Of course it matters, the problem is that in order to affect change you need to convince the majority that their vote also matters, and that not toeing the party line is not a wasted vote. I don't think a regime like the one in the UK can withstand prolonged dissent stemming from rigged elections, so voting for change would eventually affect change, granted, it might take a few elections. In this context, change doesn't mean voting for the opposing party though, but voting (or running) for a party or group that believes in the change you wish to see. Just flipping across the middle to vote opposite doesn't change much if we assume that they're all alike.
On the subject of violent revolution, I highly doubt any good can come of the use of violence. We shouldn't be so eager in handing out judgements and accepting death as payment for having a different view of the world. I'd be wary of accepting a new government that got into power by sheer number of guns, that feels very much like "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".
Well, that is precisely the attitude I was pointing to in my original reply, defeatist. We're not trying to change human nature, that would be idiotic, and to suggest that is what it takes is equally idiotic. Human nature boils down to: eat, survive, reproduce, yet we have consistently moved forward with our understanding of the world around us, despite the drag of the reptilian brain functions. We have even managed to organize in groups to accomplish rather astounding things, despite our predatory, self-centered nature. To invoke "human nature" as a reason to not do anything is just as stupid as using the "terrorist" meme to justify large scale espionage operations.
Spewing semi philosophical one liners is certainly not the solution to our current problems, and leaning back on the couch to "watch the fireworks" is not going to help you, me or anyone either.
Defeatist attitude will certainly not help any of us one bit. If the current system is not working, one would think getting out of your seat and working for a replacement would be the obvious choice - leaning back on the couch is what got us in this mess to begin with.
I agree that it is smart journalism, but i challenge the assertion that it is the only way to accomplish that goal. Releasing all the information at once doesn't magically make everyone understand it, but running a series of articles on it might. The reason they do it this way is not due to a handholding agenda, but to keep their rivals from the source material for as long as possible. That we, the people, are left in the dark too is considered acceptable collateral.
I know they have to keep an eye on their profit margins, and that in turn leads to sensationalism. But when they put their own bottom line above the common good, I don't really see the big difference between the corrupt governments they expose, and themselves.
Right now, those of us who value the ideals most of the democratic nations of the western hemisphere were founded on, have an interest in prolonging the newsworthiness of this story, and as such it happens to overlap with what the media is doing. But we shouldn't be making excuses for why it's the right thing to do, because they also use the same technique to discredit political candidates by running stories at oppertune moments, much more than they expose scandals of actual substance.
Of course most people will need handholding, not very many of us are spies or experts on spies. But we don't have to be, and it is not for the media to decide which story has more value than another. The press is supposed to be the watchdog of the people, and as such their mission is not to sit on information for our own good, quite the opposite.
Hey now, I distinctly remember something about them putting anti aircraft guns on buildings, some of the people who had to live with a WWII era machine gun on their roof were, as I recall, quite upset about it. Or maybe it was missiles? I forget, point is, it is quite obvious to everyone that the security was perfect! And since the Red Baron did not show, we can conclude that at least one attack was averted.
As for the rest of the money, weren't you entertained for a whole goddamn month by people jumping about and generally trying to accomplish feats of human stupdity (I mean, who swims 1000 meters? what the fuck?) - all for your amusement.
Your premise is wrong if it's "government is an entity that follows laws", because this completely ignores the fact that government is made up of individuals, with personal agendas. The data they collect may not be used against you right now, but that's only because you're not in someone's way yet. Once you step into the crosshairs of someone in power, do you still think all that data is innocent and inert? Do you think regulation is going to save you? Are you willing to accept a society where you cannot poke your head up too high, unless you're of a chosen breed and have greased the right palms?
He didn't actually poke back though, not in this instance anyway, but I agree with your overall point. As a European, I'm also glad that the mischievous doings of governments on our side of the pond has come to light, we really need to get over this "US bad guy" rhetoric and start working for some real change across the board. Anyone thinking this is isolated to the American, U.K or French governments are seriously deluding themselves.
We live in a post cold war, post 9/11 world, where the worthless solutions of the previous century is applied to any issue, without questioning the merit of those solutions. Whenever there is a percieved problem anywhere, it can be solved with guns, sanctions or more spies. There is always a boogeyman waiting in the wings to justify spending resources on weapons of one kind or another, to the detriment of everyone.
What the frick are you babbling about? Governments should have absolutely nothing to hide, and if they do, they're no longer democratic, since INFORMED fucking CONSENT is at it's core.
