking about the third sentence in the article, which links to another article on the same website with the opposing view point.

Its title is "Edward Snowden is No Hero," and it contains sentiments like, "He is, rather, a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison," and, "As a result, all of Snowden’s secrets may wind up in the hands of the Chinese government—which has no commitment at all to free speech or the right to political dissent. And that makes Snowden a hero?"

Did you bother to read it?

Except that's a critique of the publication rather than pertaining to the content of the article itself, which I don't think is a fair reason to flag a posted article. Posted articles should be evaluated on their own merits.

To address monstrix point though, I don't agree that each publication should be expected to take one side. It really depends on the type of publication and their chosen structure; some publish for the "left" or the "right", while others are willing to publish articles from authors with differing political views. The New Yorker (which I happen to subscribe to) is the latter type of publication - they publish a variety of authors who argue their own viewpoints, generally a great selection of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.

One additional thought: I think it's a good thinking tool to read well-written opposing views to get inside the mind of one's rhetorical opponent in order to understand an issue from multiple viewpoints when forming opinions and arguments.

Here's a quote from the article. It touches on the three subjects you mentioned: NSA, snooping, and `Orwellian`.

"""

Another Snowden leak, which Greenwald and the Guardian published over the weekend, was a set of documents concerning another secret N.S.A. tracking program with an Orwellian name: “Boundless Informant.” Apparently designed to keep Snowden’s former bosses abreast of what sorts of data it was collecting around the world, the program unveiled the vast reach of the N.S.A.’s activities. In March, 2013, alone, the Guardian reported, the N.S.A. collected ninety-seven billion pieces of information from computer networks worldwide, and three billion of those pieces came from U.S.-based networks.

"""

@monsterix I think you stopped reading too soon. A few paragraphs in the major focus of this article indeed takes Snowden's side and sticks to it, addressing exactly the real issues (not 'steering away' from them as you claim).

This article goes further than others with links to sources of intelligence agencies denying these programs on record (basically "lying" to congress), see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/07/privacy-wy... and http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/20/nsa-chi... ), and concludes with a quote by Daniel Ellsburg:

“Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSA’s surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans’ and foreign citizens’ privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we’re trying to protect.”

It's one of the better written stories that explain the issues well and clearly supports Edward Snowden. Today I've been sending this story to friends who are seeking to understand the issues.

I do agree that the article itself is among the better written stories about NSA and snoops. The title of the post on HN, however, needs editing (tries to sway attention from NSA/snooping to the messenger).

Maybe the definition of hero should be required to have more than one datapoint.

Stop focusing on Snowden, hero or traitor, he's probably fake. The revelation is important, not the messenger.

The idea of "Snowden" is critically important -- citizens standing up against government overreach -- but him as an individual is immaterial.

Fake?

I was suggesting the Snowden interview could be intentionally staged to create a distraction from the bigger issue. Which it's done really well. Now everyone is talking about Snowden, whether he's a traitor or a hero, why this inexperienced kid had all this access to "the entire intelligence community", etc.

If he is real, he's going off the radar for his own protection. If he gets picked up by the CIA, he's going off the radar. If he's fake, he's going off the radar too. He's going to disappear regardless.

I think it's an unnecessary distraction from the core issue of the US government having unfettered spying access.

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