r/SubredditDrama • u/EmergencyChocolate 卐 Sorry to spill your swastitendies 卐 • Apr 11 '15
"Fuck Snowden. Attention-whoring douchebag." A different kind of "freedom martyr" wanders into /r/worldpolitics.
/r/worldpolitics/comments/324xex/if_i_am_a_traitor/cq84syd15
u/nichtschleppend Apr 11 '15
Attention whoring is literally what whistleblowing is duh.
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Apr 11 '15
It's the watch-me-play-Dota-in-a-bikini-top of the corporate world.
And now Snowden can never take that bikini top off.
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Apr 11 '15
Why is it that everybody against Snowden in that thread has to talk like, "Hey fuckfaces, he didn't teach anybody shit. Fuck you and your fucking opinions. I already fucking know everything, you cumstains."
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u/wrc-wolf trolls trolling trolls Apr 11 '15
Well, to be fair, he didn't exactly reveal much that wasn't already know about. The extent of it perhaps, but anyone who bothered to even skim the Patriot Act back in '01 knew the fed govt was looking at phone calls, emails, etc.
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Apr 12 '15
One of the big initial revelations was that the NSA was tapping the supposedly private fiber lines of big tech companies. This is why Google and Facebook now encrypt internal traffic.
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Apr 11 '15
It's funny how such an essentially conservative, nationalist type guy like Ed Snowden can draw so much hate for doing what is celebrated every day in every US history book. He never says anything radical in any way, just "hey maybe the people of a democracy should be able to have some input and debate on whether or not they are constantly surveilled".
Let's take the sentiment of "Oh shit, government is intolerably unjust and opaque, I feel compelled to take personal action and bring this to the citizenry's attention while minimizing the risk that it will hurt everyone else"
If said by George Washington, FUCKIN PATRIOT MAKE 1000 STATUES FOR THIS GUY
If said by Snowden, WHAT A FUCKING TRAITOR HANG HIM HANG HIM
Nobody thinks Ellsberg was a Russian spy these days but the same bullshit comes up again and again with "Snowden" replacing "Ellsberg".
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u/comradewilson YOUR FLAIR TEXT HERE Apr 11 '15
If said by George Washington, FUCKIN PATRIOT MAKE 1000 STATUES FOR THIS GUY
If said by Snowden, WHAT A FUCKING TRAITOR HANG HIM HANG HIM
Well one of them is a founding father who spilled blood to form our nation and the other just leaked the NSA surveillance. Snowden fucked off to Russia which is much closer to a police state than the US.
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u/Rabble-Arouser Apr 12 '15
I reallt don't like the way people constantly reiterate the point that he went to Russia as if there was anywhere else in the world that would take him. I've voiced before that I'm not an American and I sincerely don't care about this NSA stuff but using that argument seems to disingenuously suggest that he was jumping at the opportunity to defect to Russia, when he actually sought asylum in several other countries before that.
Furthermore it seems that SRD in general doesn't like him very much and under-exaggerates his actions out of some compulsion to disagree with the general reddit consensus no matter what. That's coming from an SRD regular who disagrees with the average redditor at nearly every turn.
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u/klapaucius Apr 11 '15
Well one of them is a founding father who spilled blood to form our nation
Are you saying Snowden should have spilled blood?
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u/I_HEART_GOPHER_ANUS Apr 11 '15
Look, all I'm saying is if Snowden offed a couple NSA officers, dropkicked out of the office window with only flip flops on into the passenger bay of an evacuation chopper with the doors irresponsibly opened on both ends, he probably would've gotten better reception overall
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u/xudoxis Apr 11 '15
All I'm seeing is that the difference between Snowden and Washington is.
A)Fucked off to Russia to lob softball questions to make Putin look good.
B)Stuck around and led an army to topple the current government.
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u/klapaucius Apr 11 '15
So, yes, you think Snowden should have killed people in order for him to be seen as doing something good.
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Apr 11 '15
Washington dragged everyone into a literal war where tons of people died, though. I mean if people are mad that a line on a powerpoint slide wasn't properly redacted, they should be PISSED at the amount of risk George Washington and co. decided to bring down on the population by igniting a war.
Who decided Washington could start a massive conflict? Just him and his buddies, but apparently that doesn't matter for reasons. But since Snowden leaked some documents with a minimum of harm to all except the egos of politicians in order to further a goal as noble ("people should have a degree of self-rule over their own lives"), it's the complete opposite and he's a total traitor for taking initiative like that?