Of course, we see this every time there is an election of pretty much anyone to any office, if there is the slightest whiff of dirt on someone, their message drowns in the smear campaign that ensues. For higher offices, a smear campaign will be launched no matter the credibility, as a knee-jerk reaction. We see this with any whistleblower too, and that is why their person and the cause they presumably support needs to be separated. It sucks to be Snowden right now, no doubt, but let's keep focus on the real issue here: western governments and the rotten core that is starting to be exposed.
Sure, but that assumes everyone needs handholding to understand the information. You could have similar results by releasing it all at once and then running a series of articles on the major points individually.
True, any information you get must be run through the bullshit filter, and that includes evaluating the source(s), this is taught in high schools - at least where I come from, although it may have changed, it's been a while.
Science isn't produced by people, it is discovered by people. It doesn't matter who reports the facts, because the funny thing about facts, and the reason the scientific method works, is that they don't care what you think about them, they just are. You can reproduce someone's experiment, or you can't.
This situation is unique though, since Snowden hasn't produced the information, only handed it over. We can eliminate everything he says and still have a treasure trove of information available. That is my point, and one I get modded down for on a regular basis, that's ok though, karma is not important for anything other than mental masturbation.
The debate needs to shift from Snowden this, Snowden that, or any other figurehead, because it detracts from the actual substance of the case. If what he leaked is damaging, it is because people in power did things that were damaging, not because someone exposed it. You also need to get over yourself and realise this is not about the rights of the American people, but the rights of everyone, everywhere. Frequently, only the American side of these leaks are discussed, but that is only part of the story, and only the tip of the iceberg.
So, how did bugging the EU office in DC ward of terrorists? Do you flip open the "good citizen manual" and invoke the next boogeyman on the list to explain that one away?
Stop fucking focusing on the person and look at the facts instead. If what he has leaked harms the US government or any other government, so be it - you reap what you sow. Snowden would not have any means to harm the US if the US had not conducted itself in a way that left it open to harm. Shut the fuck up with this person pro/con agenda.
Eh no. Snowden told everything when they did the interview, the papers who got their questions answered are just sitting on it in order to let the information trickle out over the summer - all in an effort to stay relevant for longer. The people's watchdog my ass.
Mouth, nose, eyes and ears are the entrances to your body (top-side at least), people don't tend to lick, sniff or rub their phone in their eyes. The ears however is a different story.
Why can't porn actors ever have nice stuff? The glass does have uses outside pop culture you know, like an ATM, or any other automated service that requires user input. Why should I suffer your germs on my fingers, just because you don't wash your hands after sodomizing your sheep?
The article isn't clear on what the antimicrobial coating does, but I'd hazard a guess that it is not an antibiotic but a surface that is too slippery for bacteria to attach to. An antibiotic agent would be pretty stupid and would degrade rapidly compared to the lifetime of the device (think: ATM), as opposed to a surface where bacteria just doesn't stick.
Actually it's not all ridiculous. Most people don't lick their phones, but they don't wipe them off regularly either. That's not really an issue until they have to answer a call and put the phone to their ear. On most smart phones the only thing touching the ear when you use it for a call, is the glass surface, and making that part of the phone anti-bacterial is not a wholly stupid idea.
Installing a wet-wipe dispenser on the phone, now that would be a stupid idea. Educating people about hygiene would probably be wasted money. Glass that doesn't infect you with your own ass-germs is the sensible middle ground-ish. Granted, if people could be taught to wash their hands once in a while, this would be a non-issue, at least taught to reverse the order of stuffing finger in ass, then in mouth.
Stop pretending you're doing anything but attacking the messenger who challenges your set world view. I'm not a kid, I just didn't sell out with age.
Let me explain how these things work, because you seem to be like some of the people I meet regularly (you know, that thing that happens when you get out of your seat), who thinks they know everything, but fail miserably to understand what they know.
Clapper goes before congress, lies his ass off when asked a direct question. A lowly NSA employee, with strong political views, and access to hardware beyond his clearance, finds this objectionable. So much so that he takes a bunch of laptops filled with damning documents that directly contradict what Clapper has told congress. He flies to Hong Kong and sets up an interview with Greenwald of the Guardian, and he spills the beans. Everybody is shocked, or is feigning shock. The US allegedly tries to get this NSA employee extradited, but fail to fill out the most basic information, and the Hong Kong administration denies the request.
