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According To YouGov Poll, Snowden Support Declining Among Americans
eldavojohn writes "A recent poll from the YouGov consisting of one thousand responses shows that Snowden's support among Americans has shifted. Now, according to the poll, more Americans think he did the wrong thing rather than the right thing when asked: 'Based on what you've heard, do think Snowden's leak of top-secret information about government surveillance programs to the media was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do?' The results and breakdown are available online (PDF). Without getting into racial or political breakdowns, the results now show that 38% say he did the wrong thing, 33% say he did the right thing and 29% remain undecided about the results of his actions. Instead of charging the populace into action Snowden may be facing apathy at best and public disapproval at worst."
How about support for prosecuting James Clapper?
What the fuck America?
From The Q&A Snowden had with readers of The Guardian:
Q: What would you say to others who are in a position to leak classified information that could improve public understanding of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and its effect on civil liberties?
A: This country is worth dying for.
Despite this latest poll, I still think Snowden was right. Future generations will hail him as the hero he is. And that's coming from a non-American...
At least, it was not a waste of taxpayers dollars to spend on spin doctors.
What about
'Based on what you've heard, do think government surveillance programs was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do?'
This isn't terribly shocking. If the last several years have told us anything it's that the American people don't really care if the government abuses its authority. Remember the Nixon scandal? That guy tried to wiretap a *single office* and the only reason that he wasn't impeached is because he resigned before congress could file the impeachment paperwork. Yet, when the government started wiretapping citizens years ago due to "national security" reasons, there was no such uproar. Sure, there were a few people that wanted the president impeached, but there was no real support for it. It's no surprise that the recent news of the wiretapping being larger than we thought has fallen on deaf ears.
Every single issue over the last couple decades has been met with more and more apathetic responses. The problem is going to get far worse before it gets better.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
That's exactly the kind of psy-op that has been going on for weeks now in discussion forums all around the internets.
Slowly, but steadily comments pop up that put Snowden in a slightly bad light, for no good reason at all. Depending on the target audience of the forum, it's anything from "because 'MURICA" to what you just said.
Doesn't anyone notice that?
That's also why such programs are so enormously dangerous. Who in the world would know best how to manipulate public opinion? Only those whose sole reason of existance it is to peek into other peoples lives ... so even when the programs are known (which happens very rarely), we can't fight it because they have already become too powerful.
...when you condider the 24/7 anti-Snowdon propaganda in the US-media.
Shooting the messenger has a long tradition.
Is this really a surprise? Most sections of the media have spent the last month or so trying to portray Snowden as a traitor, who's weakened the national security of several countries, endangered inter-governmental cooperation (because now they know they were all spying on each other rather than just assuming they were), is possibly a bit weird and is now "palling around" with Russian and various South American states who are "enemies of teh freedoms".
In that context, of course peoples' opinions are going to start to shift.
Does anyone here actually fill out YouGov Polls?
My point being, a survey is only as good as it's sample selection, so what is really being said is:
Support for Snowden shifts among Americans who fill out YouGov polls.
At least the questions aren't too leading.
Wow does this headline have things reversed.
Edward Snowden has been subjected to a month long attack campaign. This started with go after his girlfriend for being a pole dancer. It followed with other negative news stories and criticism by major politicians. From there there was a federal espionage indictment. He then had to flee the country and the USA has gone to extraordinary lengths putting pressure on countries to isolate him. The media has been mainly complicit. And after all that is approval rating has dropped a mere 5 points.
That's the story.
now that they know they are being monitored and showing him favor might get them on a watch list.
http://interserver.net/
I'd have thought that it was pretty much axiomatic to anyone that's spent any appreciable time surfing the intarwubz that e-fame is horribly fleeting. Andy Warhol's 15 minutes in web 3.0 terms is down to about three, and you've already wasted two on the ads. During this entire evolution, many people that have been paying attention for a bit have mentioned people like Klein, Manning, Drake, Thompson, Gilmore, Rivest, Schneier, and many other Names any security researcher ought to be intimately familiar with, only to get the electronic equivalent of blank looks. It's only a matter of time before Snowden gets a similar treatment. This is why when an electronic activism opportunity presents itself, we have to act NOW, not when we get a round tuit, because it will be long over by the time your round tuit gets there.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
By continuously shifting the attention away in the media from the human rights violations to what Snowdon is doing now (sitting on an airport) or did (show that the government is acting outside the law) people get bored. And especially since the violations of Americans' own rights is covered by law (that is implemented in a completely unaccountable way, though) the American people forget even more. But the European people - not their politicians, of course - are furious. If one chooses to be a diplomat or a politician, one knows there will be eavesdropping. But when I write a letter to someone, a foreign government that is supposed to be an allie should stay the f**k out of my mail: paper and electronic alike. Of course, I'm also blaming the United Kingdom. The western world induces terrorism itself by performing terrorism in other parts of the world. Conquer and divide. Give them weapons, let them fight each other as long as our companies' interests are ensured. Shoot people on flimsy evedence with a drone, without a trial, in countries we're not at war with. And the bloddy mess (innocent civilians) is a don't care. They are not our boys, but theirs. No wonder people start to fight back. People like Snowdon and Bradley Manning are necessary to show that politicians commit war crimes, blackmail countries and violate every possible law that's about humanity. That is because they act not in our interests (the public, the believed to be free people) but in the interest of big companies. Who also happen to own the media. And there goes your information, your well informed opinion and as a result yout humanity. The trend that you're seeing in this article is indifference. Governments are lobby clubs that lie to their people and allies alike. And they succeed.
All sheep that deserve to be slaughtered, why do great man still think they can save them is beyond me.
these submissions stink of fish!
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
Read and be enlightened. There's no proof but I bet every political topic has people hired to do this.
so hten they are fuckign ok with spying on other nations for no good reason then to be fucking pricks
then fuck your nation. and the next terror attack dont expect me to say one ting in sympathy
see how that fuckign works america
YOU LOSERS
Apathetic is the best word to describe it. The majority of Americans don't care about anything beyond their town and their next paycheck. Most people aren't concerned at all with "doing the right thing," they just want to do what the govt. tells them. Not sure how to say this without my tinfoil hat, but not everything the govt. does is right. For a long time now, the govt. has been steadily increasing its powers over the citizens and the average person doesn't notice or care.
Heat up the water slowly and the frog won't jump out, detain the frog indefinitely on terrorism charges... the point is bad things happen to the frog.
It is now official. YouGov has confirmed: Edward Snowden support is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered internet community community when CNN confirmed that support for whistleblowers has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all important people. Coming on the heels of a recent Pew survey which plainly states that...
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Wow does this headline have things reversed.
Edward Snowden has been subjected to a month long attack campaign. This started with go after his girlfriend for being a pole dancer. It followed with other negative news stories and criticism by major politicians. From there there was a federal espionage indictment. He then had to flee the country and the USA has gone to extraordinary lengths putting pressure on countries to isolate him. The media has been mainly complicit. And after all that is approval rating has dropped a mere 5 points.
That's the story.
Submitter here and I'm afraid I'm going to have to outright disagree with you. I just don't see your events lining up with this recent drop in support. You're talking about months old efforts to discredit him that seemed to have little effect on his popularity. If you read the HuffPo article you'll see:
Much of the drop in support for Snowden's actions since the earlier poll appears to have taken place among Republicans, who were divided, 37 percent to 37 percent, on whether Snowden did the right thing in the previous poll, but in the latest poll said by a 44 percent to 29 percent margin that he did the wrong thing.
As fallout from his revelations ruin our foreign relations I think you'll see a lot of conservatives switch positions. This is simply a more plausible explanation. US as a power player in world politics and economics is simply higher on some people's agendas then their own damned privacy.
My work here is dung.
That's exactly the kind of psy-op that has been going on for weeks now in discussion forums all around the internets.
It is standard propaganda tactics to describe people as unreliable attention whores to place blame on them. It works in various ways.
For example, take the fable "the boy who cried wolf". It is not a tale about a boy lying, but a tale about blaming a boy for the failure of others to build fences to protect the sheep.
