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Snowden A Hero? Gates Says No, Woz Says Yes
hcs_$reboot writes "In a lengthy interview from Rolling Stone, Bill Gates, was asked: 'Do you consider [Snowden] a hero or a traitor?' The Microsoft founder responded, 'I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero. ... You won't find much admiration from me'. What about government surveillance? 'The government has such ability to do these things. ... But the specific techniques they use become unavailable if they're discussed in detail. Rolling Stone retorts that privacy can be an issue: 'We want safety, but we also want privacy,' says the journalist. Bill Gates tells his main priority focuses on stopping the bad guys: 'Let's say you knew nothing was going on. How would you feel? I mean, seriously. I would be very worried. Technology arms the bad guys with orders of magnitude more [power]. Not just bad guys. Crazy guys.' Meanwhile, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak expressed the opposite opinion about Snowden at a tech conference in Germany. 'He is a hero to me, but he may be a traitor to other people and I understand the reasons for them to think that way. I believe that Snowden believed, like I do, that the U.S. has a right to freedom. '"
yes, technology has certainly armed you, Bill Gates, you twisted evil fuck
Good thing they executed Einstein... oh wait...
Nobody. Absolutely NOBODY.
in this case the enemy is our government. Are you taking refuge with them ?
The wealthy want to keep people under the control of the government, so they can increase their wealth and power over us.
Good thing they executed Einstein... oh wait...
Completely irrelevant analogy. He was visiting the US when Hitler came to power and decided not to go back due to the anti-semitism. It's not like he gave away secret documents from the German High Command. Analogies need to be relevant to work.
Sorry, but for every good deed he accomplished he did at least two dirty deals and bribed a couple of politicians to get richer..
Even evil sociopaths have to answer to their wives.
Gates isn't exactly neutral on this matter. Companies as big as Microsoft don't happen without close friendships with the government, and those relationships get even closer when the company is let off easy in an anti-trust case. Even if he did support Snowden, he wouldn't be able to publicly state that.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
OK, then, how about Fermi? Emigrated in 1938 to escape fascism and helped the U.S. (the "enemy") develop the atomic bomb.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
What about someone fleeing from China to the US to whistleblow on genocide within the country? Would you think someone not a hero for going somewhere his story would be heard and that he wouldn't be in mortal danger?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
History is written by the victors and all that.
As far as I can tell, we don't want anything to do with the Crimea situation, but unfortunately the Ukraine signed an agreement that they would disarm their nuclear stockpile with the agreement that the west would protect their borders. And as such, we are now forced to intervene if we want to push forward any other nuclear disarmament agreements and not risking making other such agreements null and void.
Like it or not, the world is usually more complex than just giving one group of people what they want.
He's stuck in Russia, away from friends and family, probably not exactly having the best time of his life.
Sure, it's probably a cakewalk compared to what the intelligence community would put him through and where he would end up once they're 'done' - but I think he's feeling quite a few consequences of his actions and revelations, and I tend to think those consequences are plenty unjust as they are.
By your statement regarding facing consequences, I would think that you believe there should be no such thing as witness protection programs.
Though I think the basic issue with the premise of the question is that it's a false dichotomy. I don't think Snowden is a hero. I also don't think he's a traitor. At least not wholly on either. Getting people to label him as one or the other is populist journalism. Of course, this is Rolling Stone.. while held in higher regard than the usual tabloids, it is what it is.
The more I admire Steve Wozniak. He is a true hero.
Linux forever
I can see the different viewpoints of those who say Snowden is a hero, and the others who say he is a villain. It is also a good thing to know that either group does agree that whatever the act of Snowden is labeled, it is a flagrant violation of the Constitution. This is still without getting out of the US worldview of things. If we suddenly 'retreat' a bit more to get into this 'field of view' not only the US, but the World as an entity, the US worldview should learn how to queue.
But my main curiosity is this: We have two computer technology worldwide-known persons, who have expressed different opinions about the Snowden Saga. I wonder, why stop at them alone and not ask any further, how would other world-wide known computer technology persons see this matter? We could ask Larry Wall, Brian Kernighan, Bjarne Stroustrup, Larry Ellison... the more the better.
THEN, we could mine this data set and maybe we could even find that there is some mysterious connection between beeing a famous computer guy AND success of wealth AND which of these have thick trade-pipes with governmental contracts which in turn loopback towards their welth.
This way we would have way more accurate conclusions and much more credible ones. And with a much lower margin of error as the sampling set would be richer, supposing that the sampling set would not be cherry-picked.
Sure, it's probably a cakewalk compared to what the intelligence community would put him through and where he would end up once they're 'done' - but I think he's feeling quite a few consequences of his actions and revelations, and I tend to think those consequences are plenty unjust as they are.
