Snowden A Hero? Gates Says No, Woz Says Yes 335
hcs_$reboot writes "In a lengthy interview from Rolling Stone, Bill Gates, was asked: 'Do you consider [Snowden] a hero or a traitor?' The Microsoft founder responded, 'I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero. ... You won't find much admiration from me'. What about government surveillance? 'The government has such ability to do these things. ... But the specific techniques they use become unavailable if they're discussed in detail. Rolling Stone retorts that privacy can be an issue: 'We want safety, but we also want privacy,' says the journalist. Bill Gates tells his main priority focuses on stopping the bad guys: 'Let's say you knew nothing was going on. How would you feel? I mean, seriously. I would be very worried. Technology arms the bad guys with orders of magnitude more [power]. Not just bad guys. Crazy guys.' Meanwhile, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak expressed the opposite opinion about Snowden at a tech conference in Germany. 'He is a hero to me, but he may be a traitor to other people and I understand the reasons for them to think that way. I believe that Snowden believed, like I do, that the U.S. has a right to freedom. '"
Who would characterize Gates as a hero? (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody. Absolutely NOBODY.
Re:A hero isn't someone who runs away (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, it's probably a cakewalk compared to what the intelligence community would put him through and where he would end up once they're 'done' - but I think he's feeling quite a few consequences of his actions and revelations, and I tend to think those consequences are plenty unjust as they are.
I think people are wrong in saying that you have to be suicidal, a martyr, or masochistic to be a hero.
The full sentence (Score:3, Informative)
The summary didn't include the full sentence by Gates. Just for completeness, he said: "I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero."
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:5, Informative)
> last I checked we were sticking our noses into Crimea situation
You mean the situation where we are a party to a treaty that says that Ukraine keeps it's borders intact in return for NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT?
You mean THAT situation?
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:5, Informative)
OPERATION PAPERCLIP [wikipedia.org]
"To circumvent President Truman's anti-Nazi order and the Allied Potsdam and Yalta agreements, the JIOA worked independently to create false employment and political biographies for the scientists. The JIOA also expunged from the public record the scientists' Nazi Party memberships and régime affiliations. Once "bleached" of their Nazism, the scientists were granted security clearances by the U.S. government to work in the United States. Paperclip, the project's operational name, derived from the paperclips used to attach the scientists' new political personae to their "US Government Scientist" JIOA personnel files."
* Otto Ambros was a Third Reich chemist who served as director of the German corporation that produced the gas used in the death camps. He was tried at Nuremberg, found guilty of mass murder, and sentenced to eight years. While he was serving time in prison, Operation Paperclip officials arranged for his sentence to be commuted. In 1951, Ambros was hired to work at a clandestine facility north of Frankfurt called Camp King. His work, sanctioned by the Defense Department, ultimately involved the testing of sarin toxins on American soldiers without their knowledge.
* Arthur Rudolph was a Nazi rocket scientist who played a key role in the V-2 rocket program. One of Operation Paperclip's earliest hires, Rudolph, in the U.S., worked his way up through the ranks of NASA to become project director of the Saturn V rocket program. Ultimately, Rudolph was led to confess to war crimes, but his work is all over the U.S. aeronautics technology.
* Kurt Blome, a virologist, pioneered Hitler's secret germ warfare program. Specializing in plague research, Blome conducted human tests on concentration camp prisoners and was a defendant at the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial. Acquitted, Blome was instrumental in the U.S. germ warfare program.
* Kurt Debus was a V-weapons engineer who oversaw mobile rocket launches at Peenemunde. An ardent Nazi, he wore the SS uniform to work and after Paperclip, became the first director of NASA's JFK Space Center in Florida.
* Hubertus Strughold was in charge of the aviation research in the Reich Ministry and despite his war crimes was hired by the Americans to eventually become America's father of Space Medicine.
The notorious CIA interrogation techniques and other mind-control programs and projects had their beginnings in a camp near Franfurt called Camp King. It was there where Operation Bluebird experiments involving LSD and other drugs started with Paperclip personnel and research.
The US Army's herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War, in which 11.4 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed over more than 24 percent of South Vietnam was the brainchild of Fritz Hoffmann, another Nazi war criminal.