U.S. asks Hong Kong to extradite Snowden
usatoday.com
usatoday.com
So it's OK for senior administration officials to leak information without authorization, about trying to prosecute someone for leaking information without authorization...
[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in...
Chances Hong Kong will extradite Snowden? Very low I think.
And they're urging Hong Kong to do it quickly. I wonder what the result of that will be.
This is totally disrespectful. I would call this extortion. Not good for bilateral relations.
They know that they each spy on each other. Friendly nations spy on each other; foes spy on each other. If nations know they spy on each others' 'national secrets' and don't publicly do much about it, I don't think they'll care much about the more quotidian things each other might record about their masses of people. Would the US care that France recorded American civilian citizens comms? I don't think so. Same for France. They might make some public fuss about it, but they care more about the spying on 'sensitive' information --and even then it's more of a 'game'.
Hope the irony isn't lost on them.
What a crazy, dangerous game.
Haven't they been playing the "he is crazy" card?
The issue is important, and certainly, if some interesting new thing happens with interesting new HN-worthy implications, we should probably like to have a new conversation about it. Upvoting contentless fluff, however, will not "get us closer to some kind of progress" any more than clapping in a movie theatre will communicate your pleasure to the cast and crew of the movie.
I know you're trying to illustrate via absurdity, but such things do have real impact. Each member of the theater shares the clapping experience and absorbs the social capital of how good the movie is, giving them a metric for recommending the movie to friends without risk of embarrassing themselves. If they loved the movie but hear no applause or other corroboration, their enthusiasm for spreading positive buzz about the movie is vastly diminished. ("Yeah, it was okay, I guess." doesn't put asses in seats.) Meanwhile, the cast and crew receive feedback based on the ticket sales created by word of mouth, which still remains the most powerful marketing tool in existence.
It's easy to blame "the news cycle" for allowing important issues to fall into the memory hole, but I say We The People are equally culpable. The line must be drawn here, on a matter so fundamental to the nature of state power in a newly digital world, and in a rare case where the voters and ideologies of both parties are mostly in agreement, even if their leaders are too cowardly to stand up.
I think I will never get the point of those "why is this on HN?" posts. HN's frontpage is not redacted by editors, but filled with posts people have upvoted.
I welcome these posts because they are frequently accompanied by a quality of discussion that is unique to the HN community.
Seriously though.. I thought I was getting annoyed by the NSA things as well, but then it let up a little, I remembered what HN is usually like, and now I'm happy it's back. As long as it at least drowns out the super trivial things without taking over everything, and as long as the issue persists, that's what I want to read intelligent people talking about.
If "we" don't stand up, who will? "We" create the infrastructure used against everyone. We have a fucking duty, actually. Not to take over HN completely with repeat posts about the same thing, but to discuss this issue, every aspect of it, and seriously. It takes as long as it takes. The problem is not solved until it is solved. That is the difference between things that matter, and things you can just talk about for a while and then just stop. Like gimmicks and symbols and marketing -- stupid trends of masses to milk, instead of wise ideas for persons to realize.
I love posts about clever hacks, but changelogs we can discuss anywhere, and not living in the US I personally never cared for that Silicon Valley stuff much, either; though I realize that I'm at a site in no small part driven by that, and being a guest I do accept it. But colour me happy exactly for that reason, because HN exceeded all of my expectations in the last weeks -- I learned so much from reading the discussions, and read so many comments that made me feel optimistic about the ability of people to think. I wouldn't want to miss any of it, and am keen to hear about future developments. Sorry.
He was suggesting that your comment is good enough to be posted as a standalone entry on here, if you want to do that go to the top and click "Submit", the rest is pretty much self-explanatory.
I agree with you by the way.
Not that I want to diminish my post, I stand behind every word, but I also put "we" in quotes because of the above, because I really mean you guys, the people who really know their shit, the people who don't feel helpless when confronted with math, the people who build the tools I use and write the code I learn the pitiful little things I know from, the people who stand a snowball's chance in hell to ever get hired by any of the agencies or corporations that do these things, because I really don't, you can take my word for it. When it comes to democracy or philosophy, all are equal, and in that sense I'm do not want to shrink from anything; but when it comes to HN per se, I do not consider myself a peer (this time that's a compliment) and do not want to pretend I am one, I get carried away enough as is sometimes ^^
It is very flattering though, thanks.
Right now on the front page of HN seven different articles -- that's 23% of all stories on the front page -- are "Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong".