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. '"
said the bad guy (Score:5, Funny)
yes, technology has certainly armed you, Bill Gates, you twisted evil fuck
Great comment (Score:3)
Re:said the bad guy (Score:5, Insightful)
"yes, technology has certainly armed you, Bill Gates, you twisted evil fuck"
Well, this certainly does illustrate how much Bill Gates is actually a closet Statist. But those who have followed what the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation do already knew that. At first I was happy to see Gates spending much of his fortune on "charity"... until I learned what they were actually doing with the money.
Like supporting "Common Core" education... which is worse than you probably think. Contrary to what supporters say, while it may not technically be a "government" program, the government had a heavy hand in its formation. And there is a lot more to the whole story.
You can bet that if the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is behind it, it has a Statist purpose.
Re:said the bad guy (Score:5, Insightful)
The Gates foundation is just the last piece of exploitation for him. It really should take minutes to gather enough data to show that Bill Gates should not be used as a morality touch stone. He started by stealing a professors work, caused immense harm to the computer era, and does not mind harming people to get ahead. He is a liar, a cheat, a thief, and is working to undermine society pretty much every where he goes including his home (yes, Common Core is that bad).
Asking Bill Gates if someone is a hero is akin to asking Bill Clinton about monogamy.
Who would characterize Gates as a hero? (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody. Absolutely NOBODY.
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Nobody. Absolutely NOBODY.
The large number of persons who also idolized Steve Jobs, I suspect.
Re:Who would characterize Gates as a hero? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody in Africa who's received a polio vaccine from Gates' foundation would. I'm sure they'd be much more likely to call Gates a hero than Snowden, too.
It's all perspective.
Re:Who would characterize Gates as a hero? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anybody in Africa who's received a polio vaccine from Gates' foundation would. I'm sure they'd be much more likely to call Gates a hero than Snowden, too.
I don't know.... if Windows, SQL Server, and Microsoft Office weren't so darned expensive, or they went away, so we could be using Open source software instead, there might be 1000x the funds being donated for Polio vaccines in Africa.
Gates is labelled a hero..... but maybe he's the villain depriving large numbers of people of the chance to be heros :)
Re:Who would characterize Gates as a hero? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe he thinks MS joining NSA PRISM was a heroic act.
Re: Who would characterize Gates as a hero? (Score:2)
Fortunately, Melinda is there to spend the stolen/cheated money on good causes, so maybe karma will one day even out.
Gates is a 1%er He wants us oppressed. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
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Point taken. However, if he was less self-centered and money-grubbing then yes he could. Bill Gates just took a big hit to his reputation (in my book), and if it weren't for his support of anti-malarial and other research he wouldn't have much to show for.
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He supports high taxes for other people, not for freemarket heroes like himself. Just look at Microsoft's tax history in Washington and Nevada (they use loopholes to dodge taxes). And Gates railed against government interference when the court was considering breaking up/penalizing Microsoft for monopoly abuses.
The more time passes (Score:4, Insightful)
The more I admire Steve Wozniak. He is a true hero.
Snowden only revealed abuse (Score:2)
To my knowledge, Snowden did not reveal how the NSA lawfully conducts its business within the mandates of the law. What Showden revealed were only the abusive and illegal activities that the NSA engages in. I'll go along with the notion that sometimes the government breaks the law for the greater good, but... spying on lawyers representing a foreign government in a legal case over shrimp imports? Spying on US-to-US emails if the routes inadvertently go overseas? Collaborating with intelligence agencies in
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I'll go along with the notion that sometimes the government breaks the law for the greater good
Why? The government, of all things, must follow the law (which obviously includes the constitution). I don't want a government that feels it can break the law and infringe upon people's individual liberties "for the greater good."
