Photocopying Michelle Obama's Diary, Just In Case 218
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Conor Friedersdorf has a good (and humorous) read in the Atlantic about the analogy that President Obama has settled on to explain his theory of the NSA surveillance controversy to reporters. 'The question is how do we make the American people more comfortable?' Obama said. 'If I tell Michelle that I did the dishes ... and she's a little skeptical, well, I'd like her to trust me, but maybe I need to bring her back and show her the dishes and not just have her take my word for it.' The analogy has been widely panned, and for good reason. Friedersdorf writes that he has come up with a much better analogy. What if 'Barack snuck into Michelle's closet one day, dug through her belongings until he found her diary, and photocopied it. Then he replaced the original, locked the copy in his desk, and didn't think about it much until she found out months later and furiously confronted him.' Admittedly, it isn't a perfect analogy either says Friedersdorf, 'but it comes a lot closer than Obama did to capturing the actual stakes in this debate, and the reason so many Americans are angry at him.'"
In related news, Snowden's father disagrees that his son isn't a patriot: "My son has spoken the truth, and he has sacrificed more than either the president of the United States or Peter King have ever in their political careers or their American lives. So how they choose to characterize him really doesn't carry that much weight with me."
Analogy needs one fix (Score:5, Interesting)
The analogy would be better if the diary was left out in the open, but closed, mind you, for everyone to see. You still shouldn't open it, but it is sitting right there and not locked up.
Or everyday the diary was handed off to a random member of the public to hold on to... and not open, of course.
Re:Analogy needs one fix (Score:5, Insightful)
The analogy would be better if the diary was left out in the open, but closed, mind you, for everyone to see.
Everyone being everyone who can sniff on a internet backbone. That doesn't strike me as an appropriate analogy, because not everyone can do that, while most people can open a closed book.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Is this where the expectation of privacy comes from? Because only a subset of people have the capability to open the book, you expect it to be private?
Re:Analogy needs one fix (Score:5, Insightful)
this where the expectation of privacy comes from? Because only a subset of people have the capability to open the book, you expect it to be private?
You could keep it in a locked safe, and there would still be a subset of people who would have the right combination of equipment, skills, and/or political power to get in and read that book. No, that's not the source of the expectation of privacy or nothing would ever be private.
The expectation of privacy comes from how email is used. You write it up, it gets sent only to the addresses you specify, and there's no third party that gets a copy of the email (it's not like speaking in a room with a third party presence). You aren't CCing the NSA. No one can overhear the message in normal usage unless they happen to have an email address that gets the message (say because you sent the email to a huge list) or one of your recipients forwards the email on in some way.
Email is like sending a postcard (Score:3)
You write it up, it gets sent only to the addresses you specify, and there's no third party that gets a copy of the email (it's not like speaking in a room with a third party presence).
The closest physical analogy to sending an (unencrypted) email is sending a post card. Sure, it's intended for only one recipient but a bunch of people and/or organizations have to handle it along the way to get it there. Only someone who is quite naive would believe that none of the people in the delivery chain would ever read the post card. Most won't care but there is no reason to presume that the "privacy" of the message will be respected. Email in general has rather little in the way of privacy rig
Re: (Score:2)
No, postcard is a an equally poor (and in some ways much worse) analogy. Letter in an unsealed envelope is closer. Neither of these non-virtual objects would routinely have copies made while being transmitted.
Re: (Score:2)
You might be naive to expect that nobody would ever read a postcard in transit, but realistically it's pretty unlikely - your card is one among tens of thousands, and these people have a job to do.
On the other hand I think we would be justifiably irate if it turned out that the Post Office was photographing every single postcard and processing the information it contained into a permanent database. We might even stop using postcards altogether. One could only hope - why isn't PGP more widely supported aga
Re: (Score:2)
Um...last I checked a postcard is usually written on the same side as the address, and we know the USPS is photographing all mail. So actually, they are, in fact, already doing this.
