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USA Today Names Edward Snowden Tech Person of the Year
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from the USA Today tech column: "...But until a lone information-technology contractor named Edward Snowden leaked a trove of National Security Agency documents to the media this summer, we didn't know just how much we'd surrendered. Now that we do, our nation can have a healthy debate — out in the open, as a democracy should debate — about how good a bargain we got in that exchange. For facilitating that debate, at great risk to his own personal liberty, Snowden is this column's technology person of the year for 2013."
And yet by the government he is named as traitor and fugitive.
Edward Snowden is a shoe in.
Of the untold numbers of spooks working in / for NSA, Ed Snowden is the only one who has the conscience and the courage to reveal the dastardly unconstitutional secrets of the NSA.
Thanks, Mr. Snowden, for what you have done for the country !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
In my view; the revelations have far more impact for nations in the World other than the USA (you know; such nations do exist; and are home to 20 times more people than in the US). But when the Internet is controlled largely by the US; and these revelations indicate even more erosion of other nations' peoples' rights; the debate must include the entire World. One fears that just like the US Presidential debate; the implications for the rest of us will be ignored totally.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
What are the corrupt power-mongering double-talking ghouls gonna do? "Oh yeah, we're the bad guy. Sue us" ?
They do not need to tell us.
We already know.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Edward Snowden is a big a danger to the US today as the Soviet Union was 4 years ago.
No argument there...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Do they still serve those cockmeat sandwiches?
Bullshit, the traitors are those in government ignoring the constitution and illegally spying on the citizenry. It needs to stop now.
Free Martian Whores!
The internet being what it is I am rendered unable to decide whether this is sarcasm, irony and/or a troll.
So I decided to investigate what else you have written in an attempt to solve this mystery. I don't know as yet WHY I did this as I really don't give a flying fuck what your motivations are so that mystery will have to wait until I see my therapist next.
You have many posts listed as flamebait etc but also many listed positively.
So it appears you are very good at generating strong reactions from others. Unfortunately this does not really answer my original question.
However comments such as this: "lol Euro-weenies always finding an excuse to lick boot"
and this: "Conviction should be quashed and a full "royal" apology from the inbred German layabouts in Buckingham palace."
Lead me to finally decide that, based on a balance of probabilities, you are indeed a troll in this instance but, unlike other species of troll, actually possess the capability to write sensible and thought provoking comments. This does not make your trolling here better, but worse.
So shame on you.
"USA Today was raided by the Internal Revenue Service of the U.S.A. today."
The government however is not divided that I can see. They want his ass on a platter. Strung up, drawn and quartered with his parts sent to the four corners of Scotland as a message. This is telling in this day and age of 'partisan' bickering to keep the masses distracted with largely inconsequential issues. Patriotism is not serving in office. Or recording every bit of data you can weakening our country, technology and economy in the process, to supposedly protect us. It is not giving lip service to the constitution, while you wipe your arse with it by your actions.
It is about standing up. It is about saying wait, this is NOT what MY country is supposed to be. It is about being able to stand up to a Tory, or a Tea Partier, or a Donkey and saying "fuck you, give me my rights, give me my liberty, or give me death", to paraphrase Patrick Henry. It is not in cow towing to the powers that be, but resisting the ever reaching yoke of the powerful.
But we don't stand by and large. We listen to Fox news and MSNBC talking heads and nod. We scream at our football games or hope to see a blurred nipple slip on TMZ. We laugh at cat memes and snapchat sext our co-workers while the spouse is away. We wonder at the changes in the climate then get into our unneeded and wasteful SUV.
What happened to our spine? The one that beat the brits? The one that helped show Germany and Japan where they could put it when they wanted to remake the world into their bleak image? Why are we more interested in goatse, and goth chicks and godzilla than righting our government? Why can 10 random people not discuss issues without at least 1 to 2 people completely derailing any progress? Why do we continually bend over while those in power plum our innermost depths to their own ends?