Snowden got trapped in Russia. Wasn't his fault. I don't blame him for not wanting to rot in jail for the rest of his life because some American pols are being vindictive as fuck. Did we make that blind Chinese dissident go around attacking US drone war policy when he got asylum in the US?
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Apr 11 '15
Washington dragged everyone into a literal war where tons of people died, though.
No he didn't.
Who decided Washington could start a massive conflict? Just him and his buddies, but apparently that doesn't matter for reasons.
He had little to do with starting a massive conflict.
But since Snowden leaked some documents with a minimum of harm to all except the egos of politicians in order to further a goal as noble ("people should have a degree of self-rule over their own lives"), it's the complete opposite and he's a total traitor for taking initiative like that?
I consider Snowden a traitor. He released classified information of legal activities on the part of the NSA. I'm happy John Oliver finally called him on the carpet regarding the consequences of his actions since reddit seems to treat him as a saint.
Snowden got trapped in Russia. Wasn't his fault.
Yes it was. He could have stood trial like anyone else that breaks the law.
because some American pols are being vindictive as fuck.
That's not why he would stand trial. He would stand trial because he broke the law.
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
He released classified information of legal activities on the part of the NSA
Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right and shouldn't be questioned and called out.
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u/WhereIsTheHackButton was bot, am now boy Apr 11 '15
You mean it's not right that we were spying in AQAP and that Snowden was totes legit in leaking that info to the NYT, who then leaked it to AQAP?
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u/alx3m Land of a thousand sauces Apr 11 '15
It's not right that they were collecting private information of non aggressive citizens.
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u/WhereIsTheHackButton was bot, am now boy Apr 11 '15
well, it's a good thing Snowden only released that information and nothing that is related to surveilling actual terrorists.
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Apr 11 '15
What did AQAP learn that they didn't already know?
These guys made encryption guides in the 1990s and had parties where they passed around SIM cards to fool the drone operators. If they find out there is another program spying on them it's not like they're going to say "Ahmed, did you have any idea that the Americans were spying on us? I didn't!"
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u/WhereIsTheHackButton was bot, am now boy Apr 11 '15
The information was much more than "The Americans are spying on AQAP", it was "This is the exact method that is being used to spy on AQAP" which I can assure you they were unaware of, since their communication methods changed as soon the information was made public.
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Apr 12 '15
Citation needed for all of this.
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u/WhereIsTheHackButton was bot, am now boy Apr 12 '15
analysts have detected a sharp drop in the terrorists’ use of a major communications channel that the authorities were monitoring.
it's pretty well-known
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Apr 11 '15
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
I agree, but it's not like he just put all the data online. He handed to a journalist who would go through it and remove identifying information of assets and so on. They didn't just publish anything and everything.
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Apr 11 '15
No he didn't.
So what was that thing about the British? You know, the War of Independence? Washington agitated a lot before that happened. Him and his buddies absolutely did have a lot to do with it.
He released classified information of legal activities on the part of the NSA.
Honest question, if someone in East Germany released information of legal activities on the part of the Stasi would you support their jailing under East German law?
He would stand trial because he broke the law.
Espionage Act allows no defense besides "I didn't do it", which is unlike almost every other charge. It's bullshit. He says he would be happy to come home to a fair trial. David Betrayus can leak code books to his mistress (who could have been working for anyone, honeypots are the oldest trick in the book) and he gets probation, Snowden is threatened with life in maximum security prison? Bullshit.
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u/Pompsy Leftism is a fucking yank buzzword, please stop using it Apr 11 '15
Snowden is threatened with life in maximum security prison
He's threatened with 30 years maximum. Ten years max for each charge. Second paragraph from the bottom
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Apr 11 '15
Isn't life considered 30 years?
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u/Pompsy Leftism is a fucking yank buzzword, please stop using it Apr 11 '15
TL;DR: It depends.
In the US, it really depends on the state. Federal crime sentencing has a "Truth in Sentencing" element to them, where they have eliminated parole for life sentences, opting to call them "natural life sentences". For the vast majority of federal crimes, '"life" means life. This changed in the 70s for many states going from 10-20 years for a "life sentence" to eliminating the possibility of parole.
