Edward Snowden and the Death of Nuance

Trailrunner7 writes "As the noise and drama surrounding the NSA surveillance leaks and its central character, Edward Snowden, have continued to grow in the last few months, many people and organizations involved in the story have taken great pains to line up on either side of the traitor/hero line regarding Snowden's actions. While the story has continued to evolve and become increasingly complex, the opinions and rhetoric on either side has only grown more strident and inflexible, leaving no room for nuanced opinions or the possibility that Snowden perhaps is neither a traitor nor a hero but something else entirely."

Comments

Or he's just another

[mozumder]

Libertarian narcissist precious snowflake, of which 100% of Snowden supporters are.

We get it, your parents taught you that you were special and important and you can do anything you want when you grew up, so gubmint needs to stop getting in the way of how awesome you are!

Sorry kids, but you were taught incorrectly. Government will remain the central power in any society, not individuals. Your best bet as an individual is to figure out how you can derive your own strength from that power.

Remember, the central meaning of life is to gain power, of which everyone does in ever little thing they do.

And the biggest mistake libertarian narcissist precious snowflakes make is to think they have power over government. That is why they amusingly think their guns are going to protect them from a nuclear-armed federal government. (So funny.)

So, rather than make government weaker, which us socialists have no intentions of allowing anyways, your best response is to try and figure out how a strong, powerful government makes you more capable.

Once you figure that out, you'll figure out why government needs to be expanded, rather than limited. I would recommend you get on that program quick, as those in power have already figured out your fate for you.

In any case, one must never consider a high-school-dropout weasel to be a personal hero. He's the hero to the ignorant, not the intelligent. It's telling that no actual NSA employees support him, and these are the absolute smartest people in the world, doing far more insane innovative things than anything in private industry.

Another important tell that people are overlooking is how every single document release only confirms that the NSA is actively working hard to protect the privacy rights of Americans. Metadata is perfectly fine for government to collect. The Supereme Court has already stated so, in Smith vs. Maryland case, that metadata isn't private communications. And once it is established that metadata isn't private, government can do whatever it wants with that data. And for the actual private communications of US citizens (not metadata, which isn't private, and not foreigners, because fuck em), the NSA has filters to eliminate this data.

Think about it - if the NSA were actively trying to violate the privacy rights of Americans, why would they maintain a SECRET program to filter their data out?

Of course, the libertarian narcissist precious snowflake thinks too much of himself to think this through, so they continue to scream about how the NSA is bad.

Re:hero

[cold fjord]

I take it then that you are part of the continent that prefers for a large body count of your fellow citizens to accumulate before taking action against an enemy that declares hostile intent, and might oppose it even then? Is this more your flavor of "hero"?