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I was going to make a reply along those lines; that such are the attitudes that enable tyrannies, but on reflection I reconsidered. It is my belief that AC was driving in a different direction. I believe AC was indicating that governments sometimes have a case to make that one of their prime directives (defense of the nation) may lead them on occasion to skirt legalities. Please note, I am not saying the defense justifies the action in any particular case. I am saying what I believe AC was driving at: the N
Why only Gates and Wozniak? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see the different viewpoints of those who say Snowden is a hero, and the others who say he is a villain. It is also a good thing to know that either group does agree that whatever the act of Snowden is labeled, it is a flagrant violation of the Constitution. This is still without getting out of the US worldview of things. If we suddenly 'retreat' a bit more to get into this 'field of view' not only the US, but the World as an entity, the US worldview should learn how to queue.
But my main curiosity is this: We have two computer technology worldwide-known persons, who have expressed different opinions about the Snowden Saga. I wonder, why stop at them alone and not ask any further, how would other world-wide known computer technology persons see this matter? We could ask Larry Wall, Brian Kernighan, Bjarne Stroustrup, Larry Ellison... the more the better.
THEN, we could mine this data set and maybe we could even find that there is some mysterious connection between beeing a famous computer guy AND success of wealth AND which of these have thick trade-pipes with governmental contracts which in turn loopback towards their welth.
This way we would have way more accurate conclusions and much more credible ones. And with a much lower margin of error as the sampling set would be richer, supposing that the sampling set would not be cherry-picked.
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."
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Yes, Snowden broke the "law", a "law" that ANYone with half a brain could see violated the Constitution, DESPITE what the paid-off Congress and Judiciary say.. He stood up for the Constitution, and is a hero in my book, like many of the heroes from the first American Revolution.. I say "first revolution" because I'm damn sure we're well into the 2nd Revolution... I fear this one is gonna be MUCH bloodier than the first...
Re:The full sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
I wonder if he applies that line of thinking to other heroes.
Rosa Parks - broke the law ... ... ...
Mahatma Gandi - broke the law
Martin Luther King - broke the law
Paul Revere
John Hancock
Oscar Schindler
Underground Railroad...
French Resistance...
Woz is absolutely right... (Score:2)
Always knew there was something about the Woz I really admired...
Apple (Score:2)
Gates and Woz are bad privacy references (Score:3)
Both of them can choose exactly how much privacy they want, because they're both rich. Gates is maybe three orders of magnitude richer than Woz, but both of them are at least three orders of magnitude away from the American median income ($45K or so).
Also, neither of them can just go out in public in the US without being recognized.
That's the problem with the privacy "discussions" in the US - most of the people who can actually change things are members of a minority who gave up big swaths of their privacy, voluntarily, as an entrance requirement for their profession. They can say "privacy is an illusion - get over it" with a straight face, because they haven't had any themselves for decades.
They may be over it, but I'm not, and it pisses me off that they get to choose my privacy level.
Obligatory Franklin quote (Score:3)
"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."
“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
-Benjamin Franklin
I wish I could just beat that into the head of the majority of people. We as a people should be firmly on the side of privacy over safety, it should not even be a question. Many do not see the big picture, but rather focused on a phantom enemy and see Snowden as betraying us against that enemy. Snowden is a true patriot, and indeed a hero, simply in the sense that he EXPOSED OUR PRIVACY BEING USURPED BY OUR OWN GOV'T. I'm pretty young (30 this year) but I'd imagine there was a time when the end of the last sentence would've incensed the MAJORITY of Americans, not just the one's paying attention. We must not sacrifice our freedom (in the form of privacy in this case) for safety. We cannot. And that is more important than some false sense of them doing this for our own good to "catch the bad guys". Secret courts, indefinite detention, etc. should NOT be happening in the land of the free. People wake the fuck up. /rant
As for Gates, obviously he would not be a fan of Snowden...it's people like him who pull the strings of our gov't anyways. I wish I could say I was surprised.
No Surprises (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't surprise me that Bill Gates would identify with the megomaniacal dictatorship mentality that permeates our Federal Government. He was the megomanical dictator of a multinational corporation for so many years, that he can't understand an organization working in any other manner.