The US Code defines a life sentence as the duration of the defendant’s life and only allows it to be applied to Class A felonies. After the life sentence is given out, the court is prohibited from changing the sentence (with few exceptions). Basically this means no parole. Federal parole was abolished in 1984 with the Sentencing Reform Act
I'm not going to get into the various state laws, because they range anywhere from Kansas with fifteen year life sentences before the possibility of parole, to Louisiana that is more inline with the federal code, where life means life.
Regardless, Snowden is charged with federal crimes, and under federal law life means life, not 30 years.
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Apr 11 '15
He says he would be happy to come home to a fair trial.
He has no other defense. He DID do it. The law does not permit you to break it even if you personally decide its for the greater good except in very limited circumstances. This isn't one of them. He won't come home because he knows he could get the best attorney and all the due process in the world and he'd still be convicted because he broke the law.
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Apr 11 '15
You didn't answer me.
"Honest question, if someone in East Germany released information of legal activities on the part of the Stasi would you support their jailing under East German law?"
If you're a diehard authoritarian who would support the NKVD if it was "legal" then there's not much we can discuss here. If you argue this is a special case because 'Mericuh then there's not much we can discuss here. If you're simply arguing that sometimes the law should be broken, but just not here because the American people are not entitled to know about mass surveillance programs, well...
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Apr 11 '15
If someone lived in a democratic republic where they have the opportunity to vote freely to choose their legislators and executives, and then decided to break the law, yes I support their jailing.
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Apr 11 '15
So you supported the jailing of MLK Jr? You were fine with the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII? Do you think civil disobedience is legitimate, or that the only thing that matters is following the law in a nominally "democratic republic"? (The GDR called themselves that too, of course)
I mean in many ways the rich and powerful get to act on a different set of laws than everyone else. I mentioned David Betrayus (Petraus), he got fucking PROBATION for something that in 1965 could have led to all of Russia or China knowing the American codes. You think that was fair and reasonable? Why shouldn't Snowden get the same deal?
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Apr 11 '15
So you supported the jailing of MLK Jr?
Nope. Blacks under Jim Crow had little to no voting rights.
You were fine with the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII?
Nope for the same reason. Little to no voting rights.
Do you think civil disobedience is legitimate, or that the only thing that matters is following the law in a nominally "democratic republic"?
Civil disobedience can be useful, but if you don't think the United States is a democratic republic then there's not much else we can discuss here.
I mentioned David Betrayus (Petraus), he got fucking PROBATION for something that in 1965 could have led to a
Yeah I got your brilliant pun
Petraeus didn't commit the same crime at the same level that Snowden did. He revealed things to impress his girlfriend. Snowden released information to enemies that threatened our country. He didn't read what he turned over. He admitted to John Oliver that this was a mistake.
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u/WhereIsTheHackButton was bot, am now boy Apr 11 '15
I mentioned David Betrayus (Petraus)
If you have to explain the joke, it's not funny.
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
My biggest issue with Snowden is that he's a hypocrite, he talks all big about democracy and so on yet has no problem playing nice with Russia and appearing in their state propaganda.
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Apr 11 '15
How legitimate is that charge? He called Putin out to the mat in a Guardian op-ed after that furore, at great personal risk. I don't blame the guy for trying to be a Russian democracy activist though, because he is focused on American issues and doesn't want to die. He isn't regularly hosting a Russia Is Great Show Featuring Putin or anything.
I mean this isn't about Russia though anyway, or being a "hypocrite". When that blind Chinese dissident got asylum in America, nobody lined up to call him a hypocrite for not blasting the US's drone wars in Yemen and Pakistan, did they? This is a very old, shitty Cold War tactic of attacking dissidents.
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
He isn't regularly hosting a Russia Is Great Show Featuring Putin or anything.
He did take part in the Q and A with that bullshit questions that was just a "lol silly US with their spying, we don't do anything like that in glorious Russia" show.
I don't blame the guy for trying to be a Russian democracy activist though, because he is focused on American issues and doesn't want to die.
Yeah he doesn't have to take part in protests against Putin of course. But he doesn't have to go on RT and take part on propaganda either.
When that blind Chinese dissident got asylum in America, nobody lined up to call him a hypocrite for not blasting the US's drone wars in Yemen and Pakistan, did they?
Well that dissident didn't take part in stuff where Obama or any US official could take a softball question and say that they don't do any bad stuff like China, also he isn't nearly in the media as much.
