
Matt Damon: Edward Snowden did a great thing - vinhnx
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57600048-71/matt-damon-edward-snowden-did-a-great-thing/
======
yuvadam
As Matt Damon was talking about "civil liberties vs. security" it resonated
with essentially every second sentence DIRNSA was saying at his public
appearance at BlackHat.

This is a false dichotomy, and definitely _not_ about some sort of tradeoff to
protect us from "terrorists amongst us" (which in itself is a dubious claim.)

All these programs are about the creation of a de-facto authoritarian state
serving nobody else but the powerful corporations and the decision-makers that
said corporations keep in place via their accumulated wealth.

This isn't some democratic debate about civil liberties at conflict. This is a
fucking plutocracy.

~~~
snitko
Your comment finally made me realize why the difference in analysis of the
problem leads to difference in solutions.

Some people think that corporations are the root of all evil. They accumulate
wealth, then put people in power to protect that wealth. Others think that
government is the root of all evil, while corporations are either forced to
cooperate or willingly abuse this system, because if they don't, then
competitors will surely do it. Thus the latter group believes that businesses
simply respond to incentives.

Thus it is no surprise that the first group of people usually believes we need
more elaborate regulations and a good government. The second group usually
sees the solution in eliminating part or all of the government as an
inherently corrupt institution.

Matt Damon probably belongs to the first group, although I'm not sure.

~~~
DamnYuppie
Greed and lust for power are the root of all evil, corporations with lax
oversight are simply our eras incarnation of it.

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah, and there's no Evil at all in governments, and corporations have the
Monopoly of Greed? Don't make me laugh.

~~~
DamnYuppie
I am not sure why you comment was down voted. I never said they had the
monopoly on it, simply that are are the very forefront of it in this country.

The Government is blatantly controlled by special interest groups. All one has
to do is follow the money....

My main point was that it was the lax oversight and enforcement of rules meant
to check large corporations that has led to our current predicament. There is
nothing new to see here as we laws on the books to keep companies from getting
to big or mixing certain types of activities, yet we/congress gutted most of
those so here we are...

~~~
ahomescu1
In most countries, bribes and abuse of power are illegal (and prosecuted), yet
still happen at large scale. The problem is when the same people responsible
for oversight (making sure that government doesn't get controlled by small
powerful groups) and enforcing the rules are the ones that are most corrupt
(in other words, if some corporation bribes a government official, then the
latter's buddies help cover it up, is that the corporation's fault or the
government's?)

------
corin_
I'm not sure how I hadn't already thought of this, so I wonder has everyone
else missed this or not. We've all been thinking that not enough people
outside the tech. world have been paying enough attention to these revelations
- what better way to change this than through celebrity endorsements? Not
necessarily of Snowden himself, but endorsements of the message that what is
going on is wrong.

Or has this been happening already and I just missed it?

~~~
deveac
This is the first instance I am aware of where a mundane celebrity not known
for an interest/connection to tech has spoken out against the NSA on this
topic. I'm sure there have been at least a few instances of lesser known
personalities doing so.

I sincerely welcome this; celebrities have large networks.

~~~
Amadou
What counts as a "mundane celebrity?" Jimmy Carter has already said Snowden's
actions were "beneficial" and that "America does not have a functioning
democracy at this point in time."