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:5, Insightful)
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Good thing they executed Einstein... oh wait...
Completely irrelevant analogy. He was visiting the US when Hitler came to power and decided not to go back due to the anti-semitism. It's not like he gave away secret documents from the German High Command. Analogies need to be relevant to work.
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, then, how about Fermi? Emigrated in 1938 to escape fascism and helped the U.S. (the "enemy") develop the atomic bomb.
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:5, Insightful)
History is written by the victors and all that.
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History is written by the victors and all that.
Yes, I guess it would be going too far to condemn Italian and German fascism as an enemy of mankind.
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OK, then, how about Fermi? Emigrated in 1938 to escape fascism and helped the U.S. (the "enemy") develop the atomic bomb.
Italy made itself his enemy with its racial laws, so his family left to become citizens in another country, the US.
Italy was the enemy, fascism was the enemy.
Are you suggesting that Snowden changed his loyalty to Russia? That would fit.
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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.
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Let us not forget that the Soviets had their Germans scientists as well. And the Soviets didn't give them a choice, they arrested and moved thousands of them long after the war.
The Rest of the Rocket Scientists - Some went west. This is the story of the ones who went east. [airspacemag.com]
More [russianspaceweb.com]
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Maybe I'm missing the point, but I still can't see how Mr. Einstein was supposedly working for the nazis with their atomic bomb, copied all their documents and gave them to the U.S. Especially since this should have happened as early as in 1933, the year Einstein moved to there.
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I suspect one of the points you are missing is that Germany certainly did call Einstein a traitor, and certainly had laid the groundwork for executing him specifically for treason and not just as part of the final solution if they had captured him after a successful conclusion to their war.. Another one is that the United States has a very limited definition of treason, which is actually spelled out in the constitution.
Article 3 - The Judicial Branch
Section 3 - Treason
Treason against the United States, shal
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Einstein was doing nothing with Germany's military projects before he came to the US, nor did he seek to steal any state secrets to bring here. Yes, Einstein was declared a traitor by Germany, but only later on, and not for spying and stealing.
Snowden has openly stated to others that he stole these documents. He has said exactly how he did it. And multiple other witnesses who were part of this are backing up his story ("I gave my credentials to snowden", etc).
Sorry, but in any nation in the world,
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Snowden would be a traitor in any *autocratic* nation in the world. By definition you cannot be a traitor if your "betrayal" was in keeping with your oath of citizenship and protecting the nation and people from illegal acts.
Or to put it another way: It's not stealing to take a purse back from a purse thief and give it back to its owner.
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BACK ON TOPIC?
Bill Gates is a traitor to Humanity.
Woz is a flawed HERO of Humanity.
You doubt the humanity angle? Which of the two would you choose to be marooned with, on a small island for 20 years - hoping to cooperate and survive?
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oh, are we at war with Russia?
last I checked we were sticking our noses into Crimea situation (majority of populace ethnic Russian) but do tell what constitutes "enemies"
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I seem to recall Russia calling our Homeland protectors and warning us about a particular guy. they didn't have to bother to do that, and it's an extraordinary thing that they did. Our Protectors of Der Fatherland ignored the warning. being busy courting punks and filling their heads with violent thoughts and then fake weapons so they could make headlines. And so the Boston Marathon bombings happened. So, who is the enemy of We the People?
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, we don't want anything to do with the Crimea situation, but unfortunately the Ukraine signed an agreement that they would disarm their nuclear stockpile with the agreement that the west would protect their borders. And as such, we are now forced to intervene if we want to push forward any other nuclear disarmament agreements and not risking making other such agreements null and void.
Like it or not, the world is usually more complex than just giving one group of people what they want.
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:4, Insightful)
but unfortunately the Ukraine signed an agreement that they would disarm their nuclear stockpile with the agreement that the west would protect their borders.
Treaties like that caused WWI.
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia failing to honor its part of the treaty may cause WW III.
