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Comment by w-m | Hacker News Reader

The first couple of times Lessig replies, and tries to summarize something Snowden said or give some citations, I can't follow him very well. Also I can't make out any question in his remarks. Strange interviewing style.

> But even in that context though, you made a pretty strong distinction between people who would leak in the context of CIA activities and people who'd leak in the context of what you had done. So this is again a narrower conception of what you think the appropriate role for a whistleblower is, because you had a much more visceral sense of the risks that would come out by releasing information about the CIA.

Sorry, what?

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That's an implied distinction between leaking NSA programs as they relate to the American public vs releasing international CIA related material.

Very convoluted though. Lessig is just really, really deep into the context. He's clearly been thinking of these questions for so long he lost perspective.

I read some earlier books of his that espouse a global internet content monitoring scheme for the sake of enforcing copyright. Draw your own conclusions.

feel free to quote that earlier book you read. Otherwise we can't really properly draw a conclusion can we? Lessig's campaigns and initiatives have been positive from my experience, especially the current one he's working on, to you know, fix government corruption.

Hmm, I tried to find some damning quotes but I couldn't find any. I think I was skimming the book "Code" and read parts out of context that made it seem like he was arguing in favor of something, when he wasn't.

Well, looks like I was wrong. Thanks for challenging me.

Indeed, Lessig has been less than totally radical but he's one of the strongest voices in the public discourse in FAVOR of cultural freedom. He wrote the book "Free Culture", he took on the entire government in the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act trying to stop the retroactive extension of copyright (he failed to stop it though), and he is the primary founder of Creative Commons.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more respectable person when it comes to critiquing the problems with Copyright. Lessig is completely opposed to the copyright maximalists and deserves great honor for all his valuable work.

plus you know, he's a lawyer and certainly has the ability to talk like a legal contract might read.

Lessig: The Marshall McLuhan of the internet age. Elliptical to the point of sometimes being cryptic.

I took that to mean he wanted Snowden to elaborate on why he feels that there are different ethical considerations for leaking information about CIA activities vs. NSA surveillance programs.

He definitely seems confused and nervous at the start, but got better towards the end.

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