
Five hours with Edward Snowden - henrik_w
http://fokus.dn.se/edward-snowden-english
======
enlightenedfool
"During the Bush administration, people were kidnapped all over the world and
dumped in secret prisons, where they were tortured. During the Obama
administration, the kidnappings, the secret prisons and the torture, have been
replaced by death lists and extrajudicial executions of people, carried out by
pilotless aircrafts, known as drones." I spent hours and hours in 2007/08
watching Obama with the hope that change is real this time. And now, it's
painful just to hear his name. With the current candidates on either side,
just bracing for worse.

~~~
Estragon
> _I spent hours and hours in 2007 /08 watching Obama with the hope that
> change is real this time_

If most people just watch, even the best efforts towards change are going to
be subverted.

> _With the current candidates on either side, just bracing for worse._

There's always Bernie, but it means putting some effort into the political
process yourself. :)

> _What I understand is that the power of corporate America, Wall Street, the
> corporate, the media is so great that real change to transform our country
> does not take place unless_ MILLIONS OF PEOPLE BEGIN TO STAND UP _and say
> very loudly and clearly that the United States government has got to
> represent all of us, and not just the top 1 percent, " he said._

~~~
btilly
What makes you think that Bernie Sanders is any different on this issue than
anyone else?

Sure, he says nice things about stopping the programs. But he's clear that
Snowden should go through the legal process and receive punishment. In
particular he does NOT say that he would give Snowden clemency. Which makes
his position indistinguishable in practice from Hillary's.

~~~
frostmatthew
> Which makes his position indistinguishable in practice from Hillary's.

 _Love him or hate him, we all owe Snowden our thanks for forcing upon the
nation an important debate. But the debate shouldn 't be about him. It should
be about the gnawing questions his actions raised from the shadows._[1]

Not sure "indistinguishable" is the most accurate word. Seems her stance is
much less forgiving/lenient and focuses more on the act of breaking the law
and that he should be punished for that.[2]

[1] [http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/why-i-
dont-...](http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/why-i-dont-care-
about-edward-snowden)

[2] [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/13/clinton-
sande...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/13/clinton-sanders-
snowden-nsa-democratic-debate?CMP=twt_gu)

~~~
fineman
There are two positions, 1) punish Edward for revealing what our servants do
in our name or 2) do not.

Everyone is camp #1 is indistinguishable from the people who abuse our trust
themseves. Criminal.

------
plainOldText
Technology is truly augmenting ourselves and this medium "shapes the scale and
form of human association and action", as Marshall McLuhan once said.

With that given said, compare a whistleblower, say 20 years ago, with one
today. Snowden not only had the world's greatest communication platform at his
disposal, to disseminate whatever information he cared about, but now he can
still address millions of people, speaking at the world's greatest
universities and giving interviews, while being in exile.

Regardless on where you stand on these privacy/spying issues, I think it's
hard to deny the fact that he started a dialog, and now the entire world can
be part of it.

~~~
mbrock
McLuhan also wrote:

> With the telegraph Western man began a process of putting his nerves outside
> his body. Previous technologies had been extensions of physical organs: the
> wheel is a putting-outside-ourselves of the feet; the city wall is a
> collective outering of the skin. But electronic media are, instead,
> extensions of the central nervous system, an inclusive and simultaneous
> field. Since the telegraph we have extended the brains and nerves of man
> around the globe. As a result, the electronic age endures a total
> uneasiness, as of a man wearing his skull inside and his brain outside. We
> have become peculiarly vulnerable. The year of the establishment of the
> commercial telegraph in America, 1844, was also the year Kierkegaard
> published "The Concept of Dread."

> [...] When new technologies impose themselves on societies long habituated
> to older technologies, anxieties of all kinds result. Our electronic world
> now calls for a unified field of global awareness; the kind of private
> consciousness appropriate to literate man can be viewed as an unbearable
> kink in the collective consciousness demanded by electronic information
> movement.

[http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-
studies/v1_iss2/1_...](http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-
studies/v1_iss2/1_2art6.htm)

The sensual intimacy of what Snowden revealed is hard to convey to people who
don't live on the internet. They don't understand the violation and the
anxiety. Even John Oliver can't change that.

~~~
caskance
Funny, I would say that the perception of this as a violation is something
only felt by those who don't understand that the whole point of putting your
nerves outside your body is to expose them to the world. If you wanted to keep
them private, all you had to do was nothing.