When people are unable to determine whether someone opening their eyes to something awful their own government is doing TO THEM, is "right" or "wrong", it's a sad day. At least the people who claim it's "wrong" know they're lying to themselves.
Maybe if the NSA can secretly record information on billions of people, then rigging a yougov poll would be child's play. 4chan does it about once a month, like how they got kim jong un times people's choice award of 2012.
Rocket Surgeon.
Submitter is dishonestly editorialising. The YouGov poll clearly states, "Despite the changing opinion of Snowden, Americans remain opposed to the NSA’s activities. By 55% to 28%, they say the surveillance was an unnecessary intrusion into American lives. They remain divided on whether the surveillance has prevented terrorist attacks. And they continue to believe that the NSA, despite its claims to the contrary, has listened in on the conversations of Americans."
By contrast, submitter's final comment directly contradicts the article, revealing his/her own prejudices, "Instead of charging the populace into action Snowden may be facing apathy at best and public disapproval at worst."
Denouncing US 'Empire' South American Leaders Step Up to Protect Snowden
Presidents of Venezuela and Nicaragua allude to potential asylum for the stranded NSA whistleblower
Two South American nations, Venezuela and Nicaragua, indicated Friday that there may be some relief for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who for the past 14 days has unsuccessfully sought political asylum from a number of nations, all the while remaining trapped in the purgutory of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport.
"As head of state of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela, I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young Snowden [...] to protect this young man from the persecution launched by the most powerful empire in the world," Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said—alluding to the United States—during an independence day speech in Caracas on Friday.
etc.
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/06
I say we make him president.
President Camacho: Shit. I know shit's bad right now, with all that starving bullshit, and the dust storms, and we are running out of french fries and burrito coverings. But I got a solution.
South Carolina Representative # 1: That's what you said last time, dipshit!
South Carolina Representative # 2: Yeah, I got a solution, you're a dick! South Carolina, what's up!
--------- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/quotes
Faux News etc.
According To YouGov Poll, government propaganda gives its expected results.
This is exactly the type of comment that are being put in by government "online persona" programmes uncovered during HBGary debacle, to stir the public opinion into favorable dorection. There is no hope.
'Based on what you've heard ...
All this tells us is that people will change their opinion depending on what "the news" tells them. Spin a story one way and you've got a hero. Put a different emphasis on it and you create a villain.
Maybe if the truth came out, and was laid before the public with no interpretation, value judgements or commentary they would be in a position to make up their own mind (sometimes I just can't help but laugh as I'm writing this stuff) and come to a conclusion of their own.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Snowden is an attention whore, I've said so from the very get go of this thing.
That's a blue herring. His whole point was to get the public's attention.
I kinda think they are flawed. Now, I haven't seen the polls, but 1000 people seem to be a really low number in this, especially since its an internet poll.
When the story first broke, I believed Snowden was a hero. This was when the leaked information was regarding legally-questionable, at best, domestic spying on it's own citizens.
The leaks since then have shown that Snowden isn't just "blowing the whistle", he's leaking whatever details he could carry on whatever electronic intelligence programs he could get his hands on. It's not as if it should have come as a big shock to him (or anybody) that the NSA spies on the communications of foreign countries; that's kind of what we created the NSA for, and it's what we pay intelligence agencies for in general.
He did it the wrong way.
Pray tell, what would have been the right way?
Ezekiel 23:20
Um, no, nimerous people before him did that, and you haven't even heard of them, because they got shot down in courts so quickly.
there is no issue with my network
Cue the "fascist Amerka" slashthink
If we presume – for a minute – that what the NSA is or was doing is legal, how would we have ever found out about it?
There needs to be a level of transparency in our government that just doesn't seem to exist ATM.
Apathy is far worse than disapproval. It would show that the American public has, indeed, degraded into a few hundred million Homer and Marge Simpsons who only care about consumption. If apathy with regard to the Snowden case were indeed to become the prevailing sentiment, it would show that the American public DOES merit a surveillance state. Remember: every nation gets the leadership it merits.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Blah blah blah
Snowden is an attention whore
He's an attention whore for all the RIGHT REASONS, as opposed to the sad sack culture that we have now e,g what is Britney Spears wearing this week? who fucking cares, or should that read, who with a brain fucking cares?
Yes, yes, America sucks, the people are stupid and lazy. Snowden is a hero. You guys are like broken records.
Maybe, just maybe, you're wrong. Maybe not everyone who disagrees with you is an apathetic moron.
When he first started he was talking about the government spying on regular american people, and the public was sympathetic to him. Then instead of stopping there he started talking about the US spying on other countries. The problem there is nothing unconstitutional about the US spying overseas and revealing this did not protect americans. There is a big difference between whistleblowing about misconduct towards americans and leaking top secret memos regarding foreign intelligence operations.
I agree on most of your points except on:
Snowden is an attention whore
I won't dare a judgement given that he's said goodbye to his comfy life and is now hoping to find a place where he can live at all -- and we are reaping th benefits of his actions. To me, he stays a hero -- attention whoring or not.
What have you done for me, lately? Conversely: what have I done for you, of late?
That's 1000 adults and probably not even a representative sample. Nearly 1/3 of those polled are undecided. The poll really shows that Americans haven't made up their mind yet.
The proper channels do not work. There is no "right" way to be a whistleblower. The systems are in place to define any possible effective attempt to whistleblow something this big as "wrong".
Here's his mistakes:
- putting his name to it before he was in a safe jurisdiction.
- putting out a video interview before he was safely out of view with Lasik, dark hair and a clean shave.
- making additional statements before he could see which way public response was heading so he could fine tune his message.
- parking his ass in a foreign airport that puts pressure on that country's relationship with the US.
- announcing that he took the Booze Allan job with the goal of acquiring and leaking this information.
- associating himself with WikiLeaks & Julian Assange.
He should have been in hiding and kept quite for a while so he could let the media speculate on what he had released rather than speculating on "Where's Waldo Going?". His camping trip in the Moscow airport is a huge distraction to the bombshell he released.
If you're looking at it from the perspective of an American, Snowden was a hero early on since the initial disclosure involved the surveillance of American citizens by the American government. As soon as he started releasing information about their govenment spying on foreign government, a large number of people are going to see him as a traitor. Of course his popularity is going to decline.
(I also agree that the prolonged media focus upon the man rather than the issues isn't helping his case.)
Reminds me of all those posts here about Assange's ego from the land that reveres Hollywood stars and Donald Trump. He just doesn't rate on those terms.
You can try a bit harder than recycling an Assange post that really doesn't fit him either.
Push polls are a sign of fear. They're trying to give the impression that protestors are isolated and thus should be afraid of stepping out line by protesting. If people really didn't care, then you wouldn't need to keep the program secret, and continue to lie about it.
The details of the economist poll I could not find, only the claimed single question, which is rarely the full story, there's always pre-questions to remove the 'don't know'.
For example the first poll 'Pew', was heavily loaded with pre-questions to push the person to accept surveillance:
e..g.
"Did you follow reports about the government collecting emails and other online activities directly from large internet companies to track foreign suspects in terror investigations very closely,"
See the "to track foreign suspects in terror investigations" part?
If I told you the surveillance is everyone for everything (which it is), that's different from tracking a few terror suspects (which it isn't). The loaded questions were only able to just take it above 50%.
If they're pushing, then its fear.
Posting anonymously so I don't undo the upvote I gave you. I've never heard that before, but it's...interesting at the very least.
- putting his name to it before he was in a safe jurisdiction
Couldn't that have damaged his credibility? Also it could have given the USA time to wipe out any records of him.
- putting out a video interview before he was safely out of view with Lasik, dark hair and a clean shave.
Wouldn't doing the interview after changing your appearance be really really stupid? Wouldn't that completely defeat the purpose?
The rest I agree with more or less 100%
"Um, no, nimerous people before him did that, and you haven't even heard of them, because they got shot."
ftfy
Can't you cretins recognize propaganda ?
Apparently not.
And to all of you who say "Americans deserve what they get" :
You would say this to my face once. After that you would be fertilizer.
What's more in evidence and perhaps surprising is that despite all the high pressure anti-Snowden propaganda intended to deflect public attention from government wrong-doing, the public has been awakened now and isn't letting go of the NSA in its jaws.
