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Edward Snowden: 'The People Are Still Powerless, But Now They're Aware' (theguardian.com)
Edward Snowden has no regrets
five years on from leaking the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history. He is wanted by the US. He is in exile in Russia. But he is satisfied with the way his revelations of mass surveillance have rocked governments, intelligence agencies and major internet companies. From a report Snowden, weighing up the changes, said some privacy campaigners had expressed disappointment with how things have developed, but he did not share it. "People say nothing has changed: that there is still mass surveillance. That is not how you measure change. Look back before 2013 and look at what has happened since. Everything changed."
The most important change, he said, was public awareness. "The government and corporate sector preyed on our ignorance. But now we know. People are aware now. People are still powerless to stop it but we are trying. The revelations made the fight more even."
The most important change, he said, was public awareness. "The government and corporate sector preyed on our ignorance. But now we know. People are aware now. People are still powerless to stop it but we are trying. The revelations made the fight more even."
Narrator: "Unable to bare the thought of his fellow Americans being spied on by their government, our hero releases the top secret documents and flees to... *pauses... squints at script...* Russia."
That is the sound of inevitability... o wait maybe i confused inevitability with futility...
Sprinkle an little Po on his sandwich and just desserts are served.
Snowden gave up everything for a bunch of morons that for the most part don't give a shit. They deserve whatever comes next.
to not know, and continue to be blissfully ignorant, or suffer the pain of knowing, and being unable to do anything about it?
There are things you can't change, things that only our legislators can affect, but you can still take back a measure of your privacy moving forward -- you just have to be willing to do what it takes to make that happen.
Russian government shilling in action.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You need to shut up and toot dat ass up! You looking like a kitkat and I need to break off a piece!
We are swarmed with real and fake information all the time. Real information may be used out of context, Fake information can be made to sound realistic, and if it fits into your particular world view it makes a lost of sense.
We are no better off knowing the truth, when it is mixed in a bunch of lies, except for the fact we are now anxious about it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The NSA was snooping but at least they weren't selling everything to the fucking Russians and everybody else with cash.
The real agents are the people who expose Russian agents for what they are? Sure...
I'll bet you think it's treasonous for me to point out that Trump has blatantly committed treason in his election campaign and his protecting and rewarding Russia for attacking our country.
"Privacy is Treason." Straight out of 1984 right there.
I just asked Alexa, and she assured me there has never been any mass surveillance. Which is great, because I was worried there for a minute.
That's you, OP.
Sorry, but nothing has really changed. In fact it's probably worse now.
Users used to be unaware, and they didn't give a shit about security or privacy. Now they're fully aware, and they STILL don't give a shit about security or privacy. It's willful ignorance.
And what people are truly powerless over, are their own internet addictions and peer pressure. It's FAR more important to overshare and generally be the internet narcissist society expects you to be than it is to recognize and respect any risk involved with that activity.
Did I miss something?
I bet you've never done a historical study on what "treason" means in the Constitution. But you've probably watched at least 2,000 hours of MSNBC and CNN.
But powerless to arrest him.
You may not be a thief but you're definitely a traitor to the Constitution.
I know that Trump colluded with the Russian government's attacks on our country, and continues to serve and protect the Vladimir Putin.
If that isn't treason what is?
What do you call someone who colludes with a hostile foreign adversary's attacks on out their country?
You tell me, what do you call an obvious traitor like Donald Trump?
Most people don't really look around and think anymore.
Do you think Walmart, Best Buy, Malls, Gas Station chains, etc aren't funnelling all their surveillance footage to the FBI? Fuck yes they are. While big data took off faster online, since you didn't need to video side of things, the tech has finally gotten to the point where using it with video footage to identify and categorize customers has become big business. And when that footage can also be used to help you catch shoplifters and latest 'national news report of the week' and brag about how your company helped in catching REAL BAD GUY, while glossing over how you did it...
People aren't waking up. A few of them are becoming uncomfortable when it's slapped across their face like a dead fish, but in a few weeks or months they will compromise their privacy and claimed morals again for the convenience offered, and as this continues to happen iteratively they will give up a bit more of their privacy or freedom each time.
The only solution left for anyone who really cares about freedom or privacy is to GTFO and band together with likeminded individuals before it is too late, if it isn't already.
Mozilla needs to quit dicking around with Firefox privacy. You shouldn't have to about:config 500 settings before you open preferences to get rid of media.peerenabled etc.
I know that Trump colluded with the Russian government's attacks on our country, and continues to serve and protect the Vladimir Putin.
You do? Amazing! Everyone will want to see this!
Where's the evidence you have of this? Can I see it?
Trump Jr's treason-meeting at was explicityly to collude with the Russian government's attacks on our country.
Donald Trump's campaign manager is under house arrest likely headed to prison for witness tampering during his house arrest.
You can pretend not to notice the mountains of evidence of treason laid out before us, but Donald Trump's campaign manager is wearing an ankle bracelet and will soon be wearing a jumpsuit in prison.
see above.
Trump isn't smart enough to collude with himself, and Russian intel wouldn't want an operative like him, because it jeopardize the operation.
Russian interference in the election, for which evidence is limited to a modest budget of shit-tier memes, generally trends more anti-Clinton than pro-Trump, but overall, it's just low-level trolling. Thus, people who keep repeating "Trump is a traitor" ad nauseum are the real useful idiots.