Or to boil it down to John Oliver terms since you seem to be a fan, nobody's
going to see any pictures of your dick unless you take pictures of your dick.

~~~
pdkl95
> If you wanted to keep them private, all you had to do was nothing.

You are advocating for the complete repression of any idea that hasn't yet
become both known and acceptable to the mainstream.

It's not going to always be pictures of your dick. To name just a few of the
most obvious groups with real risks, you're effectively saying that anybody
with unpopular political views, anybody LGBT, and anybody with a religious
belief that isn't "Christian" shouldn't participate in modern society and the
network interactions that participation requires if they want to stay safe?

Blaming the victims for not staying out of sight isn't the solution.

~~~
caskance
No, I'm not. No clue how you got there.

If you have an unpopular view, speak out. Be oppressed. Fight back against the
oppression if you can, and roll over and die if you cannot. If you win, your
side is and always was right. If you lose, the opposite.

~~~
dTal
You are saying that oppression is part of the natural order, and that the
winners always have the moral high ground.

I find your Nietzschen worldview abhorrent.

~~~
caskance
Again, no I'm not. And I find your implication that I believe or care about
such a thing as a "natural order" abhorrent.

You're not very good at this reading thing, are you?

~~~
dTal
Note that I am not the person you were originally discussing with.

How else am I to interpret "If you win, your side is and always was right. If
you lose, the opposite."?

~~~
caskance
As descriptive rather than prescriptive. And certainly not naturalist.

------
littletimmy
"Edward Snowden reached 1.5 million followers in no time. He only follows one
himself – the NSA’s official account."

That's funny.

On an unrelated note, what a hero this man is. The US should consider itself
fortunate that it has people who at great personal cost would expose
wrongdoing. It's a pity the irrationally scared public doesn't consider him a
hero.

~~~
HiroshiSan
I wouldn't consider him heroic, I recently watched Citizen Four and the
impression he gave me and the way he put it was that he was just fed up. That
being said, I'm not sure I'd have it in me to do the same, though I haven't
found anything I truly believe in to the deepest depths of my core...yet.

------
strictnein
> "I didn’t choose Russia. They chose Russia."

But he was on his way to Cuba, which would have been his choice. It would have
been a bad choice, because the US would have grabbed him there. It's a pretty
quick jaunt from anywhere in Cuba to the US base at Gitmo.

What this article makes clear is that he is heavily guarded by the Russians.
It's not a coincidence that this meeting took place in a hotel filled with
high ranking Russian military. Would Cuba have afforded him the same level of
protection?

~~~
Thrymr
> But he was on his way to Cuba, which would have been his choice.

His destination was Ecuador. It's not like he had a lot of choices, or he
didn't try other countries: [https://edwardsnowden.com/asylum-
requests](https://edwardsnowden.com/asylum-requests)

~~~
strictnein
Okay, I was just going by this article, which just stated Cuba. Regardless,
it'd be pretty easy for the US to put a boat off the coast of Ecuador and get
out of there quickly.

Different story with Moscow.

~~~
fabulist
I don't think your assessment of the situation is correct. I doubt the
logistical challenges involved of kidnapping Snowden would give the US
military and intelligence communities much pause if he were in Russia, Cuba,
Ecuador, or anywhere else. Physical proximity to Guantanamo Bay and the US
mainland are neither required nor particularly advantageous, these are global
organizations with secret prisons in many places.

What keeps him safe is that there is nothing to be gained in stealing him, he
is a public figure, and another sovereign nation has granted him amnesty.

------
wahsd
When I think of Edward Snowden, a video comes to mind, where there are three
cattle in a corral and a butcher kills one of them with a riffle from close
range. The cow obviously doesn't quite make it out of that situation and
basically just falls over on its side. The shot and the cow falling kind of
startles the other two cows and they jump an take a few steps but then just
kind of stand there and look around and slightly take a look at their fallen
comrade, but otherwise go about just kind of standing there, continuing to do
their cow things.