Did you ever wonder why they did not fill out this very basic form correctly? I thought not. They have an interest in not getting their hands on the NSA employee, not yet. They need him around, because they know that his story will take up headlines just as much as the actual substance in the case. They have an interest in dangling him in front of your eyes while they work to spin the leaks to their advantage.
The NSA employee tries to flee Hong Kong aided by another attention whore, Assange, and a Wikileaks lawyer. They get stranded in Moscow (predictably, since his passport has been revoked), and now the spin doctors have it under control. They have a target they can keep taking shots at in the media whenever a new side of the case is revealed. The media will spend equal time on Snowden and on the leaks, and that is to the advantage of the people who try to hide these things. Every new page in the Snowden saga is detrimental to the bigger picture, because it's a page spent on redundant drivel, not on the substance of the issue. If they arrest him, the novelty of his situation vanishes, and the case goes back to being front page news without him as a distraction, and that is not in their interest, yet.
Contrast that with just leaking the documents to Greenwald, anonymously or by delaying identification until needed. There would be no NSA employee stranded in Moscow for the media to focus on. There would be no person cult arising around Snowden. We'd be able to focus completely on this massive turd of a surveillance scandal.
So yeah, we don't need Snowden right now, because his existence spawns discussions like this, when we should be talking about affecting change in the system we so clearly see is rotten, corrupt and fucking dangerous. We need the media's help, but we can't control it, the focus goes where the most page hits are, and that is with extraordinary people, to the detriment of the bigger picture.
Yeah, and the worst part is that since Snowden is out in the spotlight, they can attack the credibility of the leaks by attacking him. Even though the information he leaked has nothting to do with him, we're focused on him. Had they been leaked anonymously, or by delayed identification, we would have been focused on NSA, Clapper's massive turd of a straight faced lie, the U.K bugging diplomats at a COP summit, the french running a similar program to NSAs. He'll, maybe journalists would be spending all of their time unrolling the scandal, instead of camping out in Moscow airport.
Ok, people seem to be under the assumption that the documents Snowden leaked would have no credibilty on their own, and if we accept that, of course Snowden could not have done much differently. I guess I need to start my rant by challenging this assumption. If we accept that the documents have credibility on their own, we also need to accept that Snowden went on camera prematurely, to the detriment of his own situation. The media gets their hands on all sorts of documents, in all sorts of manners, and journalists will go to great lengths to protect their sources. Instead of taking advantage of that, he went full on spotlight and consequently got himself marooned in Moscow (as far as we know). There was no need for him to step out, a well known journalist from the Guardian is quite sufficient, at least until he (Snowden) had his feet on safe ground. Greenwald knows this, but the scoop is bigger if he can get to name a NSA employee as a source, and not the usual vague "inside source".
But more importantly, we're discussing him, my opinion of him and yours. Not the fact that encrypted communications are kept indefinitely, for "cryptoanalysis purposes". We're not discussing that the french government has a similar program to the NSA, we're all up in arms over whether Snowden was a hero or just a misguided geek. And this will continue, the documents will be quieted down, and the personal scandal that is Snowden will keep rolling, effectively taking the desperately needed light away from how rotten our society has become (I live in Europe, I applaud what Snowden did, and I wish more Europeans would follow in his footsteps, to out ALL the secret dealings of the people, who are supposed to represent us, have going on).
And repeatedly I've pointed out that Snowden as a person is not very interesting, too much space is spent squabbling over his fate or potential fate. We need to wake the fuck up, and keep the light focused where it belongs. We need this shadow government bullshit to cease, we need to stop them. It is profitable to keep wars burning and people suffering, the current scandal is just a minor sympton of the rotten core that is western governments. The actual harmful stuff they do is not on Snowden's captured drives, but protected by other people, with higher security clearances.
Re:I love bricks and mortar bookstores, but...
on
The Price of Amazon
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· Score: 1
But unless your interests happen to overlap you probably won't get awfully helpful advice on anything outside of mainstream pop culture.
That is untrue in a general sense, I have met many librarians who didn't share my passions but were still able to offer helpful pointers. They don't have to have an oppinion on a certain historian, but they might know of where to find such a thing. As I said, book stores are nothing more than glorified storage bins, and asking the clerks anything beyond "where's X located" is naive, but that does not mean that there are no people on Earth who might be able to fill such a role, i.e. librarians.
Slashdot Mirror
As opposed to the current treatment of "a resource to be exploited by those in power, then discarded"?