The government acolytes are clearly hard at work even on Slashdot, it's pretty funny. But it's too late, the cat is out of the bag. Europe in particular is up in arms at the international monitoring, while latinoamerica is up in arms because good ol' USA is a perpetual threat to it, and Snowden was just a good excuse for banding together against "USA imperialism", which unfortunately is a justified tag.
Still, we can expect more stories like TFS and TFA, not to mention poll manipulation. It's inevitable, that's the world in which we live today.
Life for most of us is already complex enough. We know we are in a tiny sinking life raft with an insane incompetent captain on a hostile ocean filled with sharks. If someone then starts to show just how leaky the boat is by poking at its holes... well, they can expect a punch in the face.
Those that are upset by all the revelations are the people who thought the captain was competent and sane, the ocean was our natural home, the raft an ocean lines and the sharks to be dolphins.
In reality of course, the spying while much worse then what the dreamers thought is probably in reality far less effective. If it worked, they would be capturing more terrorists and criminals. Most of us in the real world DREAM of an effective secret shadow government ruled by aliens, it would mean that for once somebody intelligent was in charge. Or at least something with a plan. It doesn't matter that the plan is to harvest your organs, at least it is a goddamn plan.
Take the attitude in the US towards veterans. The average American KNOWS the average US veteran is a war criminal. Plenty of examples even very clear once like the Mai Lai masacre. Point out however that just because someone is a vet, they are therefor NOT automatically worthy of worship and they will spout all sorts of nonsense, even going so far as liberals stating that orders are orders.
The same people who cry foul (justly so) over Japan worhshipping its war criminals, can't see the tree in their own eye.
Because it rocks the boat. And people HATE that.
Ideally people want today to be followed by tomorrow and for it to be not to much worse.
If you read about daily life in the death camps of the holocaust, the normalcy of it all is the most shocking. Life went on, even if all around you it didn't. The same is true of children raised in the most appalling conditions. Humans adapt, to ANYTHING. It allows us to survive. Both Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett have written about this, we all need to be slightly drunk all the time because if we ever saw the world sober, we would lose our minds.
Think about this, while you are reading me prattling on, children are being hurt and killed, are dying of hunger RIGHT now and all your are doing is wishing you had mod points to mod me up/down. YOU (and I, because I am prattling on while I could be saving someone) can't deal with the real world all the time.
And snowden tried to force us to do so, to see the man behind the curtain and we hate him for it. Well not hate, just wish he would go away so we can pretend the world ain't that bad after all.
Want proof? Red nose day. A british charity event were they gather money through comedy. It is VERY succesful. Because it offsets the horrors for which the money is needed with plenty of entertainment and happy endings to make us forget how horrid it all is. Charity organizers know this, you show a BIT of misery, the photogenic part because if you just show thousands of dead children, nobody would donate anything because nobody would watch. Show however a story of how a child went from carrying water all day to sitting in a happy classroom and you can't accept the donations fast enough.
Snowden showed us the Auswitz that is our privacy and we can't cope. It is to much, to far. He didn't just rock the boat, he nuked it out of existence. And have us nothing in return. He didn't give us any tools to stop Prism. EVERYONE is in favor. The only ones speaking out against it so far are SOME tea party members and socialist semi-dictators. In Europe NOBODY has spoken out against it.
We can now either face the full machinations of the system OR wish Snowden went away.
I am betting on the latter. Because I am a old middle class man who frankly has every bit of fight beaten out of him. I used to be an activist for a local union, then had people who fought me every way demand that they get all the benefits they didn't fight for... let someone else fight this fight. I am done and frankly I can see why some people walk f
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Since when does one thousand = 313 million???
polls like this are stupid.
I work for one of the companies he claims the NSA has a direct backdoor into. I'm in a position to know exactly what is installed on our clusters and systems. And I can tell you that at least some of Snowden's claims are complete bullshit.
How about you go and fellate the the nearest cop?
If he had done things the "right way" as you put it, he would be in jail and tortured or worse. The "wrong way" means that he is a free man, after doing nothing wrong. Do you often feel that punishing people for doing nothing wrong is the way to go? Because it's a bit sick if you do.
This man had the guts and the courage to do what was right. To expose some of the corruption and malaise that exists in the USA. And you, oh such a strong person aren't you, ranting about doing the correct thing from the safety of your home, you claim he should have faced the consequences. Would you have the strength of chacater to stand up for what you believe in? If you realized that your government was, e.g. systematically sterilizing women against their will, or imprisoning blacks without charge or on false evidence, or making and then breaking treaties with other nations, would you expose the wrong doing and simply accept the consequences? Even if that meant you might be imprisoned and kept in solitary confinement, forced to sleep without bedding or clothing, unable to exercise (just some of the things done to that other hero Bradly Manning)?
What if you discovered your company was actually a mafia front, and they were funneling and laundering large quantities of drug money and protection money through it? Would you stand up in front of the media and loudly denounce them? What, you don't want to accept the consequences of your actions (death and dismemberment), why coward! You should never have mentioned the nasty news in the first place if you weren't willing to die painfully.
Snowden is not a fool, he realized that the government of the USA is no better than a mafia gang. That the consequences would be no nicer. That the justice would be no more justice than could be expected from the mafia. He fled and did the moral thing, the ethical thing, he showed the world that the USA is still as hypocritical as ever.
Snowden is a hero and I wish him the best of luck!
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
That is the question Americans are asking. He started out running the Chinese. Americans are anxious about the Chinese.
His next stop was Russia... Our old Cold War enemy. So... more anxiety.
Then off to various countries in South America that hate the US... Why would Americans have any problem with that?
I understand what he's doing. But he's done it the wrong way.
If the point was to make Americans aware of NSA oversteps there was a way to do that without threatening to give away national security secrets to the Chinese and Russians.
Snowden is clearly a bit of a fool. I feel for the guy and don't think he did this with malice. But he's basically playing with high voltage wiring and should surprise no one if he gets badly burned by this move. First rule of playing with high voltage wiring... Be careful. Failing that... make a good will.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Nonsense.
Zealots, psychotics, and sociopaths that have nothing to live for are willing to "give their lives for what they believe in". The simple willingness to die for a cause bears NO weight on the moral quality of the cause, nor on the worthiness of the person.
History is littered with nutballs who are willing to give their lives for 'a cause'. Unfortunately, they usually convince others to join them, and invariably some non-nutballs die too.
I know it's all charmingly enthusiastic and romantic to be zealous about a cause but personally I commend American apathy. As we've recently been witness to (repeatedly) the world is FULL of people who are so partisan they are willing to DIE for their local interpretation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Is that commendable?
We rightly mock the Byzantines for the Nika riots (in which tens of thousands of people were slain in street violence over the span of a week, largely over which color team they supported). We stand aghast at today's news about a Brazilian referee stabbing a player because he wouldn't leave the pitch (and then the crowd QUARTERED him and left his head on a stake in the center of the pitch). They certainly "cared" a lot about something, so much so that they were willing as a consensual group to murder a man. Shall we canonize them for their dedication to their beliefs?
America has been accurately characterized as the 'lifeboat from history'. America is where a Jew and an Arab can live next to each other in peace, not brainwashed from birth to destroy each other because of some argument between scruffy goat-herders hundreds of years ago. America is where a Catholic girl can marry a Muslim guy simply because they love each other, and not be bred into fervent hatred because of the faiths of their families. The ESSENCE of this is - dare I say it - an apathy to the fervently-held beliefs and concepts that their parents and homelands were willing to die and kill for.
Partisans of both extremes like to mock what they call the 'apathetic' center, mainly because we won't (whether the reason is intellectual or mere laziness) join their crazy-train of vituperation, spitting at the "other guys" simply because they're "not us".
Well, I'm sorry - I refuse to buy your motivational screed that I "must" care about this or that. I refuse to give a shit about whatever happens to get you all riled up, simply because you're agitated. I'll cheerfully go about my life, earn a living, and celebrate my "apathy" because that's one of the things that make this country great.
I'd stake my life on it.