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand I think we would be justifiably irate if it turned out that the Post Office was photographing every single postcard and processing the information it contained into a permanent database.
Except that it turns out that the Post Office is actually doing that. It is photographing EVERY piece of mail and processing the information and putting it into a database. I did not examine the articles closely enough to be sure, so I do not know if that includes evaluating what is written on postcards. I suspect not, but I also suspect that the information contained in the article would not have answered the question of whether they do or not.
Re: (Score:2)
You are correct they should not be, it is a clear violation of the public interest and trust no matter how they spin it legally. They are using tax payer money to do this and since it is secret... we have no idea how much they are spending for how many results and I am guessing that at this point it is a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
The original intent of the framers of the constitution of the US most definitely would have included email and remote electronic document storage to be no different that the US Post or a safe deposit box.
Re:Email is like sending a postcard (Score:5, Insightful)
The closest physical analogy to sending an (unencrypted) email is sending a post card.
No. The closest analogy to sending an unencrypted email is making a regular phone call.
As a society we do have the expectation that the phone call is private, and that others aren't listening in. We know that its very possible for the carrier to tap a line though, should they choose to do so, or be ordered to so by the government. That is why we have laws requiring them to get a warrant.
And when I make a phone call, I do have an expectation of privacy. Not an absolute guarantee, but an expectation.
I have an expectation that unless someones has a very good reason to be listening to my phone calls, and that someone got a judge to agree to a warrant based on that reason, then there should be nobody listening into the call.
This should not be considered 'naive'.
. If you wouldn't send the information on a post card you probably shouldn't send it on an email either.
I wouldn't send my credit card information on a post card, but I order things over the phone regularly.
Email in general has rather little in the way of privacy rights and until it does have such legal backing you should behave accordingly.
Pretty much this. But the problem is that people rightfully expect email to be treated like a phone call. And instead legally its treated with less respect than a post card.
This represents a massive failure of congress. They are supposed to represent us. They know what we want. They just don't care.
Re: (Score:2)
But you send it via a changing, unknown, public-industry network run by people you don't know.
In order to be proactive on anything, you need historical data, othewise you're just reactionary.
Re: (Score:2)
The expectation of privacy comes from how email is used. You write it up, it gets sent only to the addresses you specify, and there's no third party that gets a copy of the email (it's not like speaking in a room with a third party presence). You aren't CCing the NSA. No one can overhear the message in normal usage unless they happen to have an email address that gets the message (say because you sent the email to a huge list) or one of your recipients forwards the email on in some way.
Wrong. I run mail servers.... you can easily run a packet sniffer and read e-mail as it goes across the wire on the local LAN as well as at the ISP unless SSL or TLS is used. And at the ISP or mail provider the messages can simply be read by a server admin. Now that TLS is becoming more popular, the NSA is leaning on CA's to hand over keys so they don't have to get the ISP involved as much.
The raw SMTP protocol is quite insecure. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Especially if you are conn
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you do have a reasonable expectation of privacy from the legal standpoint. People are not naive for expecting that people at all those companies have better things to do than sniff packets and read the contents all day long as that is not why those companies exist.
You may be correct that people should not expect it in actuality but they most certainly should be expecting it legally and even more so should be expecting that the government isn't doing any looking.
It is attitudes like yours that promote t
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Analogy needs one fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Analogy needs one fix (Score:5, Funny)
Or even better: He photocopies the diary, but his daughter, Sasha, notices and tells her mom. Obama then tries to convince Michelle that Sasha is a traitor and that they should disown her.
Re: (Score:3)
The analogy would be better if the diary was left out in the open, but closed, mind you, for everyone to see
What about HTTPS or other encrypted communication? Do you think the NSA aren't working on decrypting that too? That IS the equivalent of a locked diary.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, I agree that encryption is equivilent to locking something up. A warrant should be required to decrypt.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The analogy would be better if the diary was left out in the open, but closed, mind you, for everyone to see. You still shouldn't open it, but it is sitting right there and not locked up.