Of course it matters, the problem is that in order to affect change you need to convince the majority that their vote also matters, and that not toeing the party line is not a wasted vote. I don't think a regime like the one in the UK can withstand prolonged dissent stemming from rigged elections, so voting for change would eventually affect change, granted, it might take a few elections. In this context, change doesn't mean voting for the opposing party though, but voting (or running) for a party or group that believes in the change you wish to see. Just flipping across the middle to vote opposite doesn't change much if we assume that they're all alike.
On the subject of violent revolution, I highly doubt any good can come of the use of violence. We shouldn't be so eager in handing out judgements and accepting death as payment for having a different view of the world. I'd be wary of accepting a new government that got into power by sheer number of guns, that feels very much like "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".
Well, that is precisely the attitude I was pointing to in my original reply, defeatist. We're not trying to change human nature, that would be idiotic, and to suggest that is what it takes is equally idiotic. Human nature boils down to: eat, survive, reproduce, yet we have consistently moved forward with our understanding of the world around us, despite the drag of the reptilian brain functions. We have even managed to organize in groups to accomplish rather astounding things, despite our predatory, self-centered nature. To invoke "human nature" as a reason to not do anything is just as stupid as using the "terrorist" meme to justify large scale espionage operations.
Spewing semi philosophical one liners is certainly not the solution to our current problems, and leaning back on the couch to "watch the fireworks" is not going to help you, me or anyone either.
Defeatist attitude will certainly not help any of us one bit. If the current system is not working, one would think getting out of your seat and working for a replacement would be the obvious choice - leaning back on the couch is what got us in this mess to begin with.
I agree that it is smart journalism, but i challenge the assertion that it is the only way to accomplish that goal. Releasing all the information at once doesn't magically make everyone understand it, but running a series of articles on it might. The reason they do it this way is not due to a handholding agenda, but to keep their rivals from the source material for as long as possible. That we, the people, are left in the dark too is considered acceptable collateral.
I know they have to keep an eye on their profit margins, and that in turn leads to sensationalism. But when they put their own bottom line above the common good, I don't really see the big difference between the corrupt governments they expose, and themselves.
Right now, those of us who value the ideals most of the democratic nations of the western hemisphere were founded on, have an interest in prolonging the newsworthiness of this story, and as such it happens to overlap with what the media is doing. But we shouldn't be making excuses for why it's the right thing to do, because they also use the same technique to discredit political candidates by running stories at oppertune moments, much more than they expose scandals of actual substance.
Of course most people will need handholding, not very many of us are spies or experts on spies. But we don't have to be, and it is not for the media to decide which story has more value than another. The press is supposed to be the watchdog of the people, and as such their mission is not to sit on information for our own good, quite the opposite.
Hey now, I distinctly remember something about them putting anti aircraft guns on buildings, some of the people who had to live with a WWII era machine gun on their roof were, as I recall, quite upset about it. Or maybe it was missiles? I forget, point is, it is quite obvious to everyone that the security was perfect! And since the Red Baron did not show, we can conclude that at least one attack was averted.
As for the rest of the money, weren't you entertained for a whole goddamn month by people jumping about and generally trying to accomplish feats of human stupdity (I mean, who swims 1000 meters? what the fuck?) - all for your amusement.
Your premise is wrong if it's "government is an entity that follows laws", because this completely ignores the fact that government is made up of individuals, with personal agendas. The data they collect may not be used against you right now, but that's only because you're not in someone's way yet. Once you step into the crosshairs of someone in power, do you still think all that data is innocent and inert? Do you think regulation is going to save you? Are you willing to accept a society where you cannot poke your head up too high, unless you're of a chosen breed and have greased the right palms?
He didn't actually poke back though, not in this instance anyway, but I agree with your overall point. As a European, I'm also glad that the mischievous doings of governments on our side of the pond has come to light, we really need to get over this "US bad guy" rhetoric and start working for some real change across the board. Anyone thinking this is isolated to the American, U.K or French governments are seriously deluding themselves.
We live in a post cold war, post 9/11 world, where the worthless solutions of the previous century is applied to any issue, without questioning the merit of those solutions. Whenever there is a percieved problem anywhere, it can be solved with guns, sanctions or more spies. There is always a boogeyman waiting in the wings to justify spending resources on weapons of one kind or another, to the detriment of everyone.