-Styopa
- putting his name to it before he was in a safe jurisdiction
Couldn't that have damaged his credibility? Also it could have given the USA time to wipe out any records of him.
If he'd been in hiding, and had a US mouthpiece (paid for by the news agencies he gave the scoops to), he'd still be credible. What he should have done is flown to San Fran to meet with the reports rather than Hong Kong. That way he could have been on a plane to Mexico before the reporters called their editors with the stories. From Mexico he could easily travel to any number of South American countries with anti-American governments, changed his appearance and just waited to ask for asylum.
- putting out a video interview before he was safely out of view with Lasik, dark hair and a clean shave.
Wouldn't doing the interview after changing your appearance be really really stupid?
I should have been clearer and said "released" his video. Of course he should have recorded it when he first met with the reporters.
There doesn't seems to be much of a point for anyone to be a whistleblower anymore. You lose your job, your reputation is ruined in the public view due to the immense power of media manipulation, your life is ruined (possibly even lethally depending on circumstances)... and the end result? A bit of a kerfuffle on the Internet and that's it. Nothing changes, the pricks responsible keep doing their business as money changes hands/public reaction dies down, and it becomes business as usual.
Unlike in fiction, good people doing the right thing often suffer absolutely terrible consequences. No wonder people are apathetic - it's a survival instinct. Stirring the hornet's nest costs WAY too much for zero practical gain.
US as a power player in world politics and economics is simply higher on some people's agendas then their own damned privacy
Could it not merely be that appeal to authority is higher on some people's agenda?
Right or Left, we choose to disbelieve math and science when it doesn't fit our view of the world.
Disbelieving an internet poll is another matter entirely.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
When I read about the poll, and some of the posts here, what comes to mind is "Every country has the government it deserves". It will get worse here, and most people will just be okay with that, as long as they have their "toys" (Guns, 3D-printer, latest cell phone) and a comfortable life. Something like the May '68 in France or the protests in Brasil would never, ever happen here.
For example, take the fable "the boy who cried wolf". It is not a tale about a boy lying, but a tale about blaming a boy for the failure of others to build fences to protect the sheep.
I've never heard your interpretation before. Perhaps you should write a paper.
I've quoted the story below. Personally I think you're full of shit. It's about a boy lying and then the villagers not believing him because he has a history of lying (so they ignore him).
Snowden will be considered an important stander upper for free speech and against tyranny. Those who were against him will be seen like Nixon and his Plumbers.
You Americans deserve what you're about to get.
What they're about to get is nothing to celebrate, and should motivate one towards resisting the trend. The rest of the world either will get the same shortly thereafter, or is getting it already. The difficulty is that a group of persons must interpret the limits expounded in their constitution, and are not doing so well at it. One is reminded of the comparable commands in Orwell's Animal Farm, and their weasely reinterpretation:
And so forth...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Maybe the slide in the polls for Snowden isn't apathy (although I'm sure that's some of it), but instead all of these new leaks. At first he was a whistle blower telling the American people that their government was spying on them and he had wide support. But now, the leaks are about foreign governments and people don't think that is right.
Here is the question. When Snowden first went public, both he and the NSA said that he didn't have the kind of information that has been leaked lately that has discredited him. So, either he and the NSA both lied or one of them is telling the truth and the other is intentionally leaking non-critical information to make him look bad.
While I have no reason to trust Snowden. I have even less to trust a government who a month before he went public proclaimed that it was not gathering intelligence information on the American public. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Simple: The more excited all the nut jobs get about the issue, the less the general public is going to be interested.
Joe Average American simply does not give a shit. This was obvious to anyone who was watching during the Bush regime. Americans are more interested in who's on Dancing With The Stars.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Oops. I left out the last line of the fable: "Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth."
Certainly not the NSA. I'm shocked. Shocked! to hear anyone suggest such a thing. What was your name again?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Countries other than the US that are 'freedom loving' want nothing to do with him. The only countries that are willing to touch him with a ten foot pole are countries with a history of oppressing their own people and their own press. To be blunt the countries who's governments want Snowden are those that have anti-American governments that want him simply to tweak the American government. If he had pulled the same thing in their respective countries they would have at best given him a show trial before shooting him.
The fact of the matter is that what Snowden exposed was a surprise to no one in any national government because every government that can spy does spy. Look at where the condemnations are coming from, they are all coming from countries without the resources to conduct spying at any technological level like that. The first world countries that have those resources aren't condemning spying like that since they are almost certainly already doing it and could just as easily be hosting their own Snowden.
The fact of the matter is that Snowden is just out there trying to inflict maximum damage on the United States and it's allies. If all he cared about was trying to make sure that US citizens weren't being spied on he could have gone about things quite a bit differently to get change instead of political damage. Hell even Russia offered to give him Asylum if he would just his mouth. He refused because all he can focus on is trying to embarrass the US and it's allies. The American public can see that and this is why he is rapidly losing the support of the American public.
"First off, the Government is NOT watching you."
Yes they are, they're watching you for attacks FROM YOU without first having suspicion. We learned this from the FISA warrant. A big data center in Utah isn't needed for the 180,000 targets being claimed as surveillance. We learned they took 3 billion pieces of data per month for USA, plus all the phone CDRs for USA, plus billions of Internet Records. That is just from a sampling of the leaks.
"and sadly, others, mostly neo-cons, have taken those and blown them up much further than what he said"
Then everyone crunched the numbers and worked out it would be giga-bytes of data for everyone on the planet in their data centers. And Internet Archive worked out it would only cost $20 million a year to store all cell phone data. NSA's budget is $10 billion, and they employ directly about 38000 people.
So we now the story of 'metadata' isn't true.
"Wealthy elite are enslaving you? Politiicans are oppressing you?"
Secret laws, secret courts, a big database of all the data being data mined, each time without judicial confirmed suspicion of anything.
We use Skype and Microsoft tells us they can't intercept it, and we read the leak and its fully spied on with live surveillance.
We try to encrypt and we find the Certificate authorities are ex NSA and https is backdoors by virtue of the CA.
We find they tapped 300 fibre optics using GCHQ and for some reason the NSA analysts are in UK, outside of US jurisdiction.
"BUT then to discredit him, he ran to nations that are generally regarded as NOT friendly towards USA, while telling them how NSA may/may not be spying on them."
Snowden for head of the NSA! He's the only person with integrity enough to run a spy agency. No, Snowden for President.
Yeh, Snowden for President.
Even if only 1% of Americans disagreed with you, that's still more than a million people. In any group of a million, there's going to be a lot of idiots. Of those many idiots, many will be willing to make asses of themselves, especially anonymously on the internet. The output of that is what you are seeing "in discussion forums all around the internets." I just don't think it is in any way cost-effective for the NSA to hire people to sit around and post on the internet. To get any kind of coverage, they'd have to hire so many low-skilled people that it would be very hard indeed to get them all to be quiet about what they do, yet I know of no leaks about such a program. I think it's much more likely that the NSA just talks to the press, the press publishes that as stories and then normal people repeat those points to you on the internet.
democracy doesn't work at all, it quickly dissents into authoritarian nightmare
If anything, it consents into it.
This story was written by the village officials as a way of shifting blame; in this case toward the boy.
Their site allows facebook login. Only facebook or un/pw. Has anyone researched them? We all know Snowden is like Romney, basically one of the good guys. As opposed to our Muslim, Bully President who hates America and wants it reduced to African usefulness.
My simple response to the inevitable demonisation of Snowden is this...
Forget the mail-man. Read the letter.
This post is just another pathetic attempt by the authoritarian bootlickers who are desperate to make the story about the messenger instead of the story about the NSA's violation of Americans 4th Amendment rights. That the US media has been largely focused on Snowden rather than the NSA criminal violations it is not surprising the polls will show negative numbers for him rising slowly especially since he's practically incommunicado right now. But here's the more important past that the submitter left out of his post:
Despite the changing opinion of Snowden, Americans remain opposed to the NSAâ(TM)s activities. By 55% to 28%, they say the surveillance was an unnecessary intrusion into American lives. They remain divided on whether the surveillance has prevented terrorist attacks. And they continue to believe that the NSA, despite its claims to the contrary, has listened in on the conversations of Americans.