Re:Snowden = Traitor (Score:4, Insightful)
Russia has a SOF agreement with Ukraine as a part of the Sevastapol lease agreement - good well past a 2017 renewal. It allows for 35,000 Russian Troops in Crimea. The Russians are legally in Crimea under the same kind of frameworks that legally allow US troops in Bhagram, Afghanistan.
The Crimean referendum is being conducted under the precedent most recently, of Kosovo and South Sudan.
Good for the goose? Good for the gander.
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?
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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?
First, the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances [wikisource.org] isn't a treaty under US law. Second, the BMSA doesn't require the US to do anything other than "seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine" if Ukraine is the "victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used."
As the US is currently consulting with the UN and other nations on possible responses to the Russian actions in Crimea, the US has more than met it'
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in this case the enemy is our government. Are you taking refuge with them ?
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Ha, the russian haven't been an enemy of the US for a long time, Was their another safe place for him to go? The US would have indefinitely detained snowden or executed him after a great show trial.
Snowden is a hero, he had the conviction to stand up and say no to an organisation that would take his life for simply telling the truth.
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Heroes do not run and take refuge with our enemies. Snowden is a traitor and should be executed.
The Founding Fathers were all traitors/terrorists to their motherland.
No one gave himself up to the Crown just to express their dissent about how the colonies were being governed.
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There are no terrorists. They are as fictional - in EVERY sense, as the "terrorists" in the movie "Brazil".
But?
Edward Snowden is definitely a "Harry Tuttle".
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Gates is an evil sociopath.
If 'evil sociopaths' have the eradication of malaria, the delivery of clean drinking water and readily available birth control to all as objectives, I say bring 'em on.
Certainly a bigger impact than all these so-called "Christians" blathering away on TV while doing nothing to follow Jesus's preachings.
Re:not a hero, not a villain (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly this.
Re:not a hero, not a villain (Score:4, Insightful)
Much like many men in his position, charity is just a public relations whitewash. This is expecially obvious when all of this occurs in their "retirement". Of course Gates didn't invent this idea, he swiped it from someone else.
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Of course Gates didn't invent this idea, he swiped it from someone else.
...like so much else he is incorrectly credited with.
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Re:not a hero, not a villain (Score:5, Funny)
Even evil sociopaths have to answer to their wives.
money is your hero then (Score:2, Insightful)
Sociopaths can donate money to charity when it helps their tax burden.
Bill Gates didn't himself do any work except public appearances...he's a **Billionaire** you don't get points for making charities to solve well-known problems that also promote your company's products
Gates **should** give his money to charity...the fact that he does **the bare minimum** to charties that spread his products
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It's not just a tax write off. By keeping his money in the foundation and the investments of the foundation, its a tax shelter.
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If 'evil sociopaths' have the eradication of malaria, the delivery of clean drinking water and readily available birth control to all as objectives, I say bring 'em on.
Those things are only being delivered as a means of exerting control over those countries for the next eternity. They're the foot in the door for Big Pharma, in which both the foundation and Gates are heavily invested.
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They're the foot in the door for Big Pharma, in which both the foundation and Gates are heavily invested.
Actually, he sold his big pharma investments in 2009: http://online.wsj.com/news/art... [wsj.com]
Maybe you should try reading the ingredients on the Kool-Aid before you drink it. >.>
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Gates is nearing 60, he isn't going to be exerting control over anything for much longer.
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He's no more altruistic than the big pharmaceutical companies. It's not really altruism when you stand to make a large profit. Gates just figured out that the charity business can be an extremely successful one -- it gives one the ability to strong-arm entire nations all while immune to criticism under the protection of "philanthropy." The Gates Foundation, like similar foundations, exists so those of his lineage will all be filthy rich no matter what and no individual will be able to screw it all up for th
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Gates is a sociopath in the same way lex luthor is a sociopath, he is someone who does do many good things but is still evil.
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Gates is a sociopath in the same way lex luthor is a sociopath, he is someone who does do many good things but is still evil.
