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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."
Because a traitor wouldn't have the balls to go public, exposing him/herself.
"World isn't black and white"
News at 11. /facepalm.
-Styopa
How have people not noticed that we live in a society where EVERYTHING is a false dilemma. EVERY debate we have politically is a false choice.
The biggest one is this constant claptrap of socialism vs. capitalism. If you think that we should have a national health system immediately you have a backwards yokel yelling about socialism. The U.S. isn't pure capitalistic and never has.
Every debate is derailed because there is someone that can't think in a shade of gray. If you want to do something that a business doesn't like then you are anti-business. Conversely if you want to help a business then you're a capitalistic pig.
We really HAVE to get past this if our society is going to move forward. The answers are almost never at the ends of the spectrum.
I can't say I've seen a non-editorial account in the Guardian or the Washington post that paints Snowden as a hero. Certainly not to the same extent that the NSA and GCHQ paint the very acknowledement of the documents' existence as treason. One side is stating cold, dry, unpleasant facts, while the other is engaged in a bunch of red-faced howling about traitors and national security.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
We laud Snowden exposing NSA spying on citizens, but on the foreign actors. But then, the guy is a refugee now, and I suppose he has to throw a few bones to those who may consider giving him an asylum.
In the end, it tells us we need better whistle-blower protection laws, so that the next Snowden needs not flee abroad and bargain with the devils.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I suppose that the lack of "nuanced" approach to "the right attitude re: Snowden" is really a symptom of the "discoursive radicalisation" of US politics...
The more the Right and the Extreme Right parties in the US monopolize the political discourse, and are really very very close in anything that really matters, the more the supporters of each part of the political theater demonize the other part.
So telling that Edward Snowden was not a traitor in act or intention since his actions really didn't put the US in jeopardy, and he didn't want to, but wanted the US to change it's policies is not compatible with being conservative, nor even with being "responsible" in the current administration, since it would be a critic of the current president, and critics are not acceptable ever...
Or alternatively telling that just maybe the process ES used was not the right one will put you "in bed with koukou warmongers"....
In practice "not hurting anybody sentiments" makes it impossible to have any sane political discussion in the US except with a very small set of open minded persons who are able to disagree with you without thinking that this makes you a bad person, and are even able to believe that you or they might, just might change their mind if we go on discussing...
I just hope that at some point enough people in the US will agree to vote for anybody except somebody who was already elected, and then maybe they will talk together about "what should we do next ...."
but not holding my breath, for the time being it's just "YACOMTIE" (Yet another country only managed through its economy"
Seeking a false balance between the truth and the lies, is a common strategy when the lies have failed.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
I think of it as the death of meaning. People nowadays rush to use words purely for their emotional flavor regardless of their meaning. Sort of like how "terrorist" now gets applied to all sorts of stuff that has nothing to do with attempting to spread terror. "Racist" or "sexist" have no meaning other than something a victim group doesn't like. In Snowden's case, calling him a traitor is absurd. No matter what you think about what he did, he didn't aid and abet the enemies of the US. That's what "treason" would mean in this case, it is very specific.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
the opinions and rhetoric on either side has only grown more strident and inflexible
It's a good thing that doesn't happen around here. Luckily, extreme opinions here are moderated by moderate moderators whose moderation moderately moderates the most immoderate opinions and rhetoric, no mater how strident and inflexible they may be modulated.
leaving no room for nuanced opinions or the possibility that Snowden perhaps is neither a traitor nor a hero but something else entirely
Can Snowden be called anything but a first-class patriotic hero of the highest order? Say what you will, but I, for one, ain't ever gonna buy it.
(Note for immoderate moderators: the preceding was satire, not trolling. Please don't take it personally.)
He's the villain Gotham needs today.
John
God forbid you offer "nuanced" opinions on /. -- you'll get downmoderated as a troll. There is no tolerance here, even though most of the readers and moderators would tell you they are very tolerant.
People have their prejudices, and those color their views on every bit of information they receive, and if your opinions don't agree, then you must be the idiot. This is as true on /. as in the real world, though perhaps it is more obvious here than in RW, the vitriol spewed in various flame wars here go beyond what would be considered "fighting words" if uttered to a person's face.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Though he started by revealing NSA collection programs that some judges have now declared illegal, such as the metadata program,
Following the link, one finds another article on the same site which states:
The [Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board] is an independent committee that operates within the Executive Branch
For those who do not understand what that says, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is not a part of the judicial system and is not "some judges". The PCLOB can claim something is illegal until they are blue in the face, the ONLY part of the government that can make a determination that something is truly illegal is the judicial branch. The executive branch can believe a program is illegal and not implement or end it. But, it can't determine actual legality. If it could, then anyone who did anything the executive branch said was illegal, this means anyone ever charged in federal court, would be automatically guilty. There would be no need for a court or judges and we would be ruled by a totalitarian king, not a president.