Or everyday the diary was handed off to a random member of the public to hold on to... and not open, of course.
No, the diary was locked. The NSA simply strong armed the diary manufacturer to hand over a copy of the diary's master key.
We don't need an analogy at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Analogies are valuable teaching tool to visual complex mechanisms by relating them to a hopefully familiar form. This situation needs none. It's not very complex and everyone who reads up on it should know what's going one. In this case, the analogy ceases to be a teaching tool in this instance but a propaganda weapon in how it is cast. And worse than that, it's a propaganda weapon on the 4th grade level. If that is the average level of the electorate, forget about having a democracy or a democratic republic.
Re:We don't need an analogy at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
And worse than that, it's a propaganda weapon on the 4th grade level. If that is the average level of the electorate, forget about having a democracy or a democratic republic.
That is the average level of the electorate.
Democracy is still better than dictatorship, even when the population is composed of uneducated monkeys.
If you have a suggestion of a better system to govern masses of retards, please do present it. For an educated minority, pushing to reach it will be easier than educating the masses.
Re: (Score:2)
My suggestion is to continually increase the education of as many people as possible and eventually we might be able to move forwards as a species. Educating the masses is the only thing that really increases wealth.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have a suggestion of a better system to govern masses of retards, please do present it
There are three known systems for managing human societies: religion, government, and markets. They can be stand-alone or hybrid.
In the first, almost nobody gets a say in terms of how things are run. People who don't play "go to hell" and fear is used to convince them to behave. In the second, everybody has a say, though that's largely for show. People who don't play are forced into rape cages or executed. In t
Re:We don't need an analogy at all. (Score:4, Informative)
[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...]
"I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
Re: (Score:2)
Iran is a Republic. Iraq was and is a Republic. The USSR was a republic. Any form of government other than a monarchy is a Republic.
The Democratic part of the US system of government is just as important as the Republic part.
Those Founding Fathers presented a Democracy. Hint: the people vote on who makes up the government. Sure a Republic as well, but still a Democracy. Time will tell if their system is really better - right this second it doesn't seem better than the various British style Constitutional Mo
Re: (Score:2)
Very well-worded and insightful comment. No mod points, just letting you know.
cheers,
Re:We don't need an analogy at all. (Score:4, Insightful)
An analogy isn't needed because this isn't similar to taking a copy of someone's private documents. Someone who should be able to trust you. This is exactly the same thing.
If someone has a hard time understanding why NSA might anger people, then they're not going to understand the "diary" analogy explaining it either. It's hard to imagine anyone that stupid, but I think it's easier to picture it not as a case of ignorance, but of vastly inflated sense of self-importance and disregard for others.
Re: (Score:3)
I disagree with this thought. NSA, emails, PRISM...these can be esoteric ideas to people who do not live in or around a digital world. For those who don't use these systems all the time, who can't grasp what an email is, a text message, or how "open" a broadband call can be there is a need to put the issue into a context they can connect with at first.
The use of Michelle's diary is more inflammatory, I agree, but an analogy that makes it personal would do much to put into context how important this topic
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't referring to Americans as stupid. The diary analogy was a response to the analogy by the US Government (personified by Obama), who apparently don't understand what the fuss is all about. And they aren't stupid either, they just think they know best and everyone should just shut up and trust them.
I don't think anyone in the public (American or globally) needs it explained to them what "they are taking a copy of all your emails, just because they can" means, or why it should make them uncomfortable
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm at work so I can't see the video yet, but it sounds like it bears a resemblance to Adam Curtis' The Power of Nightmares which posits the idea that a great deal of the western world, without any Big Bad to fight against, has increasingly overblown things like terrorists in order to facilitate the transition to a more repressive society, a process which merely accelerated after the attacks on the world trade centre. That is to say, it's not just America that's potentially in decline. Recommended viewing.
h [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why. Do you think nobody is looking at all that ilegally obtained data?