What the frick are you babbling about? Governments should have absolutely nothing to hide, and if they do, they're no longer democratic, since INFORMED fucking CONSENT is at it's core.
Of course, we see this every time there is an election of pretty much anyone to any office, if there is the slightest whiff of dirt on someone, their message drowns in the smear campaign that ensues. For higher offices, a smear campaign will be launched no matter the credibility, as a knee-jerk reaction. We see this with any whistleblower too, and that is why their person and the cause they presumably support needs to be separated. It sucks to be Snowden right now, no doubt, but let's keep focus on the real issue here: western governments and the rotten core that is starting to be exposed.
Sure, but that assumes everyone needs handholding to understand the information. You could have similar results by releasing it all at once and then running a series of articles on the major points individually.
True, any information you get must be run through the bullshit filter, and that includes evaluating the source(s), this is taught in high schools - at least where I come from, although it may have changed, it's been a while.
Science isn't produced by people, it is discovered by people. It doesn't matter who reports the facts, because the funny thing about facts, and the reason the scientific method works, is that they don't care what you think about them, they just are. You can reproduce someone's experiment, or you can't.
This situation is unique though, since Snowden hasn't produced the information, only handed it over. We can eliminate everything he says and still have a treasure trove of information available. That is my point, and one I get modded down for on a regular basis, that's ok though, karma is not important for anything other than mental masturbation.
The debate needs to shift from Snowden this, Snowden that, or any other figurehead, because it detracts from the actual substance of the case. If what he leaked is damaging, it is because people in power did things that were damaging, not because someone exposed it. You also need to get over yourself and realise this is not about the rights of the American people, but the rights of everyone, everywhere. Frequently, only the American side of these leaks are discussed, but that is only part of the story, and only the tip of the iceberg.
So, how did bugging the EU office in DC ward of terrorists? Do you flip open the "good citizen manual" and invoke the next boogeyman on the list to explain that one away?
Stop fucking focusing on the person and look at the facts instead. If what he has leaked harms the US government or any other government, so be it - you reap what you sow. Snowden would not have any means to harm the US if the US had not conducted itself in a way that left it open to harm. Shut the fuck up with this person pro/con agenda.
Apparently he's run out of useful stuff.
Eh no. Snowden told everything when they did the interview, the papers who got their questions answered are just sitting on it in order to let the information trickle out over the summer - all in an effort to stay relevant for longer. The people's watchdog my ass.
Mouth, nose, eyes and ears are the entrances to your body (top-side at least), people don't tend to lick, sniff or rub their phone in their eyes. The ears however is a different story.
Antibacterial does not always depend on killing off the bacteria. Creating a surface where they won't be able to stick is equally good.
Why can't porn actors ever have nice stuff? The glass does have uses outside pop culture you know, like an ATM, or any other automated service that requires user input. Why should I suffer your germs on my fingers, just because you don't wash your hands after sodomizing your sheep?
The article isn't clear on what the antimicrobial coating does, but I'd hazard a guess that it is not an antibiotic but a surface that is too slippery for bacteria to attach to. An antibiotic agent would be pretty stupid and would degrade rapidly compared to the lifetime of the device (think: ATM), as opposed to a surface where bacteria just doesn't stick.
Actually it's not all ridiculous. Most people don't lick their phones, but they don't wipe them off regularly either. That's not really an issue until they have to answer a call and put the phone to their ear. On most smart phones the only thing touching the ear when you use it for a call, is the glass surface, and making that part of the phone anti-bacterial is not a wholly stupid idea.
Installing a wet-wipe dispenser on the phone, now that would be a stupid idea. Educating people about hygiene would probably be wasted money. Glass that doesn't infect you with your own ass-germs is the sensible middle ground-ish. Granted, if people could be taught to wash their hands once in a while, this would be a non-issue, at least taught to reverse the order of stuffing finger in ass, then in mouth.
Stop pretending you're doing anything but attacking the messenger who challenges your set world view. I'm not a kid, I just didn't sell out with age.
Let me explain how these things work, because you seem to be like some of the people I meet regularly (you know, that thing that happens when you get out of your seat), who thinks they know everything, but fail miserably to understand what they know.
Clapper goes before congress, lies his ass off when asked a direct question. A lowly NSA employee, with strong political views, and access to hardware beyond his clearance, finds this objectionable. So much so that he takes a bunch of laptops filled with damning documents that directly contradict what Clapper has told congress. He flies to Hong Kong and sets up an interview with Greenwald of the Guardian, and he spills the beans. Everybody is shocked, or is feigning shock. The US allegedly tries to get this NSA employee extradited, but fail to fill out the most basic information, and the Hong Kong administration denies the request.