This factual error, which appears to me to be a deliberate and outright lie, invalidates the author's entire line of reasoning and calls into question all the premises upon which it is based.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
a nuclear-armed federal government
Can't tell if trolling, or if you're just that large of a dipshit.
But I'll bite. Tell me again how the Federal government would be able to deploy nuclear weaponry against its own citizens, even in the midst of a civil war, without losing every last shred of legitimacy it might have had? Yes, you'll need to account for the global ramifications.
General Keith Alexander. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), lied under oath to congress, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.
James Clapper. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), lied under oath to congress, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.
Edward Snowden. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), stole and released classified materials, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.
The fact that Snowden is being pursued for what he did, while Alexander and Clapper appear to be getting off scott-free is the biggest hypocrisy ever.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Nuance requires looking at both sides of an issue, weighing the information, then coming to a conclusion that there are situations which don't fit a template. In America, our educational system is reduced to teaching to the test, so only basic pieces of information matter. Critical thinking is discarded, because it does not produce good semi-automatons who trot out every two years and fill in the bubble next to a D or an R. All thought has to be as part of a template, because we are urged to give up our individual identities, priorities, and heuristics to become sheep-like consumers, citizens of sports-team and music "nations," and so on. Really, to be honest, to understand the Snowden situation requires having enough depth and background in political history to see where mass surveillance inevitably leads, the dangers of the state which grows too large, etc, and then to be able to analyze the present stage by using those facts to form some sort of model. Sadly, that's a skill which is vanishing in America, because we have been on top so long that few people feel "hungry" enough to learn and think for themselves.
The article to which this piece points is an opinion piece. The author points out that Snowden's "latest revelations" may compromise current field operations and/or operatives.
The central problem with that claim is that SNOWDEN HAS MADE NO NEW REVELATIONS. *All* of the revelations from "Snowden" are actually revelations made by one or more of the journalists to whom Snowden gave copies of his stolen documents. All of them. Snowden himself has refused to reveal ANYTHING that THEY have not already published, on the grounds that he considers himself to be unqualified to properly strike the balance between preserving national security and revealing information that is clearly in the public interest. Instead, he has left it ENTIRELY up to the journalists to whom he gave the information to make those decisions.
But don't take my word for it. Listen to the man himself.
Check out my novel.
"Snowden perhaps is neither a traitor nor a hero but something else entirely"
This is just nonsense of the highest order; there is a strong legal argument that he was required to expose the crimes our government has committed under our various treaty obligations which, according the U.S. Constitution, have the full force of law and in fact trump any domestic law requiring him to keep silent.
Of course, he would never be allowed to use that argument, or any other effective defense, in court were he to return to this country, but from an objective point of view, Snowden should be the star witness in the prosecution of everyone involved in national security from the last 2 presidential administrations.
No, wait, polarization massively sucks!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Give us a break. We're shredding as fast as we can.
And at this point, the rest of the globe probably would say we deserved it.
My first thought with this headline is what did Snowden do to kill Nuance, the speech recognition company?
Then I realized they capitalized a wrong word.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Who gives a flying fuck about what entirely different thing the messenger is? You don't shoot the messenger, why would you over analyse the messenger? This is the crux of what makes ad hominem a fallacy. THE MESSAGE IS MORE IMPORTANT. The leaks revealed that our worst fears had come true. Everything else is bullshit indirection.
Focus on the solution, not the problem.
Nuance is out, and so seem to be reassessment and compromise.
I'd certainly agree that is my impression of a lot of issues in the US - you seem to have two extremes with no middle ground and while I no longer live there it does seem from the outside that the problem is getting worse and not better. It exists elsewhere too but nowhere near to the same extent as the US. However with Snowden I think you have an issue that is very likely to force people to one side or the other.
Snowden broke extremely serious laws and severely embarrassed the US government and damaged US reputation worldwide. He comes across as an intelligent person knowing full well exactly what he was doing and why so there is no possibility to claim that it was somehow inadvertent or he could not foresee the consequences. So either you have to really choose between whether or not he was justified in breaking the law and that pretty much forces you into one camp or the other....but that does not have to mean that your opinion is a "fixed belief" it just means there are few tenable middle positions for this topic.
Too much news, too fast, the TV presenting them with headstrong showmen instead of analytical journalists
You can also add to this the fact that with so many media sources to choose from you can select only the news and opinions that you want to hear so your opinion is never, or rarely challenged.