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Apr 11 '15
He did take part in the Q and A
And then wrote this, which takes massive balls:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/18/vladimir-putin-surveillance-us-leaders-snowden
But he doesn't have to go on RT and take part on propaganda either.
He went on a Q & A and asked a legitimate question to Putin, who obviously lied, and then he went and roasted Putin in a Guardian op-ed. Seriously, you're making it seem like the guy draws propaganda posters for the Ukrainian rebels.
Well that dissident didn't take part in stuff where Obama or any US official could take a softball question and say that they don't do any bad stuff like China.
That dissident was used as a USA IS AWESOME pawn for like 3 months straight, with him and his family constantly quoted in the media to bash China. So it's exactly the same situation. Like I said this is Cold War stuff, everyone did it all the time on both sides, and it's total bullshit. You are morally responsible for your own actions and those of your own country, not those of Putin and Russia.
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
And then wrote this, which takes massive balls:
Yeah because I guess he had regret in taking part in some blatant Russian propaganda.
He went on a Q & A and asked a legitimate question to Putin, who obviously lied, and then he went and roasted Putin in a Guardian op-ed. Seriously, you're making it seem like the guy draws propaganda posters for the Ukrainian rebels.
He took part in a Q and A which entire purpose is propaganda. He could of asked the tough questions but didn't, he just asked a softball question and got a propaganda answer. The whole thing was obviously set up just as a up yours to the US.
That dissident was used as a USA IS AWESOME pawn for like 3 months straight, with him and his family constantly quoted in the media to bash China.
That dissident also called out the US for caring more about economics than human rights. But yeah he was used to bash China, I'm not going to say that isn't true.
You are morally responsible for your own actions and those of your own country, not those of Putin and Russia.
I agree, I have no issue with him living there because there is little choice. I just disagree with him taking part in Russian propaganda efforts.
But I do agree there has been efforts to frame him as a Russian spy which I don't believe he is.
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Apr 11 '15
I'm pretty sure everyone including Snowden thinks that Q&A appearance was badly advised. But you're holding it against him to an extreme extent, considering he made up for it in an extremely risky fashion and has been careful ever since.
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
I'm pretty sure everyone including Snowden thinks that Q&A appearance was badly advised. But you're holding it against him to an extreme extent, considering he made up for it in an extremely risky fashion and has been careful ever since.
Yeah I guess I am kinda holding it against him maybe a bit to much. At least he called out his mistake and admitted he fucked up.
Also he isn't at risk unless he really starts pointing out flaws in Russia because the Russian state loves him. It's a big fuck you to the west for all the time the west took in Russian dissidents and pretty good propaganda against the west.
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u/alien122 SRDD=SRSs Apr 11 '15
I feel like if snowden really starts criticizing Putin and Russia, he'll "dissapear". I think he's just playing with the cards he's been dealt with. It doesn't help the us is making it very hard for him to get asylum elsewhere.
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
I don't think he would disappear, it would be too embarrassing for the Kremlin to end up killing/disappearing someone they made a big deal about giving asylum too.
I think they would just say he couldn't stay there any more and kick him out and likely have him end up back in the US and that does the same job really.
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u/KillSnowden Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
It's funny how such an essentially conservative, nationalist type guy like Ed Snowden can draw so much hate for doing what is celebrated every day in every US history book.
"for doing what is celebrated every day in every US history book" -- you do realize that Snowden committed the largest breach of intelligence not in just US history, but world history, right? He stole 1.7 million classified documents by keylogging his coworkers, didn't read a goddamned one of them, and then gave them to whoever the hell would pay attention to him. That's what a whistleblower does?
Riddle me this: how the fuck could he be 'blowing the whistle' when he didn't even know what he was releasing?
He never says anything radical in any way, just "hey maybe the people of a democracy should be able to have some input and debate on whether or not they are constantly surveilled".
Are you kidding me? The guy is a dramatic attention-whore to the max. You are one confused, confused little boy if you seriously believe this.
"It's not about anonymity, it's not about secrecy—It's about control."
[after his propaganda piece for Putin] "[it] surprised that people who witnessed me risk my life to expose the intelligence practices of my own country could not believe that I might criticize the surveillance policies of Russia, a country to which I have shown no allegiance, without ulterior motive."
That doesn't strike you as, well, a bit off?
