

Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance - obeone
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

======
adregan
See the discussion on this article from yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9663415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9663415)

------
mhurron
"Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our
privileged lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with
indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations."

Except I don't see anything other than that. I don't see the world saying no
to servailence. I see Europeans complaining about the NSA while turning a
blind eye to their own governments doing the same thing, but that's nothing
new. I see Americans demanding the government do whatever they can do 'stop
terrorism.'

I only see people agreeing with Snowden and really being annoyed with the
survailence because I frequent the small groups of people that do. Outside of
that, I don't see it.

~~~
jobu
Do you think the Patriot Act would've been allowed to lapse if it weren't for
Snowden? It's possible, but seems very unlikely.

The USA Freedom act may not be perfect, but it helps and there's no way it
would exist without the documents Snowden released.

Also:

\- NSA's phone spying program ruled illegal by appeals court (
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/07/us-usa-security-
ns...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/07/us-usa-security-nsa-
idUSKBN0NS1IN20150507) )

\- Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech On Encryption, Privacy (
[http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/apples-tim-cook-delivers-
bl...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/apples-tim-cook-delivers-blistering-
speech-on-encryption-privacy/) )

\- Fuck these guys - Brandon Downey, Google Security Engineer
([https://plus.google.com/+BrandonDowney/posts/SfYy8xbDWGG](https://plus.google.com/+BrandonDowney/posts/SfYy8xbDWGG)

~~~
mhurron
> Do you think the Patriot Act would've been allowed to lapse if it weren't
> for Snowden?

I see no evidence that Snowden's revalations had anything to do with that.

> The USA Freedom act may not be perfect, but it helps

[http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/02/senate-passes-patriot-
act...](http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/02/senate-passes-patriot-act-
extension-heads-to-obama-for-signature/)

This Freedom Act? The one that does extend Section 215 of PATRIOT Act?

That one?

"Administration officials say the NSA program and the metadata collection will
be back up and running within a day after the president signs it back into
law, which again the indications are will happen very soon. Officials made no
mention of any changes in the operation of the program, despite the nominal
reforms."

The PATRIOT act has lapsed in name only and even then it appears to have done
so only because the Senate excells in doing nothing. Then a few days later it
does get exended (and the Whitehouse is just itching to sign it into law)
under a new name no one can complain about. FREEDOM ACT, see it's all about
your freedom, while it extends surveillance. Rand Paul gets his 'see I blocked
government surveillance' and the government gets its surveillance. It's a win-
win for the Government.

The NSA's actions were 'illegal' before. They will continue to do it. No one
seriously expects them to stop. They'll just change program names.

Apple can use a little bit of media attention to sell cell phones.

And Google? Really, Google, the company along with Facebook that basically is
synonymous with surveillance and tracking.

None of this shows any mass rejection of the governments surveillance
programs, because there hasn't been any.

------
swombat
I may be cynical, but I see the opposite. I really want to believe Snowden is
right about this, but what I see is governments passing more obscure laws to
create more legal loopholes, and in fact doubling down on the investment in
"security" infrastructure.

I don't see a trend of governments demanding accountability from their spies.
Quite the opposite. The conservative government is about to try to pass yet
another version of the Snooper's Charter, and you know what, I think this time
they may well succeed, since the tories have the majority and have only just
won their seats. Even if they vote to betray the human race by passing the
Snooper's Charter, it will be forgotten by the time the next election comes
round.

Looking around Europe, I don't see a lot of visible concern about this.
Occasional articles, etc, but most people don't get why this is important.

The only positive trend at all is the increase in use of encryption that he
notes. And to balance out that positive trend, what do we have? Governments of
the world starting to make noises that "encryption should be illegal".

Will Apple, Google, Facebook, etc, keep fighting for encryption if it's made
illegal? Dubious.

We're losing this battle at the moment.

~~~
jokoon
Another cost is the trust people put in technology. This could really result
in ugly situations. What I'm scared of is that it could turn into a situations
where people believe they have privacy, and it would be impossible to prove
otherwise. You'll either end up paranoiac or it would effectively result in a
society of political control.

I wonder if it's possible for an investigator or a hacker to use suspicious
behavior to lure the NSA and prove that they were being under surveillance
while they are effectively innocent. It would be difficult to present it,
since it would require legal and technological explanations.

~~~
swombat
Basically, we are in some kind of technological singularity, at least for most
people. Humans on average are no longer smart enough to understand and cope
with the technological developments around them.

Even if you knew everything that was going on (as Snowden largely did), and
you could prove that it's evil, most humans don't have the intellectual skills
required to understand it, no matter how calmly and clearly you try to explain
it. It's beyond their ability to understand.

------
rasur
You'd think someone would have the wit to have Pardoned him by now, no?

~~~
mcdougle
Did you see the episode of John Oliver's show recently about the subject?
Oliver went out and asked people about it, and the general response was "Who
is Edward Snowden? Didn't he release some documents that compromised the
safety of the U.S.?" and "NSA? Privacy? Meh."

On HN and Reddit, there's plenty of knowledge of the subject because that's
the kind of stuff we're interested in and concerned about. But most of society
apparently couldn't care less.

~~~
desp
I keep seeing this John Oliver segment brought up in threads related to
Snowden & the NSA - it's a comedy show! While interesting, it is not
statistically significant proof that " _most of society apparently couldn 't
care less_." 0.33% of the US is more than 1 million people. They show ~8
tourists in Times Square on a cold morning in April.

Additionally, being able to identify Snowden is not necessarily indicative of
public awareness and concern around issues of civil liberty, privacy, etc.
When you do go looking for these numbers they of course vary wildly based on
the poll source, questions asked, etc. As a quick example, these two pew
reports[1][2] can be interpreted pretty differently.

