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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."
I exist to create the impression that the consensus on your internet forum is something other than what it is.
I am made of warm wool, am printed with an cheerful argyle pattern, and have mismatched buttons for eyes.
But even I know Snowden is a traitor.
Somebody tell this guy that he jumped the shark when he appeared on screen at SXSW. Just because you spilled a few secrets doesn't make you a philosopher and commentator on all things government.
do worse.
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
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
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.
... your mother-in-law. I think Snowden is now suffering from an over-inflated and diarrhea of the pie hole
I think it already had reduced beyond dignity. Just visualize airport lines.
is part of the BSD managed to make users. This is Users of NetBSD current core were, Creek, abysmal AMERICA) might be are tied up in Are you a NIGGER
Should go in and get Snowden! Get him out of that McDonaldsky's and rendition him back to the best country in the world, and then, stuff him in a hole in Gitmo where the sun don't shine. Ever. Then, make him stand before the American people and admit that he is a treasonous traitor of the worst kind, and that he should be drawn and quartered as William Wallace, and his parts be fed to the dogs.
Thank you for reading and agreeing to this, like all good Americans do.
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.
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.
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!
Since you accused me, guess what, you're just dead wrong. But go ahead and believe what hte leftist media tells you to believe.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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
Snowden has never said anything we don't already know. Why is this "news"?
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.
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.