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Comment by SCAQTony | Hacker News Reader

Obama, The NSA and the usual internet suspects: Google, Yahoo, Facebook are getting their asses kicked. This man is the Thomas Paine of our day: "Give me liberty or give me death."

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> This man is the Thomas Paine of our day: "Give me liberty or give me death."

Patrick Henry is known for that quote, not Paine.

Actually he's coming off as arrogant with delusions of grandeur.

That's a predictable smear that's aimed at every whistleblower.

predictability doesn't imply innacuracy

Perhaps in the sense that predictably broken clocks are correct twice a day.

I'd say that described Thomas Paine.

Why?

The theatrics around this entire story make me question his true intentions. His answers today are anything but straightforward, and the majority of them don't actually deal with information he leaked, but rather his opinions on surveillance, politics, and thinly veiled threats to the government. If his intentions are truly to change the state of NSA's surveillance, then given his position, he should be publicizing raw information (such as PowerPoints, documents, and actual events).

What does leaking details slowly have to do with delusions of grandeur or arrogance? It seems like he is not operating as you would operate, so you are slinging unrelated insults.

I think that a slow controlled leak that keeps the story in the media is more likely to cause positive change, as I expect he does. Does this make me arrogant as well?

It's my understanding that he gave the Guardian a lot more raw data than what they've released so far.

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