1. American's are opposed to NSA activities, as is the world
2. Surveillance is intrusive and unnecessary
3. Half don't believe the NSA has prevented terrorist attacks
4. Americans feel that the NSA is lying about recording their conversations
That's the real poll you should be writing about. Snowden is inconsequential to the story about NSA's criminal conduct and threat to human rights.
I think that everything that needs to be said on the subject of polls has already been said.
The part where he disclosed domestic spying is one thing. However, when he disclosed details of surveillance on foreign governments, he fell into the same category as Assange's misguided nonsense, as in he is in fact a traitor. Foreign governments may not like it publicly, but they do it too. Geopolitics are a nasty game, and spying is a necessity.
38% say he did the wrong thing but did they say they'd prefer him to not of done it?
33% say he did the right thing because it's obviously benefited their own views.
29% remain undecided about the results of his actions because it's far from over and until we see the end game why pick sides now?
Snowden is a Hero. And Americans are stupid to believe the propaganda their TVs tout at them. And by stating this I probably will be unable to travel to USA just like those two British tourists where not able to travel there.
... that the effect of the ChemTrails are finally kicking in? That took quite some time then. I always thought they were more effective than this.
Privacy is terrorism.
What does it mean, was it the right thing or wrong thing to do? I wouldn't know how to answer this question myself, given how vague it is.
What he did was illegal. Whether what he denounced was illegal or not, I'm not competent to say. My understanding is that it is done in a way that is compliant with the 4th amendment, and therefore it is legal.
But right or wrong? I don't know what that means. I think it is interesting to make this go public, this way we can debate whether we want to disallow the government from doing this. That doesn't make it right though.
I would just be afraid to answer such questions. The US is not a free country anymore.
Gone to the press in USA, where they would print about the metadata on Americans, but not touch the rest of the story. And the rest of the story is what turned it into treason. The other issue is that they would have required real proof about real spying, rather than simply making accusations.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The questions are being structured to show a decline. It's called tampering with the jury (pool).
--
Another fine opinion from The Fucking Psychopath®.
The media is a PR machine for the government and big business so Snowden can't get a fair shake in the news (at least in the US). A lot of Americans can't grasp the idea that someone might want to live outside of the US. Hearing this guy might end up living in places like Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua will make people think he must be evil because those are evil places full of evil people.
Too many Americans are nationalistic and not patriotic. They love the shit the government shovels them.
Snowden this, Snowden that. Who gives a fuck? It's not his person that is of interest in all this, it is the fucking spy scandal.
... whatever
Since we all are being watched anyway, why not do this? How about individuals start making videos and posting onto YouTube® such as this:
I am $NAME who lives in $MY_STATE. Since it has become established fact that the government spies on its own citizens, I wish the make the following statements under the freedoms allegedly guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of American and the free speech clause of the constitution of $MY_STATE. I disagree with the activity of the US Government identified by a certain Edward Snowden relating to the mass surveillance of its own citizens to the effect of negating the citizenship status thereof. [ I am a natural born citizen as defined by natural law as it was understood by the Framers as expressed in the Federalist Papers. This is the intent behind the language that presently appears in the Constitution of the United States of America Article Two Section Two. | I am a naturalized citizen who had taken risks in leaving my land of origin and bearing those burdens necessary under the laws of the United States of America and all the state wherein I had resided and currently reside to receive citizenship. Unlike those who were born into citizenship, I had voluntarly taken the OATH of citizenship as do all elected officials and enlisted military personnel. ] If for whatever reason I become missing or found dead, the onus shall be upon the government to prove that it did NOT have involvement in my death or disappearance. You, the viewer are the witness of these statements.
Just so. Given the parade of elected officials calling Snowden a traitor, and given the overtly hostile press that Snowden has received from broadcast and cable, I would say that his numbers are holding up remarkably well.
That's an interesting interpretation of the story. I take it you are unfamiliar with the size of land needed to graze sheep. You really can't fence in their grazing area, though you can pen them in at night. Shepherds sometimes take their sheep miles to find good grazing areas, a fence is unpractical. This is why you need shepherds in the first place, to lead and protect the flock.
You could use your reasoning to blame the villagers for not training the boy how to properly defend against predators. The main point of the story is still about lying, but parental responsibility is a good counterpoint so you brought up a good argument overall.
Another counterpoint would be that knee jerk reactions to childhood misbehavior are unhelpful and better to discern WHY the child is doing so. Maybe he's just lonely. Maybe his fear of wolves is causing him to jump at shadows since he's ill prepared to handle them.
You're right that ultimately parents bear responsibility for their children's actions. In the story the whole village had a duty to teach the boy and nobody stepped up until they all suffered.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
It a nut shell. Democracy is bad because the useless eaters eventually learn to organize and use government prevent the wonderful rich people from oppressing them to serfdom. The rich only want whats best for everyone and you should never challenge their wisdom or methods. So when you are only making $2 day and are near starvation. Don't look to government or unions to help, blame yourselves. It's your selfishness for not wanting to work for free and need for food and shelter is simply holding the productive class back from improving your living conditions.
I am not interested what the media or the white house has to say about this or even wether it's legal or not. That is besides the point.
What I would like to know is does the 4th amendment protect us against this kind of surveillance and if not why not?
You lose.
With the MSM trumpeting about what a villain he is 24/7, it's not hard to see why a cross section of the general public would reflect such a shift. This is less a measure of what he did being right or wrong and more of how efficiently the wheels of the propaganda machine are spinning.
Furnished with arms? Nope.
Troops? Nope.
Transportation? Nope.
Shelter? Nope.
Classified information? Several problems.
1) Documentation of illegal acts is not open to being classified.
2) No enemy at war was given these documents by Snowden.
3) Those being spied upon where given those documents, and those people are not the enemies of the USA.
4) The definition of enemy here requires a declaration of war. None has been made.
You need to stop sucking on NSA cock and ask the CIA to stop ear-fucking you.
It's amazing what can be done to public opinion when it's no longer illegal for the US propaganda machine to be used on its own population.
implying the people are lazy and the wealthy are productive.
the unproductive majority by stealing from the productive minority
- The PRODUCTIVE MAJORITY are the working poor that work from their teen years until their death beds.
- The UNPRODUCTIVE MINORITY sucking the government tit are companies like Google with 3% effective tax rates, and other companies like Halliburton and Lockheed that exist solely due to government tit sucking.
You can move to Somolia and see your failed precepts in action, virtually no government and free reign to anyone with money, firepower, and the willingness to use them both. Leave my country alone.
The USA public are terrorists now?
France is a terrorist nation?
UK is a terrorist nation?
Is this the official line, since it's eminently obvious that you actuall work within this organisation and have totally gone native?
What really affects the votes is how the question is phrased.
Americans are dumb as shit. This is THE revelation of the XXIst century.
Yes, but if you can sufficiently undermine him personally, it becomes a lot easier to undermine what he has to say. People happily shoot the messenger all the time.
like Socrates, he will be forced to drink the hemlock tea.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There couldn't or should't really be any case for a 'right' or 'wrong' argument when simply soliciting for other peoples opinion, only "good/bad" at best, idiotic or irrelevant at worst, so at a glance the poll question is in a way seductive and misleading I would say. Probably without being aware of it, one is sort of solicited for taking a side betwen two wholly different parties: one that has as a premise of wanting to incriminate those who are simply subject to scrutiny in any case and where rightousness simply comes to mean having success at what they do, and one that needs to act on behalf of ones personal moral grounds being aware of the risk of being incriminated.
When facing 'justice', it would be important to understand that abiding the law never was about you wanting to submit to it. Nobody is acting on the behalf of law as such, and neither should you or anyone having answered that poll. "The law" neither becomes more or less rightous if you happen to agree or disagree with it, your opinion doesn't even come into play at all. "Law" as having any conceivable meaning has really nothing to do with being or not being "right" or "wrong", and being right or wrong with "law" always ends up being a personal matter for better and for worse.
How activists are watched online.