I think people are wrong in saying that you have to be suicidal, a martyr, or masochistic to be a hero.
Thank you Dave Raggett
The summary didn't include the full sentence by Gates. Just for completeness, he said: "I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero."
but unfortunately the Ukraine signed an agreement that they would disarm their nuclear stockpile with the agreement that the west would protect their borders.
Treaties like that caused WWI.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
> last I checked we were sticking our noses into Crimea situation
You mean the situation where we are a party to a treaty that says that Ukraine keeps it's borders intact in return for NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT?
You mean THAT situation?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Much like many men in his position, charity is just a public relations whitewash. This is expecially obvious when all of this occurs in their "retirement". Of course Gates didn't invent this idea, he swiped it from someone else.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Russia failing to honor its part of the treaty may cause WW III.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Sticking around hasn't helped Manning any.
I think you're looking at "consequences" as a very black and white thing. Snowden is facing the consequences for his actions -- he's exiled from his country and may never be able to return. He's already sacrificed so much to do the right thing. Sticking around to be persecuted wouldn't help out any. He took the risk of being tortured, imprisoned, and even executed. Isn't that enough? That's the most we ask of our soldiers and then we declare them heroes -- we ask that they risk their lives. We ask that they risk sacrifice, not that they do sacrifice. Kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers have no place in the defense of our country. Why should the whistleblower be so self-sacrificial? Why is he not a hero for risking his life when that's the standard of valor we place upon ourselves?
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
It doesn't surprise me that Bill Gates would identify with the megomaniacal dictatorship mentality that permeates our Federal Government. He was the megomanical dictator of a multinational corporation for so many years, that he can't understand an organization working in any other manner.
No he would not likely be dead by now. Had he stayed here, he would have been prosecuted for the original revelations, claimed and won whistle-blower status and been acquitted or pardoned. And that would have been the end of it. When he made his original revelations of the surveillance program he was a hero. That needed to be revealed, and his choosing to flee to another country to make the revelation is semi-understandable though less than the honorable act of standing by your actions when you reveal government wrong doing.
But!
Because he fled the country, and has to keep his value to his current hosts in order to retain his guest status, he's kept revealing stuff that has gone far beyond whistle-blower status. We the people did need to know that our government was collecting our data, and most likely in violation of the Constitution (gotta leave the final decision to the courts but I think it was illegal). But we did not have any need to know about our collection efforts directed at foreign leaders, even if they are allies. It's the Intelligence game, everybody collects on everybody, allies and enemies both. A political and Military Ally is still an economic competitor, and politically we don't agree on everything so even in that realm is there cause for intelligence collection. Neither did we need any knowledge of the UK surveillance program nor the Aussie program. Nor anything else he's released. And it was all those revelations that pushed him from Hero Whistle-blower to Traitor.
Had he stayed and faced the music he likely would have been acquitted by now as a Whistle-blower. We would still have had the national discussion about the surveillance program and even were he to be convicted he would be considered a Hero for protecting the Constitution. And had he stayed he likely would not have had the opportunity to dip into treason by revealing the stuff that did not concern us as constitutional violations.
We do owe him a debt of gratitude, but he ruined that by revealing classified information that did not concern violations of our constitutional rights and damaged our valid intelligence collection efforts. He has tarnished his Hero status and now stands as a traitor.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
OPERATION PAPERCLIP
"To circumvent President Truman's anti-Nazi order and the Allied Potsdam and Yalta agreements, the JIOA worked independently to create false employment and political biographies for the scientists. The JIOA also expunged from the public record the scientists' Nazi Party memberships and régime affiliations. Once "bleached" of their Nazism, the scientists were granted security clearances by the U.S. government to work in the United States. Paperclip, the project's operational name, derived from the paperclips used to attach the scientists' new political personae to their "US Government Scientist" JIOA personnel files."
* Otto Ambros was a Third Reich chemist who served as director of the German corporation that produced the gas used in the death camps. He was tried at Nuremberg, found guilty of mass murder, and sentenced to eight years. While he was serving time in prison, Operation Paperclip officials arranged for his sentence to be commuted. In 1951, Ambros was hired to work at a clandestine facility north of Frankfurt called Camp King. His work, sanctioned by the Defense Department, ultimately involved the testing of sarin toxins on American soldiers without their knowledge.
* Arthur Rudolph was a Nazi rocket scientist who played a key role in the V-2 rocket program. One of Operation Paperclip's earliest hires, Rudolph, in the U.S., worked his way up through the ranks of NASA to become project director of the Saturn V rocket program. Ultimately, Rudolph was led to confess to war crimes, but his work is all over the U.S. aeronautics technology.
* Kurt Blome, a virologist, pioneered Hitler's secret germ warfare program. Specializing in plague research, Blome conducted human tests on concentration camp prisoners and was a defendant at the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial. Acquitted, Blome was instrumental in the U.S. germ warfare program.