And for the record, my stance is that the greatest insult to American democracy was the lack of an option on the ballot to send both Clinton and Trump on a rocket headed towards the sun.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The votes haven't changed one bit, and nothing else has either. His optimism is misplaced.
Posting AC for violation of groupthink
So is it better to not know, and continue to be blissfully ignorant, or suffer the pain of knowing, and being unable to do anything about it?
Both are better than knowing and not caring, which is why nothing changed. The American people are fine with all of this.
Never being able to go home. Right, Snowden?
With that said, Snowden deserves his exile and more. Whatever your arguments are the fact remains that Snowden is in fact a low life thief and a traitor.
Lots more sites use https now.
I once used Google mail, and even though I knew it could be intercepted, I was fascinated by all the nicely working features. Like properly working full text search.
Now I stopped doing so, and use GMX, a quite crappy service. But it is a local one.
I once had an FB account, now deleted.
Then Google and Facebook engaged in all sorts of politics, which I do not like. So I decided to free myself from these monopolist corporations.
If you think carefully about the whole Commercial Internet, you will find that the internet existed BEFORE these corporations. And it will exist AFTER them.
We all can do something RIGHT NOW to decrease the power of the oligarchic corporations and the snooping they enable:
http://altwissenschaft.ddnss.de/VergleichMessenger.html
http://altwissenschaft.ddnss.de/IT_Airbus.html
You can use Translate.yandex.com to get an English version of it. Don't use Google, they already drown in your data. No need to expand your Personal File with them.
Fuck off, eurotrash
What attack? What treason? He's doing a great job as President. You're not making sense.
It seems like all Snowden bashers in this thread are anonymous cowards.
People like Snowden are the reason why it's still possible for you to remain anonymous to spew your hatred.
Oh the irony.
Not sure about CNN these days but MSNBC never called Trump a traitor or treasonous. The technical term we all know only applies to actual enemies and not hostile 3rd parties that we haven't actually declared war over.
It is safe to say that the President and those around him lack actual patriotism since they are doing what is best for Russia when it is clearly against our own interests. Same goes with this stupid trade war. Arguing our deal with Canada and Mexico wasn't fair is beyond the pale. Russia sows decent, it's their M.O. You see Trump using a lot of the same tactics but he doesn't understand the scale on which he is playing. Putin most probably does. It's the same reason we aren't likely to see anything happen with North Korea, Trump is outclassed by his opponents left and right.
The scary part is that it is not known publicly if Trump is helping Putin on purpose because he's corrupt or by accident because he's incompetent. There is good evidence in either direction at this point.
There is good evidence in either direction at this point.
Stop arguing as though these two things are mutually exclusive. It's just as possible that he's helping Putin on purpose because he's incompetent, rather than in spite of it.
being aware and powerless isn't much different than having power, yet being unaware.
The end result is the same.
Nothing changes.
We don't know that for sure.
Then I would post a message on the internet explaining I robbed the bank to show the USAian public just how insecure their banking system is.
I feel that would be a real good feel good humanitarian deed. People have to know
This motherfucker pedophile is in Brazil, laughing at US. And I bet that motherfucker communista of Michel Temer is hiding this motherfucker.
Snowden is all American hero. He deserves the Medal of Freedom.
Sure you have your little collection of handguns and long guns, but they have TANKS. PLANES. BOMBS. Good luck.
The NSA, an agency that spies on everything, is spying on you! If you needed Snowden to tell you this than to come to the conclusion on your own then that's just sad. Shouldn't there be a newspiece to write when he says to install a firewall, put a password on your wifi router, or to update your software? All which can be broken into and your encryption keys compromised?
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." - Martin Luther King Jr.
Is that no body cares. The Tax man knows a whole lot of stuff about me and is far more dangerous to me (if I donâ(TM)t pay my taxes) than some government entity monitoring global telecommunications to trace and intercept potential threats to the establishment. The same establishment that has built the closest thing we have to public order.
The information is to be made public, so no need to encrypt using this super complex HTTPS pseudo-security.
Old White men cooperating against the moneychanger elite and their Mohammedist brute friends is "collusion" !
We all know the white people must be displaced by brownies and their nice culture of head-chopping !
Is that the best of shilling NSA can muster ?
Comrade Snowden has spoken and thus it is true!!
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
He didn't say that so you are a lying sack of shit. He rightly pointed out that Snowden is a traitor in the pay of Russians who have been interfering in U.S. politics and using the information they got from Snowden to do it.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
it's the illusional of control
The average IQ of the USA is 98. Those with IQ's > 120 represent single digit percentages of the population.
True critical or abstract thinking begins around 110.
Roughly 2/3rds of Americans are under this. They far outnumber the votes of those who think critically. How do people without critical thinking learn? Via repetition. This is why candidates buy ads, and run them frequently.
Democracy is idiot rule. Okay, that's a bit extreme, it's actually rule by those of average intelligence. That's kind of scrary in and of itself, though, as history has proven repeatedly that masses cannot effectively govern themselves, and their ability to choose governors is not significantly better. Some of the worst actors have been popularly elected.
We would still be in the dark if it wasn't for you!
Could we find someone to do a similar public service every 5 years or so?
Or maybe we could just give up on the Forth Amendment.....
I thought the Snowden revelations would have had more impact. On official policy.
Perhaps we can claim that Tech's resistance to the Panopticon was at least bolstered by the disclosures. Apple, Google and Microsoft have supported privacy against government spying, even if several of those perform a lot of corporate spying.
Being aware but powerless isn't a very satisfactory outcome.