Everyone wants to see the USA fall just hurry up and let us watch,
what really matters more than what US citizens think is what the entire world you keep pissing off more and more thinks
you can make your own ignorant populous complacent but when the rest of the world bands together against you, even a simple trade embargo would ruin you before your 'military might' could solve the problem
just my daily fuck you usa post enjoy
Or are you saying that no problem has EVER been solved by paying?
His revelations have not ruined US relations. It is the behavior of the US that is ruining its reputation. Spying is the problem. Snowden is just the messenger.
Suppose Bob and Alice, a married couple, are visiting your house. While you are in the bathroom, Bob goes through your papers and reviews your caller ID. Upon your return to the livingroom, Alice, horrified at Bob's ill-mannered behavior, tells you about the invasion of your privacy. Regardless of how you feel about Alice's leak, whould you ever invite Bob over to your house again?
That depends on who you ask. If you ask Assange he'll tell you that the freedom of the universe depends on everyone believing he is the one true prophet of freedom.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
It's shit like this that shows how directly people are being manipulated
I hate it when they hand me a conflicting opinion!!!
All through the thread I had the nagging thought that something was missing. Thanks for the reminder and a better memory than I have.
most people aren't even willing to see a 1% increase in their taxes in order to fix this nation's problems
Everyone is willing to pay 1% more to fix problems.
Much fewer are willing to put 1% more into a system that will simply funnel that money to campaign contributors and fix nothing.
Just look at the stimulus (any of them) - vast amounts of money spent by the government on what turned out to be mostly useless projects, while infrastructure sits rusting.
It's become apparent that no amount of money will fix anything in the government we have. The only thing that will fix it is in fact the opposite - reduce the inflow of money, which will in turn reduce the greed and the people striving to skim money off the government. Only when the government is smaller and poorer will it be responsive to helping the people.
By saying we should pay 1% more to "fix problems" you are just throwing gasoline onto a fire consuming your house and hoping it will stop.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
What the people of Slashdot seemed to repeatedly not understand, is that a large majority of people (not just in the U.S.) place no value whatsoever on privacy. You would think we would all understand this from many, many lessons of social media, and yet people here resist understanding.
I'll bet if you interviewed 100 random people and asked them how they would feel if the government looked at the records of everyone they had called, 95 of them wouldn't really care. The remaining five would be REALLY loud though.
This is also why the government is doing this, because the people working in the government simply see nothing wrong with doing so.
You just have to accept this is the future, because it's the way most people actually want it. The future belongs to the people that show up, and the people showing up don't care about privacy. In the end you are struggling against an uncaring and impossible to resist tide.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's exactly the kind of psy-op that has been going on for weeks now in discussion forums all around the internets.[sic]
On any topic you will have idiots, but you are saying the NSA (or some government organization) is posting on the internet anonymously to try to influence the conversation? Nixon did that, by having his staff write tens of thousands of letters to the news media, pretending to be 'normal people.' If you are right, that is significantly more dangerous than what Snowden exposed.......
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Snowden would make a good reporter/journalist. Snowden is saving us from a future form of communistic government that wants to control every individual life. Where is are Freedom? Where is our Liberty? Where is our Equality? Where is our rights as citizens.
Smells like a push poll. Unfortunately however, it's barely possible that it's genuine. Nobody ever lost money betting on the abject stupidity and stunning shallowness of Americans. Just look what our brain dead zombie electorate have given us - our current thug overlords, evidently elected by the people. If anyone deserves full due process followed by being locked up in solitary for life, it is not Snowden; it is the current occupiers of the white hut, the senate, the house, most of the state counterparts, and the court system.
I don't personally know anybody who is negative about Snowden's action. Some people who are still in the tank with the old, worn-out Tweedledee vs Tweedledum fake facade do think he has gravitated toward questionable alternatives to his own failed nazi homeland, but he doesn't have much choice, does he.
The worldwide ganging up against liberty turns my stomach.
Do not fret, I took care of it, he he he
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3944547&cid=44210047
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3944547&cid=44209939
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3944547&cid=44209751
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3944595&cid=44207879
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3944547&cid=44208127
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3944547&cid=44209259
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3942123&cid=44202149
Because this is a valid, independent 3rd-party poll that can't be manipulated by the government, so its data *must* be relevant... right???
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
This is just the measurement of a smear campaign.
The fact he could keep those percentages in light of how he is vilified by media really says a lot.
Yeah, and the worst part is that since Snowden is out in the spotlight, they can attack the credibility of the leaks by attacking him. Even though the information he leaked has nothting to do with him, we're focused on him. Had they been leaked anonymously, or by delayed identification, we would have been focused on NSA, Clapper's massive turd of a straight faced lie, the U.K bugging diplomats at a COP summit, the french running a similar program to NSAs. He'll, maybe journalists would be spending all of their time unrolling the scandal, instead of camping out in Moscow airport.
... whatever
How can you answer a poll like this? There is no way because we simply don't have the facts needed.
Only history will be able to tell, and it might take a long time for enough to be declassified, and the research to be done to determine what the effects of this surveillance program, both good and bad were.
Not as simple as a direct dictatorship but a functional level of control is still possible.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
To get the answers you want, phrase the question properly. See Sir Humphrey, from the British comedy, Yes, Prime Minister demonstrate how this works here. (A must-watch for anyone with any interest in, well, anything the government might impinge upon, in my opinion. Intelligent and very funny—something you don't find that often in TV comedy.)
Note that the question in this case was about leaking top secrets, rather than, say, revealing unethical and possibly illegal practices, and it mentioned the leak to the media, rather than saying, for example, "to the public". ("Mainstream media" is a swear word to many people.) If it had asked, for example: "Based on what you've heard, do you think Edward Snowden's release of information about the NSAs surreptitious activies spying on the American public to that public was the right or wrong thing to do?", they might have gotten a quite different result.
With such vast amount of data (possibly collected in near-real-time fashion) TPTBs can manipulate public in any way they want. As sad as it is, if we lose this round, there will be nothing that can stop this criminal syndicate from intruding even more and more into our lives, liberties, stealing even more wealth from citizens and killing even more people overseas. If this trajectory won't change in time, we might descend into new dark ages in a few decades (with a few small ridiculously rich enclaves and everything else looking like Honduras or even worse...).
yougov now has enough cash to run for the next 1000 years thanks to a timely *contribution* by the NSA.
"According to JEWGov poll, Snowden support declining among Americans"...
There, fixed that for ya.
Seeing as it's JEWS who are behind most of the crimes that Snowden uncovered.
How can you be sure Snowden doesn't have national security secrets? At this point it's 50/50 on Obama's brand of toilet paper being a national security secret.
But is Snowden leaking the stuff that should be classified and secret (but everyone already knows about), or is someone else doing it on his behalf to make him look bad? He had the support of the citizenry when he started because he pointed out abuses. Now "he" is starting to reveal stuff willy-nilly.
This story was written by the village officials as a way of shifting blame; in this case toward the boy.
Indeed. If your job is security, you respond to the alarm *every* time, even if it was a false alarm the last five times.
There are two morals to that fable. One for children: don't lie or a wolf will eat you because no one will believe you. One for adults: always treat an alarm as real because sometimes it is and a kid might get eaten.
I'm sure there are folks scared of supporting Snowden for fear of backlash from the Intel communities.
Also, more details on the polling needed to determine if it's statistically valid or just propaganda.
Seeing how some people have no concerns at all about metadata, wouldn't everyone be better off if a law was passed forcing ALL metadata to be accessible publicly? Then we could crowd source the search for terrorists and really win. There is no way that info is detailed enough to be mis-used (or so we have been told). If it's really that harmless then we should all see.
My English teacher (Moscow, Russia) happened to be very good at it; charming smiling 50 year old lady who spent *all* her life teaching; very respected and very beloved character. Outstanding teacher, one of a kind.
Long story short, some # of years ago she was invited to teach literature in Florida; and after the first year was offered either a contract extension or a permanent position with the college. She opted to return back to Moscow citing two reasons:
(1) "America is becoming more like the old Soviet Union, while we borrowed from them, they borrowed from us".
(2) "gansta" culture.
Yours truly & with much love,
Me.
He though Hong Kong was a safe jurisdiction. He trusted they would follow the rule of law there, he didn't count on Beijing telling Hong Kong to kick him out. Parking his ass in a foreign airport was a result of him getting kicked out of Hong Kong. But he knew the risks and getting this information out was more important than his safety.
