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In case you're interested, here's some background:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY

Vanity and altruism are not mutually exclusive
We owe snowden big time

As one who has only loosely followed the Snowden story, I like what he did. I'm just sorry that the mess he's gotten himself into has contributed to our increasingly tense relations with Russia. Really the authorities should be negotiating with him so he can come home and return whatever documents he's still sitting on instead of making him out to be a villain and traitor when all he did was cry foul in a very public way.

Well, many Americans don't really care about all of this. Which is pretty sad. How can they be this ignorant?
If I was in his place, I would have done it too. After all, spying upon half the world, is a thing much greater than me.

i think it's by design. defund education, control the major media outlets.. and control the people. last week's episode of vice was a good example. there are people in texas who rely on water/rain for sustenance, and there hvae been droughts the past few years. they still deny that the drought could be caused by climate change.

He did it for altruistic motives, to fight for our privacy online. And we should be thankful to him for that. If there was no Snowden, then no one would have ever known about the dirty work being done by the NSA.

Simply put, in my eyes Snowden is a Hero. He did great thing, he opened people's eyes. We are being spied, invigilated and our online privacy is a joke. Now people know there is no freedom in the internet.

Good points, I concurr. It's also worth nothing that the socalled traitors and/or whistleblowers are often character assasinated by those beeing exposed, I think that's quite silly, and I think it would be better to say nothing about the case in those instances. But I guess lies and deceipt is part of the spy world..

To me he is a hero, an internet champion. His revelation helped show how big a threat five eyes(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes) pose to electronic communication.

Don't really agree with either of the available choices. Poll needs more options.

It is far far beyond simple spying.  Imagine a search engine with the worlds information.

You have political opponents? you look in the search engine where they are, and order a kill squad
Your business is doing bad?  you look in the search engine what others are doing, ruin their business opportunities/deals
You don't like some person of your old class?  you ruin his relationship using their data
You have a whistle-blower in your team?   you take his information, look for everything that is negative, make mass media broadcast it. Try to kill him without trial;

The possibilities are endless



I do not have PRISM access to look up the actual data on other Americans. Perhaps one of the NSA members could reply in this thread.

True. With the type of info they collect they must have some sort of a search engine, imagine gaining access to it, the things you could do with it :o

he only a mother-fucker

Why do you think so? I'd appreciate some reasoning here. The only thing he fucked was the government, and we need more people like him.

Sure are, but most if not all of those things are illegal, and if something suddenly started to happen to you, I'm pretty sure you'd know about some suspects. And if anyone was caught doing any of that stuff, they political career would most certainly be toast for every if it was proved that they were involved.

But fast forward to the future: There will be assasinations conducted by mini-drones carrying lethal does of poison, administering it through putting a little bit inside a glass of milk, mimicking a mosquito bite at night etc. And research within biochemistry and medical profession will have advanced so much that many common medical incidents can be faked. Heartattack - no problem, let's administer a poision that can make the heart stop and then the substance will simply be undetectable after the incident, because the body simply breaks it down.

I guess many such substances already exist, but I would think the mini-drone technology is not quite yet there, but it will come.

And new security measures for important people will include, in addition to traditional anti missile weapons etc. environments where not even a bug can enter.

So in the future, we will see that some traitor exposed some national secrets, he then went to seek asylum in Russia or wherever, and then shortly thereafter he dies form food poisioning or any other kind of disease or condition that quickly can make a man die. And there would be no records of anything, there was nobody travelling internationally to conduct an assasination. Welcome to the cozy future.

The CIA does not care about legality. They do what they think is necessary. No matter if this is poisoning people, testing lethal medicines on soldiers, torturing people, human experimentation or whatever. Its a good job  :)
 

I've read abot that sick stuff. It made me less of a human knowing about all that shit.

I guess your last sentence is kind of a joke, but if anyone works for the CIA, I'm sure they feel it's all worth it when they're left behind in some shithole and left to rot, because they were 'expendable'. Sounds fun!

he had many choices how to figure out what US government did wrongly but he made bad choice and fucked her motherland. bullshit

without a doubt Snowden is a hero and if it wasn't for him we would be still in the dark, and I'm sure he knows more and didn't leak informations that could endanger american lives but I bet there are even worse stuff that we don't know of yet, but what we know already is quite disturbing and I'm glad to see some countries starting to retaliate such as Germany and their recent annoucement to stop using Cisco and other american companies equipement since they are being bugged by the NSA, (this will push the companies concerned to lobby and have their equipment spy free if they want to keep doing business in the internationnal market)

my issue with snowden is.. he's not living in russia. as bad as the U.S. is, i'd think russia is an even worse place to live (in terms of individual rights and the government speaking for the people).

he's sitting on all of this valuable information.. russia could easily extort or force it out of him. i don't think he intended to land in russia.

