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Snowden: 'Governments Can Reduce Our Dignity To That Of Tagged Animals' (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden writes a report on The Guardian explaining why leaking information about wrongdoing is a vital act of resistance. "One of the challenges of being a whistleblower is living with the knowledge that people continue to sit, just as you did, at those desks, in that unit, throughout the agency; who see what you saw and comply in silence, without resistance or complaint," Snowden writes. "They learn to live not just with untruths but with unnecessary untruths, dangerous untruths, corrosive untruths. It is a double tragedy: what begins as a survival strategy ends with the compromise of the human being it sought to preserve and the diminishing of the democracy meant to justify the sacrifice." He goes on to explain the importance and significance of leaks, how not all leaks are alike, nor are their makers, and how our connected devices come into play in the post-9/11 period. Snowden writes, "By preying on the modern necessity to stay connected, governments can reduce our dignity to something like that of tagged animals, the primary difference being that we paid for the tags and they are in our pockets."
What? Government abuses the power it is given to control and oppress its own citizens?
CLEARLY WE NEED TO GIVE THE GOVERNMENT EVEN MORE POWER OVER OUR LIVES! #FeelTheBern
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A traitor to what exactly?
Irony, coming from a tagged animal.
Table-ized A.I.
By creating a planetary network, mankind on Planet now has the ability to share information at light-speed. But by creating a single such network, each faction has brought themselves closer to discovery as well. At the speed of light, we will catch your information, tag it like an animal in the wild, and release it unharmed-if such should serve our purposes.
Datajack Sinder Roze, Alpha Centauri
No, the traitors are the military personnel, who swore to defend the constitution from all threats foreign and DOMESTIC, and then sit at their desks at the NSA, figuring out better ways to spy on us.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
It really seems apt for the cow commenter to pop in here.
Dignity is for cows and all that. Moo.
Snowden has gotten better at speaking and his remarks are more on point as he gets older. Perhaps it is more about when I first heard of him, I just remember the rabid comments more than his words. Either way, I do think that the experiences he has gone thru have made him into a more interesting person than he was originally. I don't know if he is trying to become a digital rights martyr or not, but many host him up as such, and I can sort of see the impact he has been trying to make.
Not quite at Martin Luther's Ninty-five Theses yet. Jon Oliver's interview with him was interesting to see, as it showed him how normal people think or do not think of him.
Instead of worrying about who said it, look at what was said. Why should someone shut up (or be shut up) because you don't like what was said? Should the same apply to you?
I think it already had reduced beyond dignity. Just visualize airport lines.
A traitor to whom?
To the government that tries to usurp your freedoms? Most certainly.
To you? Most certainly not.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nothing has changed since Snowden's revelations. Politicians like Diane Feinstein continue to support mass surveillance and The Patriot Act, even making new statements like the government should "censor the Internet" to deal with terrorist communications and recruitment.
As citizens -- as voters -- we're complicit in our government's actions because we continue to reelect the same people.
Because they hate us.
how is that different from, say, google (the company I dislike the most; or at least on the top 5 hate list) ?
people at google ALL know what the company's mission is. its not about helping mankind, either.
they all take home huge fat paychecks and get all that free lunch and perk stuff; but at the end of the day, they work for a traitorous company who, many believe, is just the civilian arm (dressed up so you could not know it) of the TLA's in government.
same with yahoo and all the rest of the modern 'ad agencies'.
what passes for IoT today is also pretty evil; its mostly about data mining and spying. the IoT guys who like having to -require- an always on net connection - those are evil fuckers, too.
you don't have to work directly for the gov to be a traitor. any time you sell your people out, you are a traitor. perhaps not at the national level, but you still sold people out for some Shiney Coin.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The military personnel. You think people who work for the NSA are in the military? I believe the overwhelming majority of NSA personnel are civilians.
You mean invade a sovereign country that is hosting him? That will no go over well with the international community, many of whom are starting to tire of America's shit. The only traitors are those who are opposing "We the people", those who are violating their oath to protect America and her citizens from threats both foreign and domestic. He exposed wrong doings when others remained silent. He is a hero and frankly more need to do as he does. Don't like it? Tough. What have you done for humanity?