I'd say in the same way that oligarchs generally are; the result of all his philanthropy will not change the way society is ruled by sociopathic oligarchs and their ilk, rather it will be more firmly established, and the common folk less upwardly mobile than ever. For the most part, our rulers believe they are entitled to the bulk of the world's good things because they are a better race of human. A modest and decent person will never come to possess $76 billion.
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I'm not calling Gates a Hitler, this isn't really a godwin thing. But Hitler was a vegetarian and perhaps even an antivivisectionist (early form of animal rights). This illustrates that you can find good in even the most heinous people.
That Gates is using his arguably ill-gotten gains for good purposes, doesn't make him a hero. It makes him a creep who has a little good in him (although philanthropy like his is usually more about a different kind of personal aggrandizement). Secondly, think how chilling
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...This illustrates that you can find good in even the most heinous people.
Say what you want about Hitler, he sure was good at making collectibles!
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Do YOU follow Jesus' teachings, oh perfect one? Jackass.
Where I can, yeah. But I'm not perfect.
...but I also don't go on TV claiming to be a 'christian,' then cut food stamps for poor kids and cheer executions.
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"Bill Gates tells his main priority focuses on stopping the bad guys"
And yet he lives in a country that's supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. You're not free if you give away your freedoms for security, and you're not brave, either. Amazing how people think the government is composed of perfect angels, even though minimal knowledge of government abuses throughout history will tell you that governments ('even' the US government) cannot be trusted with such powers.
not cool (Score:2)
look, #3526197...this is #574257)...i know that users like yourself are part of being on the internet...i don't like that you copied my user profile stuff & I wish you'd close it down...but i mean...this is the internet...
what i think crosses the line is when you **reply to the person you're imitating**
let's not shit where we eat, ok?
and really...could you just change up your sig at least? why would you want to appear to be me anyways???
not prison (Score:2)
hmm idk busygary...I've thought about this & i hope he's in a position where he can exchange information for some kind of reduction of charges to misdemeanors here in the USA...does the federal government even have misdemeanors? like some kind of "misuse of government property" and get a suspended sentence & the crime is gone in 5 years kind of thing. That's what I'd hope could happen.
b/c of how I view
Re:A hero isn't someone who runs away (Score:5, Insightful)
How many Gates ancestors. . . . (Score:2)
Re:A hero isn't someone who runs away (Score:5, Insightful)
He's stuck in Russia, away from friends and family, probably not exactly having the best time of his life.
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.
By your statement regarding facing consequences, I would think that you believe there should be no such thing as witness protection programs.
Though I think the basic issue with the premise of the question is that it's a false dichotomy. I don't think Snowden is a hero. I also don't think he's a traitor. At least not wholly on either. Getting people to label him as one or the other is populist journalism. Of course, this is Rolling Stone.. while held in higher regard than the usual tabloids, it is what it is.
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.
Re:A hero isn't someone who runs away (Score:5, Insightful)
Sticking around hasn't helped Manning any.
I think you're looking at "consequences" as a very black and white thing. Snowden is facing the consequences for his actions -- he's exiled from his country and may never be able to return. He's already sacrificed so much to do the right thing. Sticking around to be persecuted wouldn't help out any. He took the risk of being tortured, imprisoned, and even executed. Isn't that enough? That's the most we ask of our soldiers and then we declare them heroes -- we ask that they risk their lives. We ask that they risk sacrifice, not that they do sacrifice. Kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers have no place in the defense of our country. Why should the whistleblower be so self-sacrificial? Why is he not a hero for risking his life when that's the standard of valor we place upon ourselves?
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Geez.. I wish I hadn't already posted.. I'd mod you UP UP UP.. I STRONGLY agree with your eloquent statement on "consequences"... Snowden has sacrificed his normal life, where he will likely be permanently exiled to whatEVER country feels the cojones to stand up to what has become the American war-machine... hint: VERY few countries have these cojones... Russia being one of the very few.. If he'd stayed in the US, he'd more than likely be dead now... As much as I love America, having served in the Army in
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Like killing him would somehow undo what he had done? If they didn't make it public, his death wouldn't deter anyone from doing something similar, and if they *DID*, the martyr effect would probably do the exact opposite.