I wish I knew the answers. I though many of these thoughts as a teen 20 years ago. Then I had the optimism to think that we were on the brink. That we would stand, that a revolution was imminent. That the way things were would be changed and we had the power to do it. I was cynical then, but had hope. Now I think I am a defeatist. I would like more than just a few people to prove me wrong. The Snowdens of the world are currently the exception that proves the rule. Why is this?
Silence is a state of mime.
I understand you can get those on the outside, if you're missing them :P
Requiem for the American Dream
He deserves all the recognition we can give him. Whether he did things the right way or not, he did what he thought he should do for the good of Americans, even though he knew it would result in his becoming a refugee in another country, or possibly imprisoned and tortured here in the states. He didn't do it for money, and I doubt he did it for fame; he did it because his conscience told him he had to. He is a patriot who deserves to be treated as one. Here's to hoping he gets a Nobel Peace Prize.
Back in my day, the *Russian* spooks defected *to* the *USA*.
Now get off my lawn!
Except that's damnably creepy when you think about what a change that is.
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
Ironic, then that it was USA Today who first broke the story about NSA warrantless wiretapping and phone metadata collection ***in 2006***
And they had... what evidence, exactly? "Inside anonymous sources" is not the same as thousands of pages of documentation. That old article had very few details, no proof, no names, and nothing that actually proved anything whatsoever. Snowden showed what was actually going one, that it was illegal, and exactly how far it went.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
It's called documentary evidence: Hersch is "certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden "changed the whole nature of the debate" about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence. "Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn't touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game,"" http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media
I don't think you or the OP of this particular thread gets it at *all*.
It's not that we now know about the NSA and what they were doing. We most certainly did.
It's that we have FUCKING PROOF.
In 2006, I was saying much the same things. I had high hopes for Obama because I honestly thought he was going to give us justice over some of that telco bullshit. Of course not. I was naive.
What Snowden has done, and deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for, is give me CREDIBILITY.
Now when I have a calm, not so agitated, san tin-foil conversation with somebody now about security, I get taken seriously.
I'm being asked right now what it would take to raise the level of security for several companies. What chat software could we use that is heavily encrypted? What should we be doing to vet hardware?
Most of it is of course executives wanting their conversations to be discrete so it can't be used against them, but that is progress nonetheless...
At the very least now when I talk about mass surveillance I don't see rolled eyes and skepticism. I have their attention.
Thanks Snowden.
The ketchup dispensers are serving lube and salt'n'pepper bags have been replaced with condoms.
Condoms? That's like eating a sandwich with the saran wrap still over it....
LOL all these "anonymous cowards" posting pro-government public relations. If they're tonguing government's balls why would they need anonymity? I smell government public relations all paid for with your taxpayer dollar.
Way to ignore another story and the FISA finding that the government was breaching the Constitution. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/16/judge-nsa-surveillance-fourth-amendment/4041995/ http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/08/22/fisa-court-ruled-nsa-program-unconstitutional-said-nsa-misled-them/ That you're ignoring these smacks of a shill. The right and left are united on this. On the other side are government workers like yourself living a parasitic existence off the hard-working taxpayer.
> Snowden is a sellout who took what he had and likely ran to the highest bidder with the info.
Not a shred of evidence do you have. Now get a real fucking job, you piece of shit government shill.
... who was Time's Person of the Year in 2001? Osama Bin Laden, naturally?... no, it was Rudy Guliani.
Remember that this choice was made a little less than four months after 9/11, and the popular reaction to the event was so bad that women in California were ordering their dogs to attack people who "looked Muslim" at freeway rest areas. Time is published from New York City, ground zero for the bulk of the attacks.
I suspect they figured that if they gave Osama the title there'd be another building brought down - by New Yorkers with sledgehammers.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Personally, I feel Obama should give his Nobel to Snowden. He deserves it far more, and is risking his life to let the world know what's going on. And I'm in the same boat too...finally the "it's not paranoia when they really are after you" has been proven to be true to the rest of the population.
It's proof enough that Snowden matters that we're talking about this now and we weren't in 2006.