Re: (Score:2)
The better analogy would be if Barak sneaks a photocopy of Michelle's diary every day, and keeps them in a three ring binder that he cleverly hides in the open in a bookcase at eye height in one of the publicly accessible rooms of the White House.
Whether or not I have a personal concern about what the USA government might do with the information it has gathered about me, I have a very strong concern about its demonstrable inability to keep that information from getting into the hands of other persons. I do
Re: (Score:2)
And also, if you were to use a secret code to make sure nobody could read it, it would mean you're probably a traitor and we should read it anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The analogy would be better if the diary was left out in the open, but closed, mind you, for everyone to see.
Once Michelle gave her data to the paper that she didn't make, she surrendered her 4th Amendment expectation of privacy per /Smith v. Maryland/. Barack just has to say he saw a Chevy Malibu drive by.
Re: (Score:2)
Almost, but not quite. Change the analogy to being where Obama and every Police agency in the USA has access to the diary. Yeah yeah, we all know the "if you have nothing to hide it's no big deal" fallacy. But we all _do_ have things to hide. We have uncomfortable thoughts, we have disagreements with relatives and friends, and many other things that could easily be misunderstood viewing select statements without context.
I can easily imagine Hillary Clinton's diary saying "I was so mad at Bill I wanted to
Re: (Score:2)
But, let's be honest, most of the republicans are all for this themselves and haven't been outspoken about it, anything to stop the terrorists in their minds.
This isn't a party issue. This issue splits almost every political demographic 50/50 down the middle. Barely more democrats than republicans voted to defund the mass surveillance by the NSA. The senate is split, the house is split, and the polls of average American citizens are split regardless of political affiliation.
I'm convinced that a good 50% of the people who support it have no idea what the actual programs are. The normal media channels have been horrible in explaining what is actually going on,
Peter King (Score:3, Insightful)
Peter King's new found love of all things counter-terrorism is refreshing news, considering his well known support of the IRA.
Re: (Score:3)
His defense for that seems to be that the IRA never attacked America. I guess that's true, but they did attack one of our allies. I wonder if King would apply that argument to mean that any other terrorist group is fine as long as they don't launch attacks in the USA (or against American embassies, maybe). For example, the Kurdish PKK has only attacked Turkey, not the USA.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you can recall the USA used to finance some of those organizations to fight USSR in Afganistan. After the USSR dissapeared the organization turned on it's former master and went from freedom fighters to terrorist in a blink of an eye. So yes, it's pretty much the definition.
The reason that Michelle found out (Score:3)
Patriotism (Score:5, Interesting)
PATRIOTISM, n.
Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
Be wary when the word "patriotism" is being used. Whatever precedes or follows usually clocks in very high on the bullshit scale. It feels like it's being used to trigger a killswitch in the human mind.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem of course is that a nation is not a tribe. They are a collection of tribes.
But this is why leaders do not call the thing that they are exploiting tribalism. Nationalism is sometimes what its called, but thats only once removed. The term patriotism on the other hand is twice removed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
he has sacrificed more
A bank robber who gets killed during the robbery sacrifices a lot, he lost his life and his future. Does that automatically make the bank robber a Patriot? Of course not.
Re:Patriotism (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that the bank robber is doing his thing for his own benefite whereas Snowden gets no benefit, all the benefit goes to his countrymen.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Baloney, a sacrifice is volunary, and a bank robber certainly doesn't go in hoping to get shot. Snowden DID come forth volunarily,...
Both the robber and Snowden took risks, risks that have possibly severe consequences. Completely the same.
.
Snowden ran away, and is now hiding in Russia. Like a coward.
Re: (Score:2)
A bank robber who gets killed during the robbery sacrifices a lot, he lost his life and his future. Does that automatically make the bank robber a Patriot? Of course not.