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/jimmy-carter-
edward...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/jimmy-carter-edward-
snowden_n_3616930.html)

~~~
untog
Sad reality: a lot more people care about what Matt Damon thinks than what
Jimmy Carter thinks.

It's still only middle ground, though. Once we can get One Direction
involved...

------
spodek
Though just a role in a movie (though one he co-wrote), his scene about why
his character in Good Will Hunting should or shouldn't work for the NSA seems
relevant.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYteE7XGaY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYteE7XGaY4)

EDIT: Here's the text of it (it appears unformatted because it's one long
(well-delivered) line of text).

Why shouldn't I work for the NSA? That's a tough one. But I'll take a shot.
Say I'm working at the NSA, and somebody puts a code on my desk, somethin' no
one else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm
real happy with myself, cus' I did my job well. But maybe that code was the
location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East and once they
have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels are hiding...
Fifteen hundred people that I never met, never had no problem with get killed.
Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area"
cus' they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot.
Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, cus' they were off
pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie over
there takin' shrapnel in the ass. He comes back to find that the plant he used
to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who
put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, cus' he'll work for fifteen cents
a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was
over there in the first place was so that we could install a government that
would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the
little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little
ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a
gallon. They're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course,
maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink
martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, it ain't too long 'til he
hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So
now my buddy's out of work. He can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the
fuckin' job interviews, which sucks because the shrapnel in his ass is givin'
him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' cus' every time he tries
to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North
Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for
somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my
buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a
village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I
could be elected President.

EDIT TWO: Watching that monologue in context made the scene more relevant. The
NSA guys try to entice him with the opportunity to work on cool math with
brilliant people. He responds with something I can only imagine current NSA
smart people haven't done but I hope they are starting to -- to consider the
consequences of their actions and their responsibility. Hacker News posted a
story --
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258093)
\-- about a math professor whom the NSA employed for a couple summers as a
math undergrad in Princeton now calling on his colleagues to question their
contributions and to speak up.

It raises a timeless question in science and engineering: "I _can_ do this,
but _should_ I? ... What are the consequences?"

~~~
davidjohnstone
He also wrote the script for that movie with Ben Affleck, which means that at
least one of them must be familiar with these issues. (Also, the original
script focussed a lot more on the FBI's attempted recruitment of Damon's
character.)

~~~
AmVess
They got tons of coaching from a renowned script writer. Their original
project was to be a spy movie.

~~~
sophacles
So they got a mentor, and they pivoted? Seems like the sort of thing we like
around here.

------
seren
> "If we're going to trade our civil liberties for our security, then that
> should be a decision that we collectively make,"

I don't understand how the blog author can relate the use of the word
"collectively" to a hint at Communism, East Germany and the Stasi. Is this
generally a taboo word in the US ?

~~~
jimwise
Yes. A central idea of the American experiment is that there are exchanges of
liberty for security which it is not acceptable to make _even if the people
collectively decide to make them._

That is why certain liberties are enshrined in the Constitution, which is
intentionally made hard to amend, rather than merely in law, which is
relatively easy to change.

Looking at the number of totalitarian systems which started out as expressions
of the collective will of their societies in the two-plus centuries since, I'd
say the founders got this one right...

~~~
Tloewald
Collectively we can pass laws and change the constitution.

The supreme court has ruled, in Smith vs Maryland, that the government can
capture message metadata from a third party when a message is conveyed by that
third party without warrant. So the constitution doesn't help much here --
either we need to collectively change the constitution or collectively pass a
lot of laws or collectively get different supreme court judges appointed and
have the ruling overturned.

------
kilian
Is this in general how reporting on 'celebrity opinions' is done in the USA?
Apart from the one or two lines that directly quote Matt Damon, the rest of
the article is an abomination.

I do however hope this reaches more people, there's nothing like a celebrity
endorsement.

------
gyardley
Gee, I didn't have an opinion on Edward Snowden before, but now that I know
what _Matt Damon_ thinks...

~~~
deveac
Not the point.

He's effectively equivalent to a TV news anchor reading a a teleprompter about
the topic, except his message is being delivered to a larger network than many
broadcasts and the message itself is less neutral and more sympathetic.

This is good from an information dissemination perspective, which has been a
massive problem for this topic in the past. It's a sign that the topic is
finally starting to grab mindshare in popular culture. That is a prerequisite
for many, if not all, of the possible remedies to the problems of govt
illegality and overreach.

~~~
gyardley
Shucks, that's terrific. Send it to all your relatives.