Re:A hero isn't someone who runs away (Score:5, Insightful)
But!
Because he fled the country, and has to keep his value to his current hosts in order to retain his guest status, he's kept revealing stuff that has gone far beyond whistle-blower status. We the people did need to know that our government was collecting our data, and most likely in violation of the Constitution (gotta leave the final decision to the courts but I think it was illegal). But we did not have any need to know about our collection efforts directed at foreign leaders, even if they are allies. It's the Intelligence game, everybody collects on everybody, allies and enemies both. A political and Military Ally is still an economic competitor, and politically we don't agree on everything so even in that realm is there cause for intelligence collection. Neither did we need any knowledge of the UK surveillance program nor the Aussie program. Nor anything else he's released. And it was all those revelations that pushed him from Hero Whistle-blower to Traitor.
Had he stayed and faced the music he likely would have been acquitted by now as a Whistle-blower. We would still have had the national discussion about the surveillance program and even were he to be convicted he would be considered a Hero for protecting the Constitution. And had he stayed he likely would not have had the opportunity to dip into treason by revealing the stuff that did not concern us as constitutional violations.
We do owe him a debt of gratitude, but he ruined that by revealing classified information that did not concern violations of our constitutional rights and damaged our valid intelligence collection efforts. He has tarnished his Hero status and now stands as a traitor.
Re:A hero isn't someone who runs away (Score:4, Insightful)
You illustrate nicely why I tend to dislike your country so much.
The US is behaving like shit towards its "friends", and though its part of the game, there are things that go too far. Somehow it is OK to ignore *any* laws when it concerns people from outside of your country.
Apart from being foolish (you really seem to believe he would stand a chance in his own country; I do not. I am sure he himself also doubts this, so far, you are in the minority here...), you are also blind. Snowden has shown us a lot about the exchange of info between spy-programs. You can freely spy on not-americans, and the Brits can freely spy on Americans, so you needed to know the whole thing. I cannot understand how the foreign part is not relevant to the discussion, you are deluding yourself. Your info will simply be collected by a foreign entity, and than given to the NSA. Poof...there go your rights and constitution, without doing anything illegal! How nice!
Snowden did not release anything (apart from things he said in interviews). The call what to release and when to release it was made by journalists. So he did not go from hero to traitor, he did everything at the same time. Oh, and I actually see nothing tarnishing about being a traitor to the dark side.
Re:A hero isn't someone who runs away (Score:4, Insightful)
And that would have been the end of it.
Or maybe he'd be absolutely miserable, like how other whistleblowers ended up.
We do owe him a debt of gratitude, but he ruined that by revealing classified information that did not concern violations of our constitutional rights and damaged our valid intelligence collection efforts.
I for one am thankful that he gave us a more in depth view of what our government is doing. Just because some of the activities he revealed aren't related to our constitutional rights doesn't mean that the activities are moral, or that we shouldn't know they're happening.
Lies lies lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, there is so much wrong in this post I don't even know where to begin.
Let's start with the "claimed and won whistle-blower status". That is completely false. First off, the whistleblower laws only apply to government employees. As a contractor, they did not protect him at all. Second, he is charged under the Espionage Act, which does not have any whistleblower or "public good" exception. People prosecuted under this law are forbidden from telling a jury that they were acting for the greater good, the only thing that the jury is allowed to hear is that the law was broken.
http://www.politifact.com/pund... [politifact.com]
Second, as for "the worst thing that could happen to him", consider the prior example of Thomas Drake, who was a whistleblower years before Snowden, followed the letter of the law precisely, and as a result had his house raided by armed FBI agents. They also raided the houses of three other people who knew Drake, the FBI holding the families of these associates at gunpoint. The prosecution of Drake was in fact persecution, as Richard D. Bennett of the Federal District Court said explicitly when he called it "unconscionable".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
He has not "kept revealing stuff" in order to "keep his value". He gave his documents to a few trusted reporters before he fled, and since he left he has not released a single thing. The continuing revelations are from his original release to the reporters, he is not providing anything new at all. He says he has none of the documents anymore, and the NSA and CIA and FBI have not shown any evidence that he does have them. The intelligence agencies have instead used weasel-words to insinuate that he does without literally accusing him of it.