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
Now each time he says something, it seems to be less about righting a wrong and more about publicizing himself and the situation he brought himself into. I agree that the NSA should not have been doing what it was doing (even though it likely is still doing it). I agree that his chances at a truly fair trial here aren't real great. However he seemed a bit self-righteous in his actions from the beginning, as if he were doing it as much to bring attention to himself as to see something wrong made right. Now we get these little press releases from him where that seems even more so to be the case.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Dignity can not be reduced, if you think it has been reduced it means you were delusional to think it was high to begin with. And yes humans are animals and unique DNA or fingerprint is no different than wearing a literal tag.
Yeah that's for the movie stars and sports heroes to do. You know cause they really know better than all of us because they well they do.
and they want to enslave our children.
You ask, "How is that different from Google?"
Show me where you take an oath to defend the Constitution, when Google hires you.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Different sections of Hollywood and the TV world are already taking sides. Prepare to be manipulated through your favorite series to think like they want you to think about Snowden and the revelations, citizen!
I think his point is that Google is also a domestic enemy and needs to be defeated militarily.
I think his point is that Google is also a domestic enemy and needs to be defeated using military force.
Google doesn't have guns, a military, jails, or jailors. That means that you can ignore Google to your heart's content, unlike, say, organizations with guns, a military, jails and jailors.
Are you an idiot?
and consume their precious bodily fluids.
Of course, they can! And in some countries, they don't even bother with tagging . But try to call for reduction of government and empowering the individuals, and you'll be shouted and modded down in no time...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
it is the way of their kind.
an oath? really? that's what you bring to this thread?
speechless.
as if 'promises' mean a FUCKING THING today. especially when the almight dollar or almight power is at stake.
the gentlemanly ways are long gone. oaths? HA! the constitution is 'just an outdated bit of paper' by today's thinking, by those in power.
the fact that people sell each other out (which is my main point; one you obviously didn't get) is what is the issue here.
the end result is also the same, oath or no oath. we the people are worse off due to the selfish greedy needs of others. THAT is the point. and googlers are actively working in order to keep the advertising and spying engines running. nothing else matters at google once you clear the smoke and mirrors away.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
was obvious
tl;dr: Edward "LookAtMeI'mAnAttentionWhoreHidingInRussia" Snowden is at it again, and you won't believe what he said this time!
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By preying on the modern necessity to stay connected. . .
At most, very occasionally connecting to a very small subset of the world is a "necessity".
Maybe it's Snowden who's been posting "you are all cows" on /. all this time.
Table-ized A.I.
To be exactly like the Democrats.
Edward, you sniveling coward.
Corporations and Madison Avenue made us tagged animals LONG before the government ever thought of doing it.
I'm liking this guy more and more. I think he'd be a great president, I wish he'd run. Of course, if he was elected he could just write himself a pardon...
Some people that have posted here seem close to realizing the government is less and less the holders of power, and the corporations like google, are more and more in a position of authority.
I would merely caution against whom you anger, for in a post government corpocracy there will likely be no enforceable laws preventing corporations from seeking 'damages' from negative 'feedback'.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Let's not forget that Snowden promised to keep secret the information he leaked.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
So you think exposing and revealing state secrets willy-nilly harms no-one and is totally desirable?
There are other avenues he could have taken, rather than be the arrogant swaggering fool that he is.
I wonder how many foreign intelligence efforts have been compromised, how many people killed as a result of his shit-stirring.
Seen any young adult lately that wasn't covered in ink? All the government needs to do is implement software to recognize tatoos, everybody is already wearing a unique identifier. That and facial recognition software already in used, it looks like we've already been tagged.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Sounds like someone's being playing too much call of duty...
Which avenues could Snowden have taken? Keep in mind that Snowden claims that he did raise his concerns with a legal division at the National Security Agency but was rebuffed; this happened years before he leaked to the public. Keep in mind that NSA staffer Thomas Drake tried to use proper channels to report allegations of improper contracting but wound up the target of an investigation.