What choices did he have? Go to his superiors, responsible for the whole thing and ask them apologize? People should know what their taxes are used for.

yes your tax was used on Iraq war but iraq people be happy on that

You stand correct, unfortunately, in most of the world we have governments that think they can feed off the people and not caring for the people.

You're kidding, right? Last I checked, maybe up to 2 million dead between sanctions and conflict, a destroyed country and economy, a high number of birth defects due to the type of weapons used on them, etc.. and they're happy?? What do you have to do to make them angry, I wonder?  ::)

Anyway, do you have anything to back that up? Because according to the March 2012 polls of the Doha Institute, you're obviously wrong.

at least before Iraq war there was no democracy.

where is Snowden now? Russia.

2 mother-fuckers

i suggest he should go to north korea or cuba.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/WORLD/meast/03/19/iraq.post.election/t1larg.iraq.elections.afp.g.jpg

against war? you forgot 9.11

Russian intelligence will use him for everything he's worth.

And don't dimiss the fact that Putin enjoys pointing nose at America, so having Snowden there and protecting him is like smiling to Obama, and at the same time giving him a sharp elbow, then smile again, and pat him gently on the back. 'We're such good friends!'

So, you admit that you made up the "Iraqi are happy with the invasion". And in relation to democracy, not that America wanted democracy in Iraq, but even if that was a fortunate side effect of the invasion, remember there are more ways than one to skin a rabbit; beating it with a hammer until there's nothing left doesn't tend to be a good way though.

As for Snowden, what does it say about the "West" that he had to run to Russia so that he could ensure his freedom, and maybe even life?



Not exactly always against war, but I think you should have very strong arguments in favor of it; such was not the case for Iraq, amongst many other wars.

And do you know what was the first 9/11? Because it wasn't in 2001, but it was worse by far...

Good thinking.

it worse by far....   hallo friend,  hundreds of years ago there was no USA  ;D

i do not think iraq war was invasion, sorry.

it was liberation !!!

Well, I was talking about 1973, and yes the USA was very much responsible for it. Maybe the name Pinochet rings a bell?

In relation to the Iraqi war, you're in the minority if you think it was "liberation"... I'm aware of 2 polls that directly or indirectly touch upon how the Iraqi people felt about it: the Doha poll I mentioned and a poll by the Brookings Institution. By a vast majority the people were unhappy with the economy, security, and their lives in general. When asked who they viewed as a threat to their countries, the United States and Israel were the highest threats to them. If you're in the receiving end, that spells invasion to me, not liberation.

in religion point of view what you called '' vast majority'' in Iraq is educated to hate US and Isreal for many years. That is the point.

so in my opinion sometimes vast majority doesn't make any sense, a good example is that german majority voted for Hilter to power before world war II.

Pinochet case in 1973 was a part of Cold war against the spread of communism, nothing wrong .

Yeah, right, because every Arab hates the west, isn't it? Come on, you've got to be smarter than that... besides, the polls are public, online, and cover a broad range of subjects. It isn't simple hate mongering; it's that people tend to hate you when you're killing their friends and family left and right. And whatever happened to your "they loved the invasion", for it to move to "they're educated to hate Americans"?

And Hitler had no such majority voting him to power. He was appointed by the then president, Hindenburg, to lead a coalition government since none of the parties had been able to form a majority government. It was only after this that he was able to effectively seize power, by either banning or harassing the political opposition. But even ignoring all that, hindsight is 20/20 isn't it?

As for Pinochet: murdering thousands of Chileans, torturing over 30000, maybe up to 200000 forced into exile and then persecuted by the secret police, more hundreds of thousands that were forced to flee due to the economic crisis caused by the measures being forced by Washington, and you see "nothing wrong" there?? Please learn some history; at the very least it will stop you looking like a fool.  >:(

1, i lived in EAST more than 30 years and live in WEST world more than 14 years, i had 2 University degrees.

2, my personl experience told me that how evil communism did.

both the 2 points told me that at least i am not so foolish as you look at ..  ;D

save time my friend, just answer me a simple question:  when 9.11 tragedy happened, did you feel happy or unhappy?  ::)

A long life and university degrees don't automatically translate to a wise person. And what does my feelings about 9/11 have to do with any of this?

you refused to answer my simple question, you are afraid of answering it. but you had told me the answer with your stupid question.

look, i often watch TV news , some Arab children carrying guns, burning United States flag  and so on ..

you said they are NOT educated to do so ??

I didn't refuse to answer your question, I only asked how it was relevant to any of this. As soon as you can provide a satisfactory answer, I'll answer your question.

And I'm sorry to say, but I suspect you mostly watch propaganda. I suggest you avoid mainstream media, because you're never going to learn anything about the outside world through it.