That's kind of how I see society. What Snowden revealed has been going on and
it's really just the tip of the iceberg and it will only get worse. But what
do we do? We say "that's not cool" and then get back to posting our whole life
on facebook and trusting the assurances of the same government that does far
more lying than not. Here we are, you are maintaining your own government
surveillance dossier on facebook, with all the connections and associations
listed and conveniently connected. It is any and all past authoritarian
dictatorships' wildest dream they could have never even imagined. yet it
continues, the business media proclaims that there is no stopping facebook's
domination, which will include what Zuckerberg's slip-up from yesteryear of
intending to fully replacing the internet even if just in perception of
people's minds. (see his free access to facebook in emerging markets where he
is trying to head off the internet becoming a thing in people's minds)

It will be quite interesting to see how this all plays out. I am not going to
hide the fact that no matter how I look at it, even if things seem all rosy
and nice and pretty now, there are far more wildly risky and probably
catastrophic outcomes down the path society has and seems to insist on taking.

~~~
soylentcola
No, not quite. I publish things on Facebook, et al when I want them to be
public. It's the equivalent of a bulletin board for me.

When I want something to be between myself and a specific person or group of
people, I make a phone call or email. Obviously it's not as restrictive as
saying something in person, as you might for something truly private.

But there are degrees. The only way to keep something truly private is not to
tell anyone but it's not fair to equate a private conversation with a public
broadcast, just because you sometimes use the public broadcast.

~~~
wahsd
You are clearly not a primary user. I'm not sure why you would think your
example would be relevant. The vast majority of people post a lot of stuff and
even more do not know how to prevent Facebook from tracking their movements
across the internet and in real life. We used to think stalkers and state
level corporate hegemons tailing people was something that dictatorships and
authoritarian regimes did. Wait a minute. Maybe that hasn't changed.

~~~
marcusgarvey
>The only way to deal with an unjust world is to become so absolutely free
that your very existence is an act of rebellion. -Camus

I look at what younger people share online and am routinely shocked at their
willingness to open the kimono. But maybe if we all overshared, everywhere,
all the time, these fascists would have 0 power.

~~~
soylentcola
It is quite surprising that some people really haven't caught on yet. I look
back at some of the things I posted on superficially private forums in the
late 90's that in retrospect, I'd never post today. I don't excuse my naivete
but still, I think a lot of people (both young and old) hadn't quite wrapped
their heads around the capacity for indexing and preservation of _all that
data_. Sure, you didn't want your stuff showing up in a search engine but hey,
you used a screen name!

Regardless, however misguided my ignorance may have been in 1998, I seriously
don't understand how anyone would be OK posting things that could easily be
incriminating (photos of their stash, videos of drunken behavior) on sites as
public as Facebook.

As you mention with your quote, maybe it's a reaction to the idea that you'll
never be able to curate the sober and responsible "persona" you'd like without
unrealistic levels of precaution. So rather than spend your youth in constant
fear and anxiety that someone will see your drunk pics, there's something
liberating about just admitting that we're all human and many of us have our
"responsible life" and our moments of cutting loose.

Still boggles my mind when people post blatantly illegal activity on Twitter
or Facebook though. But other than that, I try to keep a balance. When I'm out
drinking with friends, any photos or videos that get taken do not go on
Facebook and if they are shared at all, it's only with the people who were
involved and only via less public channels. And if the behavior in question is
more potentially objectionable than some drunk karaoke, the cameras stay away.

------
nateabele
Great piece of reporting, but the style makes it _really_ hard to follow.

~~~
jonalmeida
It has the form of a podcast that was transcribed to text. Yes, it would have
been easier to follow if it was all audio.

It took me a few to realize when the conversation was changing from the
narrator to Snowden.

------
kyle4211
> I had everything set up in such a way that my family could cut ties with me
> and condemn me if things went poorly. And I was okay with that; I was
> prepared to accept that.

Snowden was acutely aware of the consequences his actions could have. This
really drives that home.

------
marcusgarvey
>In 2007, FBI agents carried out so-called morning raids at the homes of
people who worked or had worked at the NSA, and had tried to blow the whistle
on a mass surveillance program they felt had gotten out of control. One man
was dragged out of the shower in his home, a gun to his head, in front of his
family. Another man opened his door and soon had the house full of black-clad
agents in Kevlar vests searching his home until late at night. The home of
Thomas Drake, a senior executive at the NSA, was searched, his passport was
cancelled and he lived under the threat of 35 years imprisonment for four
years, prosecuted under the Espionage Act. He lost his job, his pension and
spent everything he owned on his defense lawyer. Today he works at an Apple
store in Maryland and has been able to establish that the only person, who was
investigated and prosecuted, after trying to talk to his superiors about the
mass surveillance, was himself.

I remember the first time I read 1984, in middle school. To my young mind it
was extremely frightening, and every time I would put it down I would have the
same feeling one has when they wake up from a nightmare: relief that it was
just a fiction. That it was unlikely to ever happen in real life. Snowden's
revelations made me feel like that relief is gone forever.

Right after the revelations came out, I discussed it with a former journalist
in Silicon Valley, who was also Jewish American. I could not believe it when
he used the, "I'm-not-worried-because-I-have-nothing-to-hide" argument. I
guess he never heard the reason why the Nazis were so successful in killing
and imprisoning Amsterdam's Jewish population, at a rate that far exceeded
other European countries.

The Dutch, you see, are meticulous record keepers. Even today you can find
property records that date back to 1600s and earlier. And, at some point along
the way, someone thought it would be a good idea to record people's religion,
in addition to the more typical things like address and date of birth. Oh,
they had been doing it long before Adolf Hitler conceived of his final
solution. It must've seemed like a good idea at the time. They probably never
thought those records would be used the way they were after the Germans took
over the country....

------
jokoon
I wonder what is the future for him. I guess when the next president comes in
office, and those leak story blow over, maybe he'll get pardoned, or maybe
he'll stay in Russia for the rest of his life. The sure thing is that nobody
will forget him.

Although I wonder if it can be proven or argued (or not) that Snowden is not
working with Russia. Maybe in the realm of intelligence nothing can really be
proven, and it doesn't really mean anything for me to trust my gut about
Snowden not working against the US. Are there any articles debunking those
theories ?