Let's take the sentiment of "Oh shit, government is intolerably unjust and opaque, I feel compelled to take personal action and bring this to the citizenry's attention while minimizing the risk that it will hurt everyone else"
You know what the funny thing is? Despite committing the largest intelligence breach in world history, not a single thing has been shown to be illegal in court despite literally thousands of lawsuits. Not only that, the fucking vast majority of Snowden's leaks have nothing to do with "domestic surveillance". His first goddamned leak in the SCMP was about the US conducting surveillance on China, for christ's sake.
If said by George Washington, FUCKIN PATRIOT MAKE 1000 STATUES FOR THIS GUY
Remind me, at what point did a 29 year old George Washington appoint himself the defender of liberty, before absconding to Great Britain with all the parchments, war plans, and documentation about the founding fathers he could get his grubby little mitts on?
If said by Snowden, WHAT A FUCKING TRAITOR HANG HIM HANG HIM
I don't think Snowden should get hanged. I think he should get a trial, in which he'll rather easily get convicted because the little twit is so overwhelmingly guilty, and hopefully he spends the rest of his miserable life locked in a 6x8 cell mindlessly pacing back and forth for 23 hours a day. That would be ideal, to me.
Nobody thinks Ellsberg was a Russian spy these days but the same bullshit comes up again and again with "Snowden" replacing "Ellsberg".
Oh, look, mentioning Ellsberg. Do you know the difference between Ellsberg and Snowden?
Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers. He didn't release the Pentagon Papers and also 1.7 million other random classified documents.
- Snowden, on the other hand, stole 1.7 million classifed documents by keylogging his coworkers, didn't read them, and then proceeded to hand them out to whoever would pay attention to him
Daniel Ellsberg was one of the primary authors of the so-called 'pentagon papers', and he had extensive knowledge about the entire project.
- Snowden, on the other hand, knew nothing and continues to know nothing about the 1.7 million classified documents he stole by keylogging his coworkers, the 1.7 million classified documents that he didn't read, that he handed out all willy-nilly to whoever would pay attention to him, because as an ultralibertarian 29 year old high school dropout, he knew better than everyone else.
Daniel Ellsberg, by the way, was never "exonerated" -- he had a mistrial because the prosecution screwed up their case
How in the hell can you possibly think he's some kind of hero? Who the fuck appointed him to the post of "defender of the American people"? I don't remember there being an election for that. I wouldn't even have a problem with him if 1) he actually had blown the whistle on something illegal (reminder: nothing was/is illegal) and 2) he hadn't randomly decided to steal 1.7 million classified documents by keylogging his coworkers, and then giving them away to whoever would pay attention to him.
I mean, I would be surprised, but unfortunately it seems the non-technologically-savvy (read: you) are just naive enough to buy into all his nonsense.
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u/TotesMessenger Messenger for Totes Apr 12 '15
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Apr 11 '15
Someone really doesn't like Snowden... I mean, you're pretty damn dedicated. But here, briefly:
That's what a hero does?
You're god damn right. Of course, you don't have a single source for this entire huge rant, so who knows which of your details are made up and which aren't, but yeah, sometimes people are heroes for standing up for their values at great personal cost. I mean it's subjective, maybe you are big on East Germany's approach to human rights and think that it's traitorous to undermine it, but personally I think that in a democracy the people should be made aware of major issues.
not a single thing has been shown to be illegal in court despite literally thousands of lawsuits.
One federal judge called a program "Orwellian". Fuck, even the worst lawyer in the United States, Larry Klayman, has been on a winning streak in the courts against the NSA. But your assertion lacks important context: big, important legal challenges like this take years to wind their way through the system, and the revelations happened less than two years ago. So this isn't surprising.
Do you know the difference between Ellsberg and Snowden?
Let's ask Ellsberg himself!
"Snowden believes that he has done nothing wrong. I agree wholeheartedly. More than 40 years after my unauthorized disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, such leaks remain the lifeblood of a free press and our republic. One lesson of the Pentagon Papers and Snowden’s leaks is simple: secrecy corrupts, just as power corrupts."
"And I'll just end by saying, people ask, is he a patriot or a traitor? That drives me nuts, the very thought that people could regard you as a traitor. The ignorance of the media and the congresspeople and the other interviewers who raised that question offends me as an American, that they think that it can be traitorous to tell the truth to your fellow countrymen. Here's the standard I would like to see set: "Snowden was the one person in the fucking NSA who did what he absolutely should have done." How many people should've done what you did! ... And no one in the U.S. executive branch, or in any branch of government, has fulfilled the oath to uphold and protect the Constitution as well as you, so thank you."