There is this analysis that shows that Snowden couldn't take any other avenue.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/14/hillary-clinton/clinton-says-nsa-leaker-snowden-failed-use-whistle/
What kind of foreign intelligence efforts could possibly be compromised from the public knowledge that the government indiscriminately spies on the people? That's utterly stupid.
and they want to enslave our children.
They're already doing that with college loans. Bernie is the only person that has a plan to fix that.
Agreed 100%. You are wasting your breath here though brother. The 30-year old types rule here and have little-to-no concept of what privacy and 4th amendment means. They do not see themselves as tagged animals. It isn't going to get any better. Time to just move on with the new reality of big brother, take care of your own, and just try to find ways of being happy with the brave new world of big left-right-up-down authoritarian government.
Obligatory correction. NSA employs civilians. Idiots, ok schmucks, & varying degrees of really smart cookies. So no military people. Pretty sure they don't swear any oaths to uphold or protect anything. (should i include the, "Moron" emoji?
Bullshit you will, that's why you posted AC.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Sadly I think the quality of discussion on Slashdot regarding the intelligence community and abuse of government power has been steadily declining since the original Snowden revelations two and a half years ago. I'm not sure why that is, but the impression I get is that many of us both inside and outside the North American information technology community are just sitting and watching/waiting for 1984.
Perhaps he did. We don't actually know what oaths he may have taken or legal contracts he may have signed. Let's not forget the government promised to abide the constitution - our legislators, justices and executives have all taken oaths on record, and in most cases, in public.
That said - Two wrongs don't make a right. Put another way, one wrong does not excuse another. The actions of the government don't excuse Snowden but Snowden's actions don't excuse the government either. Guilt is NOT mutually exclusive.
THAT said - Have you considered how the law of cause and effect might apply in this case?
So which came first? Government violations of the constitution or the Snowden leaks? Which one caused the other?
It's actually pretty cut and dry. If you are part of the government, and you are intercepting communications without a warrant signed by a judge with probable cause, you are a traitor to the US Constitution. This is coming from a former Army Officer. I don't give a fuck if you think you are protecting people because if we look at the record of the 3 letter agencies, they suck donkey dick when it comes to actually stopping attacks. Fuck, the FBI can't even make a bust on a terrorist they didn't create, and those they create are mostly mentally ill morons that they practically had to whip to get them to make illegal purchases from them.
A traitor to what exactly?
Technically the banksters that own the oval office, and everything in the west, right down to your ass.
Colonel Jessep, is that you?
Perhaps he did. We don't actually know what oaths he may have taken or legal contracts he may have signed.
He held a clearance. To do so, it was required that he make several legally-binding promises. Among them, he would have promised (in no particular order):
There is no wiggle room. If he thought that PRISM was a threat to the general public, he had a duty to report it to the oversight committees. They may or may not agree with him, but even if they don't, it does not permit him to release the information. He swore to uphold the Constitution, which empowers Congress to make laws, and those laws say the information cannot be released.
Let's not forget the government promised to abide the constitution - our legislators, justices and executives have all taken oaths on record, and in most cases, in public.
They have, though. The fact that you may not like a given law does not itself make the law invalid. For that, the Constitution empowers the Supreme Court to judge the constitutionality of a law... and as yet, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has not been overturned.
Naivete aside, this world is not perfect. You're not going to like every law that Congress passes, but the fact of the matter is that we the people voted those folks into office. You don't have to like the laws they pass, and you are free to vote against them next time. That is your First Amendment-guaranteed right to protest. Congress shall make no law abridging your ability to (otherwise lawfully) try to persuade the country to act differently. Alas, your opinion on the matter does not override the legislative majority that continually reauthorizes the surveillance programs.
So which came first? Government violations of the constitution or the Snowden leaks?
