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Comment by cdooh | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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