Leakers, privacy activists find new home in Berlin | Hacker News Reader

Leakers, privacy activists find new home in Berlin

washingtonpost.com

69 pointschrisdl11 comments

I can't decide if this is happy or sad. On the one hand, it's great that a country that was once dominated by a totalitarian regime is a hub of new ideas about freedom of information and what government responsibility really means. On the other hand, it's really sad that one of the countries who fought so hard against that totalitarianism is no longer considered safe for these people.

If we weren't fighting for a world where citizens can speak up about the crimes of their governments, what were we fighting for?

I guess people disagree on which acts they consider criminal.

Or the definition of a criminal (and "threat") becomes consistently more expansive and vague. Out of paranoia and a strong financial incentive to do so, even while most empirical statistics say otherwise.

If we weren't fighting for a world where citizens can speak up about the crimes of their governments, what were we fighting for?

The destruction of our enemies, the annihilation of their ideology, the power of our ruling class. Ideals are overwhelmingly window dressing or there would be a hell of a lot more Edward Snowden's. Surely at least one per cent of the people the NSA recruit each year are as close to being raging hippies as you can get while joining the military industrial complex. And Snowden was the second NSA whistle blower, what, ever?

Ideals are window dressing. The Democrats were anti-war, then Obama was elected and the movement evaporated. This is how humans roll. Ideologues mostly get beaten, shot, ignored. A prophet is never hailed in his own land. Look at the vitriol RMS gets when he has been right again and again and again.

Who is "RMS"?

Edit: Ah never mind, searched for "who is RMS", got Richard Stallman.

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

Well you know the old punk saying "never trust a hippy" :-)

"I can't decide if this is happy or sad."

I'd go for happy. Concentrating people with ideas like this in a supportive area is a classic incubator for change. London in late 19th Century had all kinds of European trouble makers concentrating (and being spied on by bowler hatted detectives[1]). The ideas they had certainly had impact!

[1] http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1409

Oh so their against ID cards and stop and search for German citizens who have darker skins eh :-)

Speaking of privacy and Berlin, if you're interested in the former and located in the latter, next weekend: http://www.boell.de/en/whatever-happened-privacy

Any idea on the number of attendees? i.e. is this expected to be just a very small local meetup? Interested but would need to make extensive travel arrangements asap.

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