A few months ago I ran across a study about the polarizing effect of internet forums. As I understood the theory, they thought that we all have these black/white ideas, but they're normally moderated by social interaction. Unfortunately the ease and anonymity of internet communcation allows us to express the exremeties of our beliefs without any social cost.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
When Krushchev said "we will bury you" at the UN, he *meant* "we will be around after you are gone" like "a son buries his father". It was a common Russian expression, and we had access to fine, nuanced Russian translators. Instead it became this famous threat of nuclear Armageddon, please pass the collection plate for more nukes of our own.
You can see similar rush-to-exaggerate in rhetoric that led up to WW1. I'm trying to think of a time when leaders in particular did NOT want to paint their side of a political dispute as heroism and the other side as villany. Coming up dry. Anybody? Is there a history major in the house who can point to us some long-lost "Age of Nuanced Political Dispute" ?
The Founding Fathers were considered traitors by the British.
Patriots by the Colonials.
Snowden is considered a traitor by NSA and government cartal and the Americans that support that system.
Snowden is considered a hero and patriot by Americans who believe in liberty and that our government should not be abusing power.
Be careful here. We must distinguish the difference between "extreme" and "principled."
Snowden's initial leak showed violations of the law and the constitution. If that was his only leak, lots more people would call him a whistleblower. But other leaks by Snowden show perfectly good, legal, constitutional countintelligence programs. It is perfectly valid to say he is a whistleblower for one leak but a traitor for the other. THAT ISN'T NUANCE.
Nuance is "a subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound." If one leak was completely black, and another completely white, we should not mix them together and call the result gray and nuanced. If someone murders person A then saves person B, we don't compromise and call it manslaughter. We say they are guilty on one count, and not guilty on another. We need to look at Snowden this way.
Do we have a lack of nuance, or a lack of principles?
In the US, we have a constitution that lays down the basic theoretical philosophical principles of government. People who react loudly when the government violates those rules are principled. Principled means "acting in accordance with morality and showing recognition of right and wrong based on a given set of rules." Principled is not the same as extreme. Being principled is a good thing. If you are outraged by what the NSA did, do not let someone label you as "extreme" in order to bargain you away from your beliefs.
But we have people in this nation who want to be able to get away with this stuff, while still claiming to follow the rules. They want the issue to look "nuanced," so that there is wiggle room to violate the principles. Do not let the "nuanced" view turn into a slippery slope that the government uses to skirt the law and erode the constitution.
From the article:
Saying that there may be some middle ground or grey area is seen as a sign of weakness, of moving off the party line.
That is true. People need to be able to change their opinions, or not forced down an extreme side. That tendency is why we have these two ridiculous parties in America. People follow banners more strongly than they follow principles. But Snowden's leaks are not about party. It isn't flip-flopping to say leak A is one thing and leak B is another. These leaks are about our principles. This is not the time to back down. Back down on gray things like immigration, healthcare, spending, and tax codes. But for this one, follow the principles.
You are forgetting we have tactical nukes that can take out as little as a couple blocks, just perfect for a false flag. As for why they would use them? Because when the stock bubble bursts the US dollar will be worth about as much as a Zimbabwe buck and they'll have a re-enactment of the French revolution on their hands.
Why have they gotten away with all the shit they have pulled the past decade with barely a peep from the populace? Bread and circuses, a concept as old as empires. With the exception of the teabag nutters (who think they are all Andrew Ryan and can build a Randian "utopia" if they were just allowed to stomp them peasants, idiots forget the poor outnumber them a good 150k to 1) those in power know that a well fed and entertained populace is a docile one, hard to get somebody with a full belly and a roof over their head to riot.
That is all gonna change when the bubble pops, without being able to just print paychecks for the poor they are gonna have millions of people with no jobs, homes, no reason not to riot and THAT is when things will get ugly. I personally think the military will be the X factor, I know many soldiers and they care about the constitution, not protecting the riches of the elite. If they try to roll the tanks it is quite possible they will end up with another Libya, where half the military turned on their commanders.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I've heard through reliable sources in DC that the NSA specifically DOESN'T hire the smartest people. In fact, those who are "too smart" are passed over for promotions, awards, etc.
Smart people tend ot figure out true right and wrong, and the NSA does not want that. The NSA wants loyal drones who will obey. Therefore we can conclude that NSA employees are staggeringly average in their intelligence but have some decent skills.
He's not a traitor, or a hero, he's a whistleblower.
He points out what appears to be wrongdoing, and it's up to our system of justice to determine if that's true and fix it.
After he points it out, the issue stops being about him. Except for people who are offended that they've been made accountable for crimes, and try to make the issue about him instead.
Otherwise, take the label from Paul Revere.
Saying "there are shades of grey" is a way to undermine the importance of the revelation and the incredible personal risk, undertaken to ensure this was revealed. The SecurityState will never back down from domination of everything - which is the chiefest learning of the Snowden revelation.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."