So he took the job to get the information, what of it? He knew the information was there from his previous work at the NSA, he hoped Obama would actually change things, but Obama didn't so he felt he had to do this for the sake of his country.
I agree with you on the last one though.
... an obscure poll from yougov is anywhere relevant now.
i would rather want to know the exact amount (in petabytes) yougov hands over to nsa daily. could explain this propaganda stunt. hey it's enemy of democracy day!
all this makes one want to puke, doesn't it?
I became interested in the history of code breaking and surveillance in the late 1970s, even before The Puzzle Palace permanently breached the NSA's public anonymity.
I don't get the public furor because there's nothing new here: what Snowden revealed is just a logical extension of how this program has always operated, as documented since way back for anyone who wanted to know. It has always been part of the anonymity construct that the NSA could purport (or purport by implication) that it operated within the groove of democratic principles, up to a point. The old relationship with the British (I'll watch yours, if you watch mine) was always a burden, but I guess that burden must have been manageable for a time.
Once COTS technology (Cisco, Nortel, Lucent, Alcatel, Juniper) begins to outpace the astrobuck edge, the NSA is forced by brutal practicalities to review and revise their anonymity construct. Just how much can be exchanged through a stiff-upper-lip tea service?
At this point, the NSA's democratic cloak is outright risible: any foreign person, anyone whose patterns of contact with such people is vaguely suspicious (there has never been a shortage of suspicion where suspicion greases operational desires) and anyone who crosses paths in any way with this substantial kernel of the vaguely suspicious, citizenship be damned. We're more than halfway along the spectrum of seven degrees.
Suppose we apply the principles of differential cryptanalysis to this interesting social network. Suppose there is some American citizen not yet trawled by this social graph of chance connection. What's the least amount of suspicion one must inject at some chosen suspicion-coloured node of this graph for a tentacle to slop out of the bucket to engulf the arbitrary citizen of the moment? Once engulfed, does this person ever escape this webbing ever again on principles of liberty and freedom or is this person's only democratic salvation to fall beneath some metric of cost/benefit in keeping his or her node active in the vast suspicion graph? How much easier is it for a person to be bumped back into this mesh once you've been on it before? Does that scarlet letter ever fall off?
I doubt there's anyone in America whose nose is so clean that ten minutes of brow-drenched pretext-manufacture by some nearby NSA staffer with any prospect of future promotion wouldn't serve to lasso this person onto the suspicion list by some ready-to-hand agency criterion (a clean nose for this purpose is mainly established by not getting out much except on Sunday morning, not using email, and never answering your telephone when pestered by a wrong number).
That's pretty much the minimal operation capability they would settle for, no matter which democratic cover story of the day hits the news cycle. I doubt they ever expected that a program as large as this could maintain cover of darkness indefinitely. So the real response and public optics is mainly for consumption inside the Faraday cage: the Snowden meme is not one they wish to see take root among their own.
It's a basic tenant of military or police training to punish the group on the pretext of individual lapses, failure, or sloth until the group is conditioned to self police. Wouldn't be surprised if everyone in the entire agency is working unpaid overtime on invented files (as in The Firm) until Snowden is brought to Faraday justice. I get the internal furor loud and clear.
Tell me something I don't know and try to avoid getting your balls smashed by King Hyperion. ;)
"Never tell the same lie twice." - Garek, 'Star trek: DS9'
Instead of charging the populace into action Snowden may be facing apathy at best and public disapproval at worst.
I'm pretty sure he's facing far worse than apathy and public disapproval.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
there's no real surprise. Many Democrats and Independents and Republicans supported him in his initial leaks... twas a rare unified moment of collective revulsion. When leftist congresswoman Pelosi tried to support the Obama admin by trashing him, she got jeered by some of her base. When former Republican presidential candidate McCain spoke out against Snowden he got attacked by many in the base of his party.
Snowden however trashed himself, and his cause by scurrying like a rat to China and then Russia and then seeking asylum from other such countries. At this point, we are all left to assume he has given all the info on his laptop/s to countries hostile to the US who have worse human rights records and more hostile spy programs than the US has. He has placed himself into the category of Julian Assange: jerk grinding anti-American axe who only "leaks" things that hurt the US. These guys always pretend to be supporting universal human rights or other universal principles.... but never end-up leaking anything that hurts America's enemies. Snowden could have properly leaked as a "whistle blower" by going (with free legal assistance) to the congress. If he was so convinced the government was doing wrong ( I believe it is ) and that nobody in the chain-of-command of the Obama admin would listen, then he had the ability to go to somebody like Congressman Issa or congressman Gaudy who have been like bulldogs. There would have been public hearings, nationally televised, before members of congress (who are in a position to de-fund things and change laws and who LOVE to be seen on TV being outraged by government abuse of their constituents...) and he would not have become a person without a country. There are lawyers in Washington who have stepped-in to represent whistle blowers of Fast & Furious, Bengazi, etc and would certainly have represented Mr. Snowden. People who hide behind the great firewall of China or Mr Putin (with or without a shirt on) are not champions of freedom.
When your "journalists" all become sycophants for one party and its president.... the mainstream media in the US (and even in other countries) have long refused to say anything bad about Obama or his administration; they have a knee-jerk reaction against anybody who might challenge "their guy" even if it is one of their fellow so-called journalists. It's hillarious to watch these morons. In the era of Obama, a "tough" question from a reporter to the messiah is "what's your favorite color?" or perhaps "how did you get to be so good? and how can we possibly deserve you?" It's telling that an NBC "journalist" was involved in this... NBC is the home of Chris Mathews who famously got a "thrill up my leg" over Obama and declared Obama to be (the) perfect human being, without any sin. Obama is a religion to these people and the argument you referred to was just an inter-denominational squabble in which one party was accused of apostacy
Polls for voting matter. Apparently polls for support for gay marriage matter. Polls for the war on drugs don't matter. Polls for global warming don't matter.
What evidence is there that polls for support for a whistleblower matter?
Right or Left, we choose to disbelieve math and science when it doesn't fit our view of the world.
Disbelieving an internet poll is another matter entirely.
And the ad hominems continue ...
I've never met anybody who likes Donald Trump, and people only listen to celebrities when they already agree with whatever they are saying; otherwise they are being a stupid asshole attention whore wash-up burnout.
I totally supported his leaking on domestic NSA data collection.
It woke several of my office mates up. Now theydon't think I'm so paranoid.
I wasn't happy when he disclosed our spying in the EU. They knew this
already. Now they have to act all indignant.
The MSN will continue to beat this drum until they can claim that no American agrees with any whistle blower ever. We are in a time which I call, "Brave New 1984", and the road ahead has zero liberties and freedoms and lots of meds to keep everyone drinking the kool aid.
Snowden is a traitor! The nice man on the TV told me so.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
We all would have been FAR better off had scum who lie for living were never born in the first place. But, this is what it means to be filled with merit. You have to prove you can endure even things that are impossible to endure. Even people who sit silently and do nothing are heroes compared to the disgusting liars of this world.
They don't shoot them, they activate the airbags and brakes on their car while going a 100 on the highway.
It's virtually guaranteed that these polls are flawed. Public opinion polls on all topics are of a deplorable quality.
But regardless of that, the issue is how this poll is used. Whether what it reports is accurate or not, there can be little doubt that it's used for political purposes, in order to erode the very support it reports on.
If you want people to think Snowden is a bad man, you don't get far by saying "I think Snowden is a bad man, and here's why: ...". That gets people's critical guard up. You get far further by saying "Support for Snowden is slipping". There is abundant evidence that people glance to their neighbours when they decide what their opinion should be, and when they do that they internalize the standpoints, and it slips past their critical guard. You don't have to come up with justifications, they will do that by themselves.
Did you never wonder why "horse race reporting" was so popular?
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
The americans are slowly becoming the worst population in the world
As long as they're not spying on our guns we're OK with it.
Maybe us USians aren't _worth_ saving. Maybe. I dunno. Whatever.
