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Comment by Kapura | Hacker News Reader

>We encourage you to engage us in regular exchanges of ideas or thoughts about approaches to curing or mitigating the hugely suboptimal political culture of the United States.

This is what I want. Snowden has not acted like he's doing these things for the greater good of the U.S.; on the contrary, he seems determined to demonise the government. I am in no doubt that the government has done some shady shit, but you must have a path forward. If Snowden were willing to engage in "approaches to curing or mitigating the hugely suboptimal political culture" then I would be more willing to be on his side.

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You don't have to be a composer to be a critic. In other words, the talent and courage required to expose corruption may be different from the talent and courage required to fix it. Why should one person be expected to do everything?

Of course he's not expected to fix everything, but is it really fair that he leaks this information (which has, in my view, damaged the Government regardless of the legality of their schemes) and then he's not responsible for it any more? It seems, too, that he should be interested and involved in what actions are taken in the US to prevent such abuses of power from continuing or happening again in the future. Are these really unreasonable expectations of Snowden?

I suppose it depends on which you consider more important: the government itself, or the ideals it ostensibly represents. One can easily come to the conclusion that the damage to the government is acceptable, if the damage is necessary to correct damage the government has done to the people.

I have no doubt that Snowden is interested in what actions are taken to prevent future abuses. Reading his statements after his identity was revealed, it's clear he left not because he doesn't care, but because he saw leaving the US as the best way to preserve his ability to contribute to his cause and remain safe.

Has the path forward not been made clear by Snowden's revelations? It's crystal clear to me.

Clearly the US should unilaterally stop all signals intelligence and trust all other nations to do the same.

Clearly the American intelligence services should act within the American constitution.

Clearly some of Snowden's revelations are nothing to do with that.

Enlighten me.

The role of a whistleblower is to bring the abuse to light, not to fix the problem.

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