In democratic countries, medias are free and open. Only the authoritarian State media spread propaganda. 8)

I have many good friends from Arab world, eg. Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan etc.

I think I know much better what they think and i respect their thoughts because I know what freedom of speech is.

You avoided a direct answer from a simple question. It already shows there is  guilty conscience in your heart.

No need to answer my question, I knew what you thought.

Guilty conscience in my heart for 9/11? You knew what I thought? This is getting ridiculous; are you going to accuse me of having participated in the 9/11 attacks next? And as I said, I don't mind answering the question if it is in anyway relevant to what we were discussing; but instead, you seem to be using it to run away from my previous arguments. Are they that hard to answer honestly, or did you never thought about them and are desperately trying to evade them?

And "In democratic countries, medias are free and open"? "Only the authoritarian State media spread propaganda"? Now I hope you really are just joking; have you never heard of "Faux" News? One serious look at the mainstream media, in the US for example, will tell you how wrong you are. Please stop watching that stuff and use online sources for news...  ::)

Chicken-Duck talk, let's stop here, i don't wanna waste my time on you any more, sorry


http://www.middle-east-info.org/gateway/womenchildabuse/palestinian-child-soldiers.jpg


poor children,  what a shame  >:(

All media propagates their own opinion inside it - no matter if you watch US, China,Russia, European or Afghanistan TV.  Some may be more obvious than others to the perceiver.
The west has programs like Operation Mockingbird, China/Russia and others have their own variant.

no!  west world full of multi-voice but countries such as china, north korea NOT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ROFL I GOT MY OWN POLL OPTION! I was half-asleep and I read that and was like wait...what?? then started cracking up at my desk.

I know I'm probably wasting my time here, but I'll give it another go anyway...

This isn't a black and white issue: dictatorships only have state propaganda, and democracies have free press; it's more complicated than that. While in a totalitarian state the press is usually under direct control, in more open societies the press still has to respond to its owner's interests. That is to say, the press is restricted in its speech by the people that write the paychecks of those that work there. If they don't like what you're saying, they'll cut it out of the news, and if you insist on it you're fired.

There might appear to be freedom for discussion and different ideas going around in the mainstream media, but this is mainly in subjects that don't really affect the interests of the business owners; those with real power. That is not to say these exchanges aren't important, they are: so for example, you might see a lot of debate going around about gay rights. That's great, and it will affect the lives of many people, but ultimately it's meaningless to the "owners". Now look back at the reporting before the Iraq War we were talking about yesterday: where was the debate? There was none. The news were full of "Iraq has WMDs" and "they were responsible for 9/11" or some such nonsense, both of which were obvious lies.

To further illustrate this point, look at the cases of those that dared to speak against the establishment; you have multiple cases, just in this last decade if you want: Manning, jailed, tortured, held for an endless time before even getting the chance at a trial (nevermind a real trial); Assange and Wikileaks which despite in many respects being little different than the many other mainstream news organizations that printed the same stuff they did, they alone have been persecuted; the attacks on some journalists at the Associated Press; etc.. And even if you'd think they should be safe going through proper channels and reporting wrong doing to their superiors and stuff, the cases of Thomas Drake and William Binney for example show that those in power won't care, but will still hunt you down and shut you up first and foremost, in whatever way they deem convenient.

Snowden saying that he wants to help the government reminds of the guy who wanted to live with wild bears. That is a naive position. Government will always try to grow and increase its power. Liberty is a threat to government. If you try to promote freedom with the government: the very moment the government takes you seriously you will end up like that guy trying to be friends with wild bears.
You will get eaten.

Your input and time was not wasted. I do think you speak the truth. It is very sad its like this. Could it ever be changed? And I guess most people would never care?

Snowden is part of their plan. Cause if he wasn't and spilling info that they wanted to keep quiet he would be sleeping with the fishes. A normal guy in hiding would never go on a show and if he did he would have bags under eyes for lack of sleep, be malnourished for not being able to eat for fear of losing his life. This guy looks like he is very happy for supposedly having a price on his head looks more like hes enjoying the celebrity status.. I have no clue what the plan will be but I know he is part of it.

Snowden is foolish and is very hubris. Of course someone engineered for him to get stuck in Russia, and he doesn't know it. It is very plausible for things to get set up the way it did, for him to be stuck at the airport for hours (people are capable of planning scenarios this complex). He thinks he's doing the right thing, and he thinks hes a hero. Really he is being used as leverage to make a corrupt government look better compared to a less corrupt one. To leave documents in Hong Kong, there is no guarantee that the Chinese wouldn't get this info. One mistake, and this info is theirs; leave it on a computer hooked to the internet and its theirs, if the government even knows who has the information, its compromised, no matter how trustworthy these journalists are, assuming they weren't spies.
For him to alert the world of their privacy being invaded may have been good for the long run, but how it happened may more than negate this benefit.