If you are comparing a bank robber to Edward Snowden in talk about 'patriotism', I feel really sad for you.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We in The Netherlands at least of my age (41) associate the word "patriotism", hanging of a flag (outside of king's palace, military bases and on public holidays), and pledges of allegiance with Nazi Germany. We can't help it, patriotism and everything associated with it is scary.
Re: (Score:2)
Please don't speak for me, I see patriotism as love for my country and defending it when it is attacked.
This however does not mean we can not ridicule or criticize or complain about our country. That is the only way to improve bad situations.
Re: (Score:2)
U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act. Never forget that they added insult to injury by giving that awful act a horribly contrived acronym as a name.
No, the U.S.A. doesn't stand for United States of America.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm convinced that you could pass any legislation if you were good at coming up with the right acronym. "Well, sure the C.U.T.E. P.U.P.P.I.E.S. act would mean anyone who criticized the government would get locked up for 10 years, but do you really want to be seen as being anti-Cute Puppies?!!!!!"
Re: (Score:3)
Conversely I'm sure any protection-of-privacy act would be called P.U.L.S.I.N.G. B.A.L.L.B.A.G.
Re: (Score:2)
Not here in Germany. It just triggers the "Warning: Nazi" switch.
I guess it takes at least 0.8 Hitlers to do that.
(I'm sorry. With us Germans, Occam's razor is always just around the corner. ;)
Agreed. A flag is what you break out when there is a football(the proper one that's played with your feet and an actual ball) championship on. Interestingly most windows show a couple of flags.
Fighting for patriotic reasons is a foreign thing here. They tried to sell us the Afghanistan war by calling it "defending Germany at the Hindukush". We told them to pull the other one because it's got bells on. Begrudgingly it went through parliament when they showed that our troops would help rebuild civilisation.
Another analogy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Another analogy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Obama requests a sworn person to have a look at Michelle's diary + contacts etc
Except that the sworn person is likely to say to his (sworn) buddies .. "hey man, check this out".
Re: (Score:2)
Except they're also reading the diaries of everyone who visits the White House, too. Especially the ones who are just tourists.
Re: (Score:2)
And forward any interesting business intelligence or gossip to anyone who might want to know.
Re: (Score:3)
More like a 30,000+ sworn persons at the NSA alone, not counting the 4 million+ currently holding Top Secret clearance. Not that any of these good people would ever dare abuse these privileges [go.com] of course.
Hey, that reminds me. We should probably install surveillance cameras in the President's bedroom, bathrooms, daughters' bedrooms, etc. just in case he should break the law there. I mean, he probably won't break the law or do anything terrorist-related, but just to be safe I think we need to monitor, record,
Snowden is a Patriot--his Dad (Score:5, Insightful)
George Washington was declared a "traitor" by the British Crown and Government.
George Washington is considered the "Father of his country" by properly educated USA citizens.
See any correlation?
As a USA citizen (at least until this is posted), the younger Mr. Snowden did us a favor. The display of the Federal Government's illegalities and corruption is always a good thing. Without Mr. Snowden's release of this evidence of illegal activity, we would suspect the Federal Government's unconstitutional and illegal activities. With this evidence, we now know of the corruption, illegalities and immorality of the USA Federal Government and its Directors.
Thank God for Pvt. Manning and Mr. Snowden.
Regrettably, whistleblowing always (and everywhere) carries a heavy price for the whistleblower.
Re:Snowden is a Patriot--his Dad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Says you :P
How did he photocopy it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did he use a Xerox photocopier?
And if so, after looking at the copies he made did Barack later confront Michelle over discrepancies between things that she told Barack, vs what he read he read in said copies? Or did he convene a secret panel that just charged, convicted and sentenced her (queue drone strike), without her getting a chance to defend herself?
(man .. I was going for funny, so how the hell did I end up in such a dark place?)