The collection efforts directed at our allies need to be revealed, because they are part of a larger pattern of flagrant disrespect and veiled acts of war the intelligence agencies are perpetuating universally across the globe. Do you even realize we are talking about universal surveillance of every man, woman, and child on Earth? The reality is far worse than any dystopian science fiction you can find. The NSA is worse than the Stasi, as said by a former Stasi official.
https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com]
As for our political and military allies also being economic competitors, how the hell do you justify spending more on our intelligence budget than the rest of the First World nations combined? In what possible way is that an economic advantage?
The worst part of all this is that I cannot ever know for sure if you are simply grossly misinformed, or you are a government shill paid to deliberately post false information in an organized propaganda attempt.
https://firstlook.org/theinter... [firstlook.org]
You, sir, terrify me almost as much as the totalitarian government intelligence agencies.
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An interesting intellectual point. I take it you think "owning up" to asserting your rights and turning yourself in to a tyrant's forces is more somehow more heroic than doing your level best to expose and undermine the tyrant. That may be true by the definition of "hero", but I believe value to good is more important than pointless self sacrifice.
I would categorically disagree in the strongest possible terms - i.e., vehemently - with your premise that "if one isn't prepared to face whatever the consequence
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You are absolutely right about this.... it does not require that every individual be a hero. And in my view,
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A hero, in my view, isn't somebody who runs away from a fight they don't think they can win.... if it was important enough to start, then it's important enough to finish. Like I said above... it's probably not a popular sentiment.
Torturing Snowden or otherwise subjecting him to unjustified treatment in the USA wouldn't change anything that's already happened, and because particularly controversial treatment, such as violating any of his constitutional or inalienable rights, would not dare ever become p
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First of all, you don't have to be a hero to do something extremely important or valuable, or even worthy of being admired by others.
But no matter how prudent or practical running away might be, it isn't heroic.
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"He puts an entire nation in jeopardy."
Actually, he put an entire nation on the alert to very real abuses by our government.
I've heard the NSA complain that a journalist is not qualified to determine what is and what is not too sensitive for publication. However, I would like to submit that the NSA and like institutions are not qualified to determine what is in the best interests of a democracy.
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He seems to be of the opinion that security is more important than freedom, even though he's living in a country that is called "the land of the free." The whole notion of it being better for numerous guilty people to get away than for one innocent person to be wrongly convicted is probably equally as disgusting to him.
Not everyone likes freedom, especially those who haven't had to live without it, or those without principles.
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... Anyone that lives in the US and isn't concerned about what the NSA has done is ignorant or helping them make in roads into our privacy...
Well, I think that anybody who was shocked and surprised by the revelations is pretty much ignorant.
The NSA has gone from a never-mentioned no-such-agency to a recognized public entity in the past 40 years.
The use of meta data has been the subject of court cases going back to the 70's with a SCOTUS ruling in the '80s that pretty much ruled the data as the property of the phone companies and that their customers had no expectation of privacy
The heads of TLA's have appeared at security conferences and stated
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living in black and white world there?
no government is run by people, if we look at the history over the past decades that the NSA has been around... the US does not seem to have fallen into the dystopia that you have drawn up
sure be vigilant, sure be aware of your environment, but what you are doing is just fear inducing screeching that does nothing to help people
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They are meddlesome do gooders who are willing to destroy society and the status quo just to make a name for themselves.
Don't decide what other people's intentions are for them.