I heard people are trying to elect him from the nobel peace prize,  I kinda think he does deserve to get one or some sort of reward for sacrificing is life in the USa

Snowden is nothing but a whistle blower. The traitors are the politicians in the U.S. Congress, executives and lobbyists of Corporate America and U.S. Chamber of Commerce who made them do it, who ratified PNTR Communist China in 2000 knowing full well that this action will provide Communist China with the funding, technology and manufacturing know-how and all these with multiple applications; commercial, space and military. U.S. corporations also provided training for Communist Chinese engineers and technicians in high-tech manufacturing processes. Now the Communist Chinese have a robust economy, military and space programs while we are broke and cutting back military funding and pretty much on everything.

Oh, sorry; this ended up being buried and I didn't get to answer.

Most people have one (and depending on where you live, sometimes more than one) job, a family to take care of, bills they must pay, and a life they want to lead with as little trouble as possible; dealing with stuff like this on top of it all is not always easy and in the end, until they realize how it affects their lives directly, they won't do anything about it. And even then there will always be a lot of apathy, a lot of people who think they can't do anything about it, so it's just better not to waste time with it.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are those who would say that by comparison with people half a century ago, people today are far more engaged and far less tolerant of the abuses we're here discussing. As an example, during much of the Vietnam War you could see a lot of the information about what was going on in the media, and quite simply, nobody cared about it. It took several years before people even acknowledged what was going on and the opposition to the war really started taking hold. In contrast to that, you had opposition to the war in Iraq before it was even officially declared, and this even with the propaganda the media was spreading. So it's quite telling that the message in the media needs to be so distorted nowadays when compared to in the past; the ways to control the public are waning.

Now, part of the reason for this decline is the spread of alternative media, probably most of it operating through the internet. Most of these sources rely on public funding however, so donating to them is one way of helping things change. Another way would obviously be to make more people aware of them, so that mainstream media can't reach as many people. Of course not everyone uses the internet that much, so I guess at least advising people to get their information from more varied sources would be good: Aljazeera for example, where available, is a good source overall provided you're not looking for information on Qatar and its interests.

Whether or not this is enough, I don't know, but the tendency seems to be positive so far, if rather slow. But there are also those that propose more radical solutions, either in the form of disengagement with the system wherever possible, or a gradual replacement of the existing structures of power by something decentralized and under popular control.

if he can never be home with family, on his home country's soil.. i don't think any real "reward" is enough for him.

Can't vote yet.

I think he did it to write himself into history and become famous and to become a significant character.

bullshit.. he is an intelligent guy. leaving your family, girlfriend, and career behind just to be famous and live as an outlaw, afraid of being murdered at any minute is not worth it. he has shown that he is a very good strategic planner, so he knew full well what would happen.

erhm, sorry for a such stupid question, but how to poll? lol. It's a third time that I see some poll and just can't see any form with a radio buttons.

I think you can't actually vote until you're at least a Junior Member, which according to this thread, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=237597.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=237597.0), should be when you have 30 activity, or at most about 11 days from now.

Yeah guys like him dont care about theirs lives , they only care about the truth lol .

You mean, guys and girls like Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Thomas Drake, William Binney, Jesselyn Radack, etc.? Do you have any idea what they sacrificed to be whistleblowers?

Sorry for the girls. Also included :) . I dont rly recognize all of the names u posted. Maybe coz im not American ? :)

Interesting poll.

From what I have read on the matter I would have said that he did it for the greater good. The fact that all it would take is one person who is privy to such information to divulge on how our interactions are being monitored (to some degree) makes it all the more amazing that it never came out earlier.

He must have known that in doing so he would be hailed as a hero by many, and a traitor by many others. Such a divisive decision, but one I believe he made for the benefit of letting us know what we would have otherwise been hidden from.

These are all whistleblowers; that is, they all denounced abuse or illegal conduct in the organizations they worked in, or had access to.

A good portion of them tried to do so through the hierarchy initially and were ignored. When they saw no other way to deal with the situation other than going to the press, trusting whistleblower protection laws, they found themselves fired, facing criminal charges, persecuted, some jailed, silenced and pretty much tortured like Chelsea Manning, while most of the wrongdoings they exposed are still being ignored by authorities to this day.

In this context, I don't really find it surprising that Snowden has chosen to reveal the information he had access to from outside the area of influence of the US; had he done otherwise, he would still be in solitary confinement "waiting trial" (read, this is a form of torture), and unable to defend his position and why he took the actions he did.

EDIT: further, and as beetcoin pointed out, he left his family, girlfriend, career, any possibility of returning to the US, his reputation (which, at least in the US, is constantly attacked by the media), and will have to live with fear of being either assassinated, deported, or kidnapped for the rest of his life. And people think he did it for the fame?  ::)

Agreed!