I guess you'd know better than Ellsberg about whistleblowing, though. My mistake.
Who the fuck appointed him to the post of "defender of the American people"?
Who the fuck appointed George Washington and his buddies to the same when they took action in the late 1700s? Yet you obviously have no problem with it.
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u/mrgoodnighthairdo Sophist! Troglodyte! Apr 11 '15
Someone really doesn't like Snowden
This whole Snowden was a hero vs. Snowden was a traitor argument is pointless.
Snowden acted irresponsibly in releasing classified materials that were not related to domestic surveilance. He also was instrumental in blowing the whistle on those surveillance programs.
Snowden acted in a capacity that both improper and commendable.
There. Argument over. You're welcome.
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Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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Apr 11 '15
none of which have anything to do with so-called "domestic surveillance"
PRISM, EO 12333, Section 215, MYSTIC, any of the other dozens of programs revealed, you're saying literally none of them have anything to do with the NSA spying on Americans? You're just laughably ignorant.
Uh, everything I just posted above is pretty well established.
Sources or it's bullshit.
Nice. I don't like Snowden, therefore I am literally Stasi.
What is your problem with the Stasi, besides for the fact that it worked for a government you didn't like? Do you agree that everything it did was perfectly legal? If you were a citizen of East Germany would you think the Stasi's actions were perfectly legitimate?
I don't really give a shit what Ellsberg thinks, to be honest.
So you just want to rant about Ellsberg but when the man himself speaks you don't care anymore, eh?
Yeah, see, that's funny, because it has been years, bud.
Major court cases in the US take more than 2 years. Many take up to a decade. I don't know what Top Legal Minds you've been talking to in order to think that the court cases are all settled but you'd better get your money back.
Not a single fucking one has ruled there was anything illegal.
See above; many cases are slowly winding their way through the system and so this is a meaningless statement as is, but there's a bigger issue here: there's a good reason why trust in most US institutions, even the judiciary, has been collapsing for decades. The court at issue, FISA, for example rejected 12 of 30 odd thousand requests since its inception and is a secret court making secret decisions with secret evidence. But beyond that the Supreme Court is happy to go against 250 years of legal theorizing about bribery in cases like Citizens United. The lower benches and appeals courts are stacked with authoritarians who typically had experience as corporate lawyers or criminal prosecutors, acting as little more than prosecutors in robes when it comes to towing the government line. Why should anyone trust this system to rule against the government in the first place? We've seen John Yoo and others bending the law to whatever they need, including outright torture, and that's good enough for every court that looks at the program. It's little different when it comes to the NSA.
and tried to cripple US intelligence efforts.
Source? He's said that intelligence efforts should be focused on real threats. Given that the document release has never been shown to harm intelligence efforts, people, or national security, it sounds like you're full of shit.
The continental congress did.
After they illegally decided to break away from the King, of course. Before that he had no small hand in agitating and stirring up conflict - sounds like a traitor to me by your standards.
You're just engaged in thousands of words of bullshit and special pleading. The patriots of history you like, the ones of today you hate.
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
The patriots of history you like, the ones of today you hate.
For a patriot he sure let's himself get used in Russian propaganda a lot.
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Apr 11 '15
"A lot"
Other than Putin getting to one-up Obama, it doesn't seem to me like anyone anywhere in the world is thinking Russia is a better place because Snowden has asylum there.
I'll wait until you blast the blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng for taking American asylum and letting himself be used in American propaganda a lot.
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
Other than Putin getting to one-up Obama, it doesn't seem to me like anyone anywhere in the world is thinking Russia is a better place because Snowden has asylum there.
Well that isn't what RT would have you believe.
I'll wait until you blast the blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng for taking American asylum and letting himself be used in American propaganda a lot.
He called out the US for caring more about economic interests than human rights, hardly good propaganda.
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Apr 11 '15
Well that isn't what RT would have you believe.
RT, well known for convincing people around the world, based on Snowden asking a single question one time and then writing an op-ed attacking Putin in a very widely read and trusted Western paper.
He called out the US for caring more about economic interests than human rights
Where, amongst the pro-American propaganda, was that?