Did you ever wonder why they did not fill out this very basic form correctly? I thought not. They have an interest in not getting their hands on the NSA employee, not yet. They need him around, because they know that his story will take up headlines just as much as the actual substance in the case. They have an interest in dangling him in front of your eyes while they work to spin the leaks to their advantage.
The NSA employee tries to flee Hong Kong aided by another attention whore, Assange, and a Wikileaks lawyer. They get stranded in Moscow (predictably, since his passport has been revoked), and now the spin doctors have it under control. They have a target they can keep taking shots at in the media whenever a new side of the case is revealed. The media will spend equal time on Snowden and on the leaks, and that is to the advantage of the people who try to hide these things. Every new page in the Snowden saga is detrimental to the bigger picture, because it's a page spent on redundant drivel, not on the substance of the issue. If they arrest him, the novelty of his situation vanishes, and the case goes back to being front page news without him as a distraction, and that is not in their interest, yet.
Contrast that with just leaking the documents to Greenwald, anonymously or by delaying identification until needed. There would be no NSA employee stranded in Moscow for the media to focus on. There would be no person cult arising around Snowden. We'd be able to focus completely on this massive turd of a surveillance scandal.
So yeah, we don't need Snowden right now, because his existence spawns discussions like this, when we should be talking about affecting change in the system we so clearly see is rotten, corrupt and fucking dangerous. We need the media's help, but we can't control it, the focus goes where the most page hits are, and that is with extraordinary people, to the detriment of the bigger picture.
Yeah, and the worst part is that since Snowden is out in the spotlight, they can attack the credibility of the leaks by attacking him. Even though the information he leaked has nothting to do with him, we're focused on him. Had they been leaked anonymously, or by delayed identification, we would have been focused on NSA, Clapper's massive turd of a straight faced lie, the U.K bugging diplomats at a COP summit, the french running a similar program to NSAs. He'll, maybe journalists would be spending all of their time unrolling the scandal, instead of camping out in Moscow airport.
Ok, people seem to be under the assumption that the documents Snowden leaked would have no credibilty on their own, and if we accept that, of course Snowden could not have done much differently. I guess I need to start my rant by challenging this assumption. If we accept that the documents have credibility on their own, we also need to accept that Snowden went on camera prematurely, to the detriment of his own situation. The media gets their hands on all sorts of documents, in all sorts of manners, and journalists will go to great lengths to protect their sources. Instead of taking advantage of that, he went full on spotlight and consequently got himself marooned in Moscow (as far as we know). There was no need for him to step out, a well known journalist from the Guardian is quite sufficient, at least until he (Snowden) had his feet on safe ground. Greenwald knows this, but the scoop is bigger if he can get to name a NSA employee as a source, and not the usual vague "inside source".
But more importantly, we're discussing him, my opinion of him and yours. Not the fact that encrypted communications are kept indefinitely, for "cryptoanalysis purposes". We're not discussing that the french government has a similar program to the NSA, we're all up in arms over whether Snowden was a hero or just a misguided geek. And this will continue, the documents will be quieted down, and the personal scandal that is Snowden will keep rolling, effectively taking the desperately needed light away from how rotten our society has become (I live in Europe, I applaud what Snowden did, and I wish more Europeans would follow in his footsteps, to out ALL the secret dealings of the people, who are supposed to represent us, have going on).
And repeatedly I've pointed out that Snowden as a person is not very interesting, too much space is spent squabbling over his fate or potential fate. We need to wake the fuck up, and keep the light focused where it belongs. We need this shadow government bullshit to cease, we need to stop them. It is profitable to keep wars burning and people suffering, the current scandal is just a minor sympton of the rotten core that is western governments. The actual harmful stuff they do is not on Snowden's captured drives, but protected by other people, with higher security clearances.
But unless your interests happen to overlap you probably won't get awfully helpful advice on anything outside of mainstream pop culture.
That is untrue in a general sense, I have met many librarians who didn't share my passions but were still able to offer helpful pointers. They don't have to have an oppinion on a certain historian, but they might know of where to find such a thing. As I said, book stores are nothing more than glorified storage bins, and asking the clerks anything beyond "where's X located" is naive, but that does not mean that there are no people on Earth who might be able to fill such a role, i.e. librarians.