~~~
revelation
You can find the argument in the article. If you want to spy for Russia, you
don't do it by dumping a bucketload of articles to a guy living in Brazil
writing for the Guardian.

Theres no value in the press for Russia.

------
nashashmi
Where is the tl;dr version? I really am beginning to lose my appreciation and
patience for this padded editorial stuff.

------
tsunamifury
I've view Snowden has a hero in a time where it is very hard to stand up and
cast a light on national wrongdoing. I often struggle when I return to the US
Midwest and my family and others complain that Snowden is a traitor. I wonder
why they can't see the obvious wrongdoing by our leadership and how it erodes
our values.

Since its the Bible belt I often find myself reminding people of the story of
David [1] who hid with the Philistines when his nation and leader of Israel
and turned on him. The irony is almost overwhelming to them since Snowden so
closely fits the exact profile of the story.

Some nights in my darker moments I worry that we and by extension myself, have
become the bad guys in that story, more akin to the egotistical and delusional
King Saul than David.

[1]
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2027](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2027)

[2] My relevant history:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9444512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9444512)

~~~
tptacek
Because two wrongs don't make a right? Some of what Snowden did seems
straightforwardly heroic, and some of it... much less so, to me at least.

Not everyone thinks exactly the same way you do. Believe it or not, outside
message boards like this, there are a lot of people that don't care about NSA
surveillance of US Internet traffic at all, and care a lot more about Islamic
terrorism (to be clear: I am not one of those people).

~~~
aidenn0
Even without inspecting every single leak of Snowden, I believe that some of
what he leaked shouldn't have been, as it is unlikely that he is perfect.
However, if we want to demand perfection from our whistleblowers, then we are
going to have to wait a long time.

Snowden did not have the option of leaking one or two things, then poring over
data and leaking a few more. He had one shot to grab as much evidence as
possible and flee the country. Given those constraints, I think his behavior
was appropriate.

What is really to blame here is a system that made Snowden's method of
revealing this data the best choice if you want to minimize your own chances
of being tortured. Everyone who worked to ensure that complaints and
dissatisfaction with mass surveillance were treated as traitors even before
the Snowden leaks.

~~~
will_pseudonym
The ironic part is that the people who rail against Snowden in grabbing
"everything" instead of only the "bad, important stuff" is exactly what
Snowden is demonstrating that the government is doing! If they hate what
Snowden did, why don't they hate what the government is doing in SECRET, to
EVERYONE?

~~~
tptacek
How does this argument even make sense? It is trivially possible to be angry
at both the USG and Snowden.

~~~
fineman
Sure. But this is a great counter to the all-to-frequent dismissals framed as
criticisms that Snowden should have done something more.

"Sure, I support _valid_ whistle-blowers, but what Snowden did ..."

It's a simple way to show that to be hypocritical authoritarianism rather than
valid criticism when they don't make the connection.

------
NN88
.@ggreenwald: "What bothered Snowden the most was not the spying itself but
the fact that it was all carried out in secrecy" #newsnight

[https://twitter.com/iankatz1000/status/662041192541089792](https://twitter.com/iankatz1000/status/662041192541089792)

Snowden really doesn't know as much as he claims to. Not to mention he's
careless and the he exposed legitimate intelligence operations on foreign
countries