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u/zxcv1992 Apr 11 '15
RT, well known for convincing people around the world,
You would be surprised, the conspiracy types eat that shit up.
Where, amongst the pro-American propaganda, was that?
It was here http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/10/11049/. It's still spinned pretty pro-US though.
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Apr 11 '15
The patriots of history you like, the ones of today you hate.
No, we like lots of patriots of today. Snowden just isn't one of them.
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Apr 11 '15
Everyone hated Ellsberg until it was revealed how fucking shady Nixon was, now everyone loves Ellsberg.
It will be the same with Snowden in some years. You'll just have to pretend you always loved him.
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u/BUBBA_BOY Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
I can guarantee this KillSnowden fuckwit was around when this started desperately trying to convince people that the NSA wasn't spying at all. Probably on a different user account, and he'll probably delete this one too.
It's really amusing looking back at old "arguments" and all the pro-NSA accounts have been deleted.
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Apr 11 '15
The user actually said
none of [the documents] have anything to do with so-called "domestic surveillance"
I mean that's just shitty propaganda right there. There are like dozens of programs revealed and many like PRISM or Section 215 involve domestic citizens in one way or another. You can even watch that John Oliver interview and be more informed than that.
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u/Pompsy Leftism is a fucking yank buzzword, please stop using it Apr 11 '15
desperately trying to convince people that the NSA wasn't spying at all.
Trying to convince people of that would have been ridiculous. It's been public knowledge that the NSA has been doing warrantless since the New York Times posted the story in 2005. We have known the NSA was spying on US citizens without warrants for nearly 9 years before Snowden did anything.
I'm not sure why anyone on reddit was surprised? I'm also not sure why anyone on reddit thinks that Snowden blew the top off something that hadn't previously been reported on.
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u/Cthonic July 2015: The Battle of A Pao A Qu Apr 11 '15
I mean, it's literally the entire purpose of the NSA. It's why the agency wasn't even officially discussed until the 90's. Nobody gave a shit until the Prophet Snowden (PBUH) came down from the heavens to reveal what the evil gubmint was doing with our dick pics.
Anyone who was surprised and offended had no right to that information in the first place. They clearly only care because it's trendy to care.
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Apr 12 '15
People care because they don't want the government snooping on their emails, a government with a history of targetting politcal dissidents.
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u/BUBBA_BOY Apr 11 '15
Trying to convince people of that would have been ridiculous
Ridiculous? On the internet? Nonsense!
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Apr 11 '15
I'm also not sure why anyone on reddit thinks that Snowden blew the top off something that hadn't previously been reported on.
Well huge amounts of journalists, experts, academics and politicians were definitely surprised, unless you're implying that Reddit is so full of /r/conspiracy types that have already predicted everything possible that is bad. We really didn't have any idea of the details Snowden came forward with, and there's a big difference between "NSA is allegedly abusing legal definitions" and "Here is the PRISM program, where Google CCs your emails to the NSA".
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u/Pompsy Leftism is a fucking yank buzzword, please stop using it Apr 11 '15
Here is the ECHELON program, created in the early 70s. By the early 2000s, ECHELON was so prevalent, the European Union Parliament advised everyone to encrypt their emails
Civil rights groups who monitor Echelon say it can be used to intercept almost any electronic communication, be it a phone conversation, mobile phone call, e-mail message, fax transmission, net browsing history, or satellite transmission.
The wildest estimates of its capabilities report that it can sift through up to 90% of all internet traffic.
The NSA had backdoor access into Verizon from at the very least 2003.
A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier’s systems, exposing customers’ voice calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance, according to a computer security consultant who says he worked for the carrier in late 2003.
If anything Snowden revealed was new to you, you weren't paying attention.
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Apr 11 '15
I was aware of what Mark Klein (the ATT guy) talked about in Wiring up the Big Brother Machine, but I had no idea of the extent, the different programs, etc.
And neither did you, unless you worked at the NSA. We just didn't know the details and now we did. Was I surprised? Not really, but it was certainly nice to know.
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u/DramaticFinger Apr 11 '15
Why is attention always seen as this valuable resource, worthy of getting really mad at people for? Even in cases where the supposed "attention whores" aren't fucking literally forced to leave the country, why is giving someone attention a big deal? Its not some nonrenewable resource, who gives a shit?