As of yet, there's no final determination on whether the government actually violated the Constitution. Similarly, there is no final conviction of Snowden for his alleged acts of treason and espionage. There have been many unofficial opinions on constitutionality, but most don't actually matter. The one that did (Klayman v. Obama) has been sent back to court on appeal, as the whole case may be invalid. On the other hand, Snowden has openly admitted to unlawfully releasing information, and has been charged for it. As soon as he deigns to return to the US to face the consequences of his actions, we can actually get a decision.
As it stands now, the surveillance programs are still authorized (indirectly, through Congress) by the Constitution, and Edward Snowden is still a fugitive who broke several of his legally-binding promises.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If Mr. Snowden had studied history in addition to studying technologies, he should have known that governments who wanted to "reduce our dignity to something like that of tagged animals" is not something new. In fact, in the country where he is staying now, namely Russia, the government of Joseph Stalin was one of the most oppressive government who worked hard to reduce the dignity of its people. Joseph Stalin did all these things before the invention of telecommunication technologies. Perhaps if Mr. Snowden would learn more about the country he is staying, he would learn the difference between governments who wanted to "reduce our dignity to something like that of tagged animals", and governments who are just doing their jobs in providing security to its people. While some of the things done by the more democratic governments deserve debates and perhaps reviews in courts, it should be noted that in world war 2, the oppressive governments' plan for world domination are stopped by organized efforts of the more democratic governments, not by anarchists who say governments can do no good.
We do more than that. You see, we Republicans imitate other lifeforms, and imitate them perfectly. We assimilate and copy, and you will never know who's one of us.
TFS: [...]people continue to sit, just as you did, at those desks, in that unit, throughout the agency; who see what you saw and comply in silence, without resistance or complaint [...] They learn to live not just with untruths but with unnecessary untruths, dangerous untruths, corrosive untruths.
1984: And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink."
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
In the United States it sometimes happens that military personnel are put in charge of certain government agencies when the director can be either a civilian or a uniformed military officer. The NSA is one of those agencies.
Let's not forget that Snowden promised to keep secret the information he leaked.
So, there were two conflicting promises, he couldn't keep both and took the option that was best for the people.
NSA might have been full of traitors, but Snowden wasn't one of them.
He held a clearance. To do so, it was required that he make several legally-binding promises. Among them, he would have promised (in no particular order):
There is no wiggle room.
He did report through appropriate channels and in the correct order. The reason he had to go through the other appropriate channel was because the first one turned out to be a traitor. Snowden would never have leaked the information if the first channel had followed the law.
And no, there is no wiggle room, the constitution goes above the others. Negotiating away the constitution or suppressing it would make you a traitor.
So you think exposing and revealing state secrets willy-nilly harms no-one and is totally desirable?
The same goes for any other crime. Exposing crimes harms the criminals and is undesirable to them. Systematic and wide-spread violations of the Constitution of the United States by government employees who are paid by the people to uphold the Constitution they have sworn an oath on is highly criminal, and we are talking about organized crime on a large scale here.
So why are you mad at those crimes on the payroll of the American people being exposed? Are you a participant?
If Google was working for the government or a TLA, I don't think they would have enabled strong encryption by default in their mobile OS or made a concerted effort to encrypt all their own web services, and then adjusted search result rankings to favour encrypted sites.
Of course a conspiracy theorist would argue that those changes are all for show and the government has a back door anyway, but given the hassle that the FBI has had recently with Apple (who were listed along side Google in the leaked NSA slides, having "joined" the programme even earlier) it seems unlikely.
Aside from some innuendo ("many believe"), do you have any proof?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Snowden has never said anything we don't already know. Why is this "news"?
Not half as many as from Hillary's private email server. What do you have to say to that you paid Hillary shills! BITCHES!!!
Of course a conspiracy theorist would argue that those changes are all for show and the government has a back door anyway, but given the hassle that the FBI has had recently with Apple (who were listed along side Google in the leaked NSA slides, having "joined" the programme even earlier) it seems unlikely.