* Kurt Debus was a V-weapons engineer who oversaw mobile rocket launches at Peenemunde. An ardent Nazi, he wore the SS uniform to work and after Paperclip, became the first director of NASA's JFK Space Center in Florida.
* Hubertus Strughold was in charge of the aviation research in the Reich Ministry and despite his war crimes was hired by the Americans to eventually become America's father of Space Medicine.
The notorious CIA interrogation techniques and other mind-control programs and projects had their beginnings in a camp near Franfurt called Camp King. It was there where Operation Bluebird experiments involving LSD and other drugs started with Paperclip personnel and research.
The US Army's herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War, in which 11.4 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed over more than 24 percent of South Vietnam was the brainchild of Fritz Hoffmann, another Nazi war criminal.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Russia has a SOF agreement with Ukraine as a part of the Sevastapol lease agreement - good well past a 2017 renewal. It allows for 35,000 Russian Troops in Crimea. The Russians are legally in Crimea under the same kind of frameworks that legally allow US troops in Bhagram, Afghanistan.
The Crimean referendum is being conducted under the precedent most recently, of Kosovo and South Sudan.
Good for the goose? Good for the gander.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You illustrate nicely why I tend to dislike your country so much.
The US is behaving like shit towards its "friends", and though its part of the game, there are things that go too far. Somehow it is OK to ignore *any* laws when it concerns people from outside of your country.
Apart from being foolish (you really seem to believe he would stand a chance in his own country; I do not. I am sure he himself also doubts this, so far, you are in the minority here...), you are also blind. Snowden has shown us a lot about the exchange of info between spy-programs. You can freely spy on not-americans, and the Brits can freely spy on Americans, so you needed to know the whole thing. I cannot understand how the foreign part is not relevant to the discussion, you are deluding yourself. Your info will simply be collected by a foreign entity, and than given to the NSA. Poof...there go your rights and constitution, without doing anything illegal! How nice!
Snowden did not release anything (apart from things he said in interviews). The call what to release and when to release it was made by journalists. So he did not go from hero to traitor, he did everything at the same time. Oh, and I actually see nothing tarnishing about being a traitor to the dark side.
And that would have been the end of it.
Or maybe he'd be absolutely miserable, like how other whistleblowers ended up.
We do owe him a debt of gratitude, but he ruined that by revealing classified information that did not concern violations of our constitutional rights and damaged our valid intelligence collection efforts.
I for one am thankful that he gave us a more in depth view of what our government is doing. Just because some of the activities he revealed aren't related to our constitutional rights doesn't mean that the activities are moral, or that we shouldn't know they're happening.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Wow, there is so much wrong in this post I don't even know where to begin.
Let's start with the "claimed and won whistle-blower status". That is completely false. First off, the whistleblower laws only apply to government employees. As a contractor, they did not protect him at all. Second, he is charged under the Espionage Act, which does not have any whistleblower or "public good" exception. People prosecuted under this law are forbidden from telling a jury that they were acting for the greater good, the only thing that the jury is allowed to hear is that the law was broken.
http://www.politifact.com/pund...
Second, as for "the worst thing that could happen to him", consider the prior example of Thomas Drake, who was a whistleblower years before Snowden, followed the letter of the law precisely, and as a result had his house raided by armed FBI agents. They also raided the houses of three other people who knew Drake, the FBI holding the families of these associates at gunpoint. The prosecution of Drake was in fact persecution, as Richard D. Bennett of the Federal District Court said explicitly when he called it "unconscionable".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
He has not "kept revealing stuff" in order to "keep his value". He gave his documents to a few trusted reporters before he fled, and since he left he has not released a single thing. The continuing revelations are from his original release to the reporters, he is not providing anything new at all. He says he has none of the documents anymore, and the NSA and CIA and FBI have not shown any evidence that he does have them. The intelligence agencies have instead used weasel-words to insinuate that he does without literally accusing him of it.
The collection efforts directed at our allies need to be revealed, because they are part of a larger pattern of flagrant disrespect and veiled acts of war the intelligence agencies are perpetuating universally across the globe. Do you even realize we are talking about universal surveillance of every man, woman, and child on Earth? The reality is far worse than any dystopian science fiction you can find. The NSA is worse than the Stasi, as said by a former Stasi official.
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
As for our political and military allies also being economic competitors, how the hell do you justify spending more on our intelligence budget than the rest of the First World nations combined? In what possible way is that an economic advantage?
The worst part of all this is that I cannot ever know for sure if you are simply grossly misinformed, or you are a government shill paid to deliberately post false information in an organized propaganda attempt.
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
You, sir, terrify me almost as much as the totalitarian government intelligence agencies.