Does anybody know of any great analysis that's been done in this space?

[1] [http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/14/nsa-
opinion/country/unit...](http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/14/nsa-
opinion/country/united-states*/) [2] [http://www.people-press.org/question-
search/?qid=1858375&pid...](http://www.people-press.org/question-
search/?qid=1858375&pid=51&ccid=51#top)

~~~
mcdougle
True. But his bit follows pretty closely with what I've experienced (and I've
heard others say the same). My friends within the tech sphere pretty much all
understand the issue and have an opinion on it. For the most part, my friends
outside of the tech sphere _generally_ don't care -- the ones that do are
usually pretty into current events and generally know more about what's going
on in the world than I do.

I know that's _still_ not statistically significant, but I haven't really seen
much analysis on it, so I go with what I've got.

------
jacquesm
I wished this were true. But I really don't see it. Of the non-IT folk around
me _nobody_ seems to give a damn. And even of the IT folk there are quite a
few in the 'governments are great, shut up and let them do their job' or 'if
you've got nothing to hide' or 'that Snowden jerk is a traitor and a supporter
of the terrorists' groups. Which is a real pity, they of all people should
know better.

What has changed post Snowdens revelations is that the governments are passing
laws left, right and center to make their previous illegal behaviour legal and
to reboot their programs under different names. And of course better security
procedures to prevent the next Edward Snowden from either doing the deed _or_
getting away with it without being caught whilst still within the borders.

It's better than nothing, but the world is - alas - not saying no to
Surveillance, if only.

~~~
higherpurpose
You don't need 90% support to cause a "revolution". When communism started
falling around 1989 in many countries most hid in their homes, while the few
fought in the streets.

Most people don't care about fracking either. In fact, I think the majority
support it when it's being sold as "cheaper energy!". Yet fracking is starting
to get banned in multiple countries and the activists are causing a lot of
trouble for those in the US as well.

------
LordKano
The world may be saying "No" but it's saying it with a whisper.

For anything to change, the world will need to say it with a scream. If every
politician that voted for snooping were to be recalled or lose their next
election, that would change things.

Just saying "the right thing" to pollsters but voting the bums back in won't
change anything.

------
secfirstmd
Bring him home!

------
Zenst
The World also says No to Crime and that is the crux and fine balance.

------
tosseraccount
"World says no to surveillance"

Headline is deceptive.

Loading the New York Times itself has plenty of third party cookies.

The world uses Google and has no idea what cookies and flash tracking is.

Most people I speak to say "Who cares?"

~~~
bikeshack
Except for the part when they will care eventually. Secrecy loves silence

~~~
tosseraccount
I just don't get "The world says no" part.

The world says "meh".

------
miguelrochefort
It's unsettling to see how irational people become when faced with the
question of privacy.

It is obvious that in the next 10 years, privacy will become frowned upon.

I personally see surveillance as progress, and am ready to embrace it. Feel
free to ask me anything about that.

~~~
jokoon
It can boil down to a metaphysical question about what is civilization and
society, and how far the control goes.

I get that government must protect citizens by reducing the amount of crime,
just like parents would take care of their kids by controlling them at times.

But if you want society to evolve and move forward, you have to let that slim
amount of freedom in place. Creativity and opinions matter. It's not just
preventing crime.

The inevitable risk is that the government or corporations could use this
information advantage, and not really prevent crime at all since criminal
would be even more careful. It could turn into situations of black and white
like in china where saying something would put you in trouble.

Although it is true that the NSA should be able to investigate data when there
is reasonable suspicion (a good example is finance, dealing with large amount
of money should mean you're being monitored), I don't think it should be
mandatory for all civilians.

Civilization implies a social contract, but is it really a good idea to have
more and more dependency and supervision by government ? I think not. And even
if you have mandatory logging of data, it would still require a very tight
access process to prevent abuse.

The argument is dependency and how individuals behave when they know they
might be under surveillance. It can have a dire consequence on the moral of
society in general.

~~~
miguelrochefort
I don't trust the government.

I don't value surveillance as a tool to prevent crime.

What I ultimately have a problem with is people's expectation of privacy. I
believe that privacy contributes to a lot more harm than good, and I want it
gone. Surveillance, while not quite the "total transparency" I want,
contributes to that.

I can't imagine a future in which keeping secrets is affordable or
sustainable. It will keep getting harder as technology improves, and we should
embrace that. The first step is to lower our reliance on privacy, and that's a
step that very few people are ready to take or even consider. I believe this
to be a problem.

The challenge we're facing today is not "How can we maintain privacy?" but
"How can we deal with reality?".

That explains why I despise those that blindly seek privacy.

~~~
jokoon
I think you are confusing the intimate privacy of individuals and business
secrecy.

Privacy is about talking without restraint, giving an opinion you might be
scared to tell in front of some people you don't trust entirely.

For example, I recently had a one year class with a teacher, and the students
really hated how detached the teacher was. They tried to tell him several
times in nice manners, but he could not hear it, so they gave up. It was
excruciating for them. They were fending for themselves while they was
equipment, a nice room, and everyone was coming, but the teacher was so
uninvolved in teaching and helping it was depressing.

When a executive came to listen and write a take our opinions about the school
program, the teacher could not be here, and it really made a difference,
because they would not have spoken if he was there. This is privacy. You must
be able to talk without fears.

There are things that must be public, and other that must not. Feedback and
opinions must be constantly made possible without fear of arguments, bad
blood, firing, etc.

I agree that corporate privacy/secrecy should not exist, and that there are
many things like accounting that should be made public since there is no
intimacy. There are many laws that make a difference between the intimate
privacy of individuals and financial secrecy.

------
ohmshalalala
War...HUH...what is it good for? Absolutely nothin..say it again!

