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Comment by camus2 | Hacker News Reader

and Al Gore is on the board of many businesses... what's the big deal with it? because she's republican?

EDIT: why am i downvoted? because i'm pointing out ex politics on both sides seat on boards or because i talked about being republican,which is not popular here?

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No, because she was a republican who was a key player in one of the worst administrations in the recent history of the US government.

I don't have any problem with people who believe in small government, defense, the rule of law, and sound fiscal policy. Lying to the American public to justify a boondoggle of a war in Iraq is different.

Al Gore, whatever his failings, doesn't have that kind of massive black mark on his resume.

You don't want to go through all the things the Clinton administration did? People can trump up just as many silly charges against him (yes, including the deaths of "hundreds of thousands"). Hackers need to mature into the real world if they want to run grown-up companies.

> Hackers need to mature into the real world if they want to run grown-up companies.

A talk-radio slogan when Bush was elected was that "the adults are in charge". How'd that work out for you?

Really, you can't talk about being "grown-up" out of one side of your mouth while basely insulting your opponents' "maturity" out of the other side just because we disagree politically.

It's not because we simply disagree politically, that's obviously fine with me, but not with anyone else in the tech community apparently. This is now the second instance in as many weeks where the tech mob is actively running out anyone who disagrees with their political views and boycotting entire companies for having the gall to hire useful people who happen to be conservative.

> having the gall to hire useful people who happen to be conservative

BS. To me it's really simple, and not about party affiliation: A strong supporter of warrantless wire tapping and bulk anonymous data collection is a terrible choice for the board of a consumer file-storage service.

Al Gore was a member of an administration that bombed Iraq, with the justification that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction.

(Coincidentally, the bombing coincided with Monica Lewinsky's testimony.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Iraq_(1998)

And Kosovo. Don't forget Kosovo.

Al Gore was one of the key figures supporting extraordinary rendition during the Clinton administration: http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2005/11/al-gore-was-for-extrao...

Supporters of warrentless wire tapping, and bulk anonymous data collection are in-charge of a company that wants me to trust them with my data. That destroys a lot of trust.

> Supporters of warrentless wire tapping, and bulk anonymous data collection are in-charge of a company that wants me to trust them with my data

This is IMHO the big, relevant one. Her role in the Iraq war may be vile ( to most of us), but this is directly in conflict with the expectations of Dropbox users. What were the Dropbox decision-makers thinking?

Presumably, one reason a company appoints people to their board is for their judgement. Many believe Rice demonstrated exceptionally-poor judgement during her public office.

Example: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/01/news/la-pn-rice-katr...

For me, the problem is her involvement with the Bush Iraq fiasco. Lying about weapons of mass destruction.

Then you must hate everyone. Everyone in Congress believed it. Multiple countries around the world believed it too. Good luck with that attitude.

Believing it != directly lying about it. You can't rightly hold it against someone that they were misled.

They believe it because Bush and Rice said so. They, on the other hand, had all of the US intelligence services to provide them with data.

Europe didn't buy the lies. There were a lot of rallies against the war. And UK is not political part of Europe. It is more like 52'nd US state.

Russia and China were meh.

> Everyone in Congress believed it.

Wrong.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml

Yeah, like those liars the Russians, the Chinese, the British, the French, ... Damn how was Bush able to brainwash the whole UN!

The Russians, the Chinese and the French, really?

Yes, all believe they Iraq had an ongoing chemical and nuclear weapons program (remember the attempt to send in inspectors). Not all agreed to going to war, but consensus they had some pretty nasty weapons.

The attempt? The UN absolutely sent inspectors. That people didn't trust Saddam and wanted to make sure that he was not fooling around is one thing. To invade the country on exaggerated or just made up claims is entirely different. I don't know about China or Russia, but from what I understand, Chirac never really bought into the "proofs" proffered by the US. As for other countries who did go to war, it's a question of how much their leadership was convinced, and how much they did it to gain political credit (eg, a whistleblower leaked information from the Danish military intelligence clearly showing they were not sure at all Saddam had any WMD).

> The attempt? The UN absolutely sent inspectors.

Fox News and certain American talk radio hosts heavily promoted the belief that adequate inspections never occurred and that Hans Blix's conclusions were not to be trusted (because he hated America?). efa's understanding of the events might be based on such sources.

I think the implication is because she's an advisor to the NSA, it does not necessarily make her the best custodian of our data.

That said, the idea that she would ever be in a position to touch any user's data from the board is absurd -- however, with appropriate amounts of tin foil, if you were looking for a way in to a big-money data-sale to the NSA, you could do worse than Condy for your board.

Probably. Condoleezza Rice has ties to Stanford and is a good pickup for overseas advice.

She sure does understand how to kill foreigners, but I'm not so sure about marketing to them.

I see we've attracted the trolls from Fark's political tab. sigh :)

Care to back up your statement with some facts with sources?

Isn't this a kind of conflict of interest? (not a snark but a real question).

No. She currently works at Stanford. She's not presiding over any legislation or anything, nor does she hold any office I'm aware of.

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