And remember "joined" may be too strong a term. The NSA was tapping Google's glass between data centres, without Google's knowledge. Once it was revealed GOOG started encrypting the fibre:
* https://plus.google.com/108799184931623330498/posts/SfYy8xbDWGG
* https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/00235225143/pissed-off-google-security-guys-issue-fu-to-nsa-announce-data-center-traffic-now-encrypted.shtml
Most tech companies are going full-on crypto everywhere to work around the jackasses at the TLAs.
I can't believe public funds are being spent on this sort of low-quality shilling.
In such a world that Mr Snowden envisions.. there would still be horrible violent incidents like we've seen of late. How would that government, under his perfecter rules handle the iPhone issue? Would it better for the people if the state was unable to check the miscreants email history to ferret out other weasels, or to leave the terrorists free to roam all over the US with impunity? I am not saying I have all the answers, but any time you chase Utopia to such an extreme, you find yourself in DysTopia. Is the Best Solution a compromise of personal and state freedoms (assuming those freedoms are in the best interests of the people)?
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
So why bother, have fun.
Bingo. When he "leaked" what he had, it had names of people working for the US and Western interests, as well as their family and friends. There was mention about a number of people disappearing after that info was let out, likely to wind up in organ banks or otherwise be removed from existence in ways only governments can, Hoffa style.
Couple that with details on how Daesh was spied on, which allowed that organization to counter that, and grow beyond what anyone has even thought, and it is really doubtful that Snowden can be considered a hero with all that blood on his hands.
Has Snowden made the world a better place? Definitely not.
As we would say when we were children: He started it!
If they didn't want the American people to betray them, they shouldn't have betrayed the American people first.
Public consensus says you're wrong. If the government wasn't worried abut his opinions, they could just let him back for a fair trial instead of one where he's not able to make the fullest defense possible.
More people are coming to the conclusion that, while legally wrong, it was morally right.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
And the US just hemmed and hawed while Russia annexed part of Ukraine. So much for power, if you can't use it. Also, Russia was more effective in Syria in 5 months than the US and allies in 5 years. You could cut your defense budget by 2/3 and it wouldn't make a difference, because you can't effectively USE all that firepower except as a big stick, and when the other side also has nukes, you can't use it at all.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Dignity: "the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect."
The only way you can lose your dignity is if you believe you are not worthy of honor or respect. That's why shame and stigma are such effective weapons. But if you refuse to be shamed without cause on your part and treat attempts to stigmatize you with the contempt they deserve, you are still just as worthy of honor and respect as before.
Only a MOO or a sheeple would act otherwise.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Care to name one? Pick one that has already disappeared to make sure no damage is done.
First, it wasn't willy-nilly. He passed it on to people he trusted to release the information selectively. Next, he tried those other avenues and it went nowhere. What makes you think an agency that purgers itself before Congress will behave legally when things like this come up?
The people had a right to know their tax dollars were hard at work taking a dump on the Constitution and the flag. If it's inconvenienced the NSA, perhaps they should start working on their mandate rather than becoming a domestic enemy of the people.
If he swore to protect the Constitution, his oath might have bound him to leak after getting nowhere internally.
No, that's kind of my point. The Constitution is the source of authority for the laws that he broke. By leaking, he's defied the Constitution himself.
"Getting nowhere internally" is exactly what he's allowed to do under the Constitution. He has the right to protest, but he does not have the right to release classified information. Thus there is a classified channel for such protests. However, the Constitution does not guarantee that one's protests will actually affect anything, and if indeed nothing changes, there is still no right granted to break other laws.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
No, not if his orders and the NSA's actions are in defiance of the Constitution. Nothing in the Constitution says blindly obey your glorious leader.
When he "leaked" what he had, it had names of people working for the US and Western interests, as well as their family and friends.
I do not know of any documents that Snowden released to the public. Please provide the link. I thought he provided it to a news writer.
it is really doubtful that Snowden can be considered a hero
Thanks for letting me know what is likely vs doubtful in the consideration of my own mind. Before you said this I fully believed the exact opposite. I was incorrect to think that opinions are personal.
There is no part of the Constitution that allows the government to have secrets. The government has no powers not explicitly given to it in the Constitution, that is the whole point of its existence.