Now, why is it posted _here_?

~~~
deveac
I would not think you'd need me to spell it out for you, but I'd wager it is
because it illustrates the penetration of a major technology issue into
popular culture. An issue who's presence (or lack of) in mainstream mindshare
has significant ramifications for many many tech services (cloud, encrypted
comms, email, etc).

We've already seen multiple tech services announce shutdown as a direct result
of Snowden's revelations of NSA's behavior, and solutions to these problems
can't be framed without factoring in public support/lack-of.

If you head over to the hackerNews FAQ (I'm sure you can track it down) you'll
see that this is eminently on topic.

So yeah. It's an on-topic current event illustrating the traction technology
policy that is affecting the entire globe is gaining in popular culture.

Can't imagine why a hacker would be interested in that....

~~~
prawn
Upvotes by 86 people in an hour suggests that people think it's of interest.

------
nicholassmith
I recently read an interview with Damon that covered some of his background,
which was quite left wing (his family still are) so I'm not surprised this
bothers him. I hope he uses his position to try keep the conversation about
what's right and fair in terms of surveillance. It's not great that we need
celebrities onside to try and remind people that something is awful, but it's
not a bad thing.

------
AliEzer
Could somebody please find Ja Rule so I can make sense of all this?

~~~
chjj
I want some answers Ja Rule might not have right now.

------
cpursley
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUa5oHgYV2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUa5oHgYV2k)

~~~
tbatterii
my thoughts exactly when I read the headline.

------
squozzer
Chris Matyszczyk sounded a bit condescending. But I had to laugh at his last
line, "However, can we truly trust ourselves? We are, after all, the bright
sparks who voted in the current Congress."

I would extend that line of questioning to include:

1) Can we trust ourselves given that we elected several Presidents who were -
a) Obviously oblivious frat boys who were better at campaigning than governing
(GW Bush and Clinton 2nd term); b) Ex-CIA (GHW Bush -- actually he was DCI,
don't believe he was ever an agent); 3) Someone who campaigned on a
progressive platform but quickly abandoned most of it upon election (Obama).

2) Can we trust ourselves given that we find a Matt Damon snark piece on Cnet
so damned fascinating?

------
frogpelt
A. Why does Matt Damon think _we_ care what he thinks?

OR

B. Why _do_ we care what Matt Damon thinks?

~~~
javajosh
I care because, based on interviews I've read, as a person he is unusually
thoughtful and intelligent. He is clearly a person of principle who is
troubled by the goings on in the world around him, and who is articulate about
what those troubles are and that it's important to address them.

------
popee
> It is, though, a tempting and charming notion that we could all get together
> and decide on how much of our civil liberties we really ought to give up or
> not.

Is this really possible in US? Or is someone just going to explain to him that
he is socialist/communist? >:-)

------
jongraehl
Author suggests we should consider Damon an expert on whether someone is
acting. That's rather silly. Why aren't we using actors instead of torture,
then?

------
jfe
worst writing ever.

------
hannibal5
>the actor who must know a thing or two about the covert world

and

>He is being asked what he thinks of Edward Snowden. Astonishingly for someone
who has been Jason Bourne and knows the danger of such things, he is answering
the question.

WTF. Actor who has been playing Jason Bourne and been in Good Will hunting now
is now expert?

~~~
xradionut
You are assuming that because he's an actor, he isn't an intelligent,
informed, politically aware human that may give a shit about people.

~~~
untog
No, I think the OP was more balking at the idea that an actor "must" know
about the covert world. He may well do, but it isn't an immediate assumption
just because he played a spy guy.

------
sigzero
Really? Who cares? His opinion is not any more relevant than anyone else.

------
cjdrake
Finally! I have been waiting in anticipation, not unlike a pre-pubescent girl
at a Justin Bieber concert, for Matt Damon to make a statement. Oh thank you,
great actor whose day job is to read what other people tell you to say, for
telling me what to think. I would be lost without his voice, guiding me like a
compass towards the truth.