The errors were simply too numerous, you missed one.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
yeah - you can get a poll to say anything
It's also because
a) The sheepdog/shephard is actually a lion in disguise, and is able to control the information given to all the dear little lambs
b) With [a], the lions have convinced the sheep that their biggest problem is the other sheep trying to eat their meagre share of grass in the pasture...
"As fallout from his revelations ruin our foreign relations"
So let's say you have kids, one of whom is a daughter. Your young daughter is friends with the neighbour kid, but when she visits they are being abused. Neither your daughter nor the neighbour's daughter tell, you because they're been told they'll be hurt more if they do. Your neighbour's old son finds out about it, and tells you and/or the police.
So by the above logic, apparently the son is responsible for ruining relations between you and the neighbour... as opposed to it being the responsibility of your sick f*** of a neighbour who was committing an illegal and immoral act...?
We've seen this before. Many times. Manufacturing consent / compliance via US media is far from new. For example public opinion opposed to the invasion of Iraq in 2002 was steadily eroded by media war mongering.
I am relatively new to Slashdot. But, I have to wonder how this site full of seemingly smart techies can be so naive. Do you REALLY think that all the hardware, software, storage, and optical networks you all have created would NOT be used in spying? If the NSA and CIA believe it will prevent a terrorist incident, do you think they would NOT use it? And, do you really think that there is some Dr Evil at NSA who is trying to steal your 'rights'? Snowden will simple tell the world leaders what they already know. US has the ability to watch there every move. Big deal. They are trying their best to watch OUR every move. I remember working with a company in the 80s that sent out security bulletins regularly reminding traveling employees that their hotel rooms in Japan, their Business Class seats on Air France, and probably their private car transport in southeast Asia were bugged. We were not allowed to carry floppy disks and were to keep our laptops with us at all times. And, we were doing simple commercial software, nothing secret. I was at a conference 10 years ago and asked a panel of security experts who were the biggest spies. Answer was CIA, Russians, Chinese military, French chemical, and German industrial companies. The NSA claims that they look for patterns in data- phone calls, emails, etc. The claim not to be monitoring the vast majority of people. OK, we don't know for sure, but it is clear that if they want to monitor you, they will. And, it is doubtful they care about me or the websites I visit. Does that bother me? Of course. Why is this done? Evil conspiracy? Manic Billionaire trying to own the world? Simple reason is that no politician wants a terrorist incident on their watch, especially one that has happened before. A shoe bomber will get Government officials fired, as we KNOW about that. A bra bomber, wig bomber, or false teeth bomber will not. THAT is the key reason for all of the espionage. Got to keep that lucrative Government gig long enough to secure a private 'consulting' job. Spend unlimited amounts of other people's money to secure my future. I think this is the REAL answer.
Or maybe a different thousand people have responded from a vastly different demographic causing the vast shift? Politics works when you actually ask enough people, and when enough people actually care about the question you're asking, which is to say never before in history have we ever had the conditions under which our democratic system could function as intended.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
Rather than just sprinkle keywords outside of sentences, the NSA would need a level of AI they probably aren't using to filter this garbage out:
I'm building a BOMB. A steak and cheese BOMB, that will land hard in my stomach and infect my insides with a deadly pathogen level of satisfaction. I will release the BOMB on American soil. I will do this by shitting outside creating a biological hazard of epic devestation.
I am going to call it the Allahu Ackbar AlQueda Steak and cheese BOMB. Every major metropolitan area is in danger from this BOMB. Millions will die! Of cholesterol and grease induced heart failure. The BOMB will create a radiological hazard that will make large areas uninhabitable. For other sandwiches once the word about how awesome tasting my BOMB is broadcast on the radio. I call advertising on the radio radiological warfare - radiological sandwich warfare that is. Yeah.
Maybe this post will make it to a human and eat up a few seconds of their time.
...
Because I find just the opposite. His support amongst my family, friends, associates, the blogs, Facebook, comments after news reports is GROWING for him. People are becoming more and more sick of our corrupt government. The government keeps digging a deeper and deeper hole for themselves with another illegal/immoral action. I think the so called "poll" is as fake as a 3 dollar bill. Come on, you can do better than that. You need to remember that despite the fact that people text so much. they still talk. And yes they actually read sometimes. We need more people like Snowden who are willing to stand up and say "Hey enough!! It is NOT OK to spit on the Constitution. It is NOT OK to screw the American people. It is NOT OK to lie to the people who elected you, who you are suppose to PROTECT!". They have actually paid $630,000 for people to make positive FaceBook likes for them. Go Google it. They are currently trying to pass a law making it illegal for other government employees to not snitch on whistleblowers. Hmm so they want people to go to jail for not reporting someone for snitching on their illegal activity? What? I just signed petitions to my congressmen to vote against the law. Not that it will help, but at least I try. Have these guys even read the Constitution? It clearly states their HIGHEST duty is to support the Constitution, not violate it. Even school children know better than that. Hmm what's that show? "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?"
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
How is this newsworthy? Why would it surprise anyone that a poll put out by the government would indicate that people support the government? This is just more propaganda aimed at making Snowden seem like a bad guy.
Ultimately, Snowden is THAT GUY: the smart office baby who whines constantly about something because of his emotional immaturity. EVERY office has one; EVERYBODY can identify: http://youtu.be/tYUIMrsqve0
Every manager that ever existed has a Snowden-type coming into his office daily complaining about details of the job he was hired to do. Regardless of how accidentally worthwhile or wholly inconsequential their concerns, it's never a moral pursuit for these types. It's always a misguided and self-serving craving for attention to transform themselves into an artificially created "hero of the office" and a "fan favorite" against feeling oppressed by mundane rules, office politics and job stagnation. But after multiple patterned occasions of this behavior, peers eventually reduce these types into "Here we go again!" targets of ridicule. This is when they seek out that manager's supervisor, who usually smacks them back down to Earth. When that fails: go to the media! Alert the public!: http://goo.gl/JoqhJ
Had Snowden not felt ignored and marginalized by his far wiser supervisors, he NEVER would have leaked to the public his manifested whistleblower connotation. His emotional immaturity is merely something management overlooked when evaluating his suitability for the role based on his technical knowledge alone. It's often too late when supervisors realize the difference between IQ and EQ. The mistake often made is to hire on IQ and fire on EQ. Had Snowden been interviewed based on EQ, he rightly never would have gotten the job.
FWIW, I live in Seattle, and this is the first I've heard of this event. I think at least part of the problem is that restorethe4th's organizers suck at advertising.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Snowden? I thought his name was Kim Philby.
He betrayed the USA for supposedly lofty goals, but now he's hanging out with our enemies and leaking secrets totally unrelated to his "whistleblower" mission.
Over the last week, he's started to look less like white knight and more like garden variety traitor.
No one's going to blink when Obama drones him.
Futurist Traditionalism
More like...THEYGOV.
Besides, let me get this straight, a gov polling agency says Snowden, whos real only crime is DOCUMENTING what everyone already knew for the last 10 years anyway...
Yet, with the governments dirty laundry now wide out in the open, a yougov site now says you should be mad that you know for sure.
I guess I am not surprised. Most of the American government went totally NAZI ga ga after World War 2, and built todays NAZI based Military Industrial Complex.
Point that out to people too, and they go meh.
We need a nice World War 3 to get rid of the meh and don't worry, they at yougov and other institutions are working hard at it with crappy polls and printing money like crazy to make it happen.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
The USA government has the resources to keep Snowdon in the news in the most unfavourable light. Criticize him, depict him in the most negative terms, and most of all, prosecute the hell out of him, when you will be able to, to set a frighting example to other employees who know the government is paranoiac about revealing the "dirty" things they, the NSA are doing.
Yes, Russia and every other country does it, but at least they are open about it. With those countries citizens know it is standard operating procedures. By the way, smaller countries do it too.
Snowdon does not have the financial resources to fight back on the propaganda front. He just can't fight from an airport in-transit lounge.
Americans, are you any better than the Russian citizens with respect to privacy? I think not.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
to do the right thing?
>"the boy who cried wolf". It is not a tale about a boy lying, but a tale about blaming a boy for the failure of others to build fences to protect the sheep.
That's an awesome observation.