Re: (Score:2)
There's really only one path that this leads. And it always ends up in a dark place.
We just keep hoping that there's a light afterward. But given the lack of general outrage over all this, I doubt there will be.
A better analogy (Score:5, Informative)
This is like when the NSA illegally spies on US citizens.
My point: some things don't need an analogy. This is one of them.
If I were to give it an analogy, I believe this would be the most fitting...
The NSA's surveillance program is like Soylent Green. Both are just so, so wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
What I find funny is Obama's analogy.
If I tell my wife that I did the dishes and she's so distrustful of me that she needs to take the time and effort to physically go and check something is seriously fucked up in our marital relationship.
Re: (Score:3)
Why do vile libs love bringing up Soylent Green? It gets old dude.
Because it's delicious.
Car Analogy (Score:2)
It would be like Obama completely bugging his wife's car, not because she is under the protection of the Secret Service, but because he wants to watch everything that she is up to without her knowledge. GPS Tracking, Sound, Video, the works - he can watch her every breath.
And then when she realises that he has been spying on her, he would say "Well you wouldn't mind if you have nothing to hide! I'm just cleaning out the dirty dishes!"
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the NSA seems to "only" collect meta-data (unless I've missed some further revelations). It would be sort of like one spouse secretly having motion detectors secretly set up in their house to tell who is in which rooms and for how long for the purposes of making sure the other spouse isn't having an affair. "Gee, Sally. You're spending an awful lot of time in the bedroom when I'm at work. Is there anything you'd like to confess?!!!"
Re: (Score:2)
There's a good song about this: "Every breathe you take, I'll be watching you."
And by The Police, the irony has no limit.
Thoughtful fact-based debate? (Score:5, Insightful)
"I called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before Mr. Snowden made these leaks. My preference - and I think the American people's preference - would have been for a lawful, orderly examination of these laws; a thoughtful, fact-based debate." - Obama
Mr. President, how are we supposed to have a thoughtful, fact based debate about programs which are so secret nobody knew about them until a whistle blower revealed them directly to the public. About a court who's orders are so secret that entire companies shut down [eff.org] when the thread of an order looms, and they can't even say what the threat was.
Without transparency, there can be no debate. Without Snowden, there would be no transparency on this issue.
On the subject of privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you not one of the above? Then you deserve to not be spied on in your home, on the internet, in your telephone calls, emails, or physical mail. Period. The government needs to bugger off.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
If telling the truth about illegal activities is treason, I wonder what lying to the American public is in your book.
Unfortunately, it's called "The American Way" and is steeped in a very long tradition.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, it's called "The American Way" and is steeped in a very long tradition.
I would have gone with "Campaigning for Public Office," but yours works too.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder what lying to the American public is in your book.
Unfortunately, it's called "The American Way" and is steeped in a very long tradition.
Actually it is politics, and is, unfortunatley a worldwide problem, not just American.
Re: (Score:2)
Please to provide details as to the oath that he swore.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's really a surprise to you that one must swear an oath and sign a contract to maintain a TS/SCI clearance, then explaining it probably won't help, but, believe it or not, you do have to promise to keep secret data secret before being granted access to that data.
I believe you also swear to uphold the constitution, and a few other things that in this case appear to be in conflict with keeping data secret. Snowden didn't pull a Manning and dump a bunch more data than he could possibly have vetted himself; he has kept all data secret except that which he felt was not in the national interest to keep secret. He shouldn't be allowed to work for the US government again, but he does seem to have done a decent job of upholding all his agreements and promises to the best
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heroes do not renounce their citizenship and seek asylum amongst foreign intelligence communities.
Heroes do. It's called asylum. And it's considered a human right.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Traitor to a repressive regime like the US is hero to most of the free world (and even to most of the not so free world).
Who cares anyway wether you are a "patriot" (whatever ones definition for that is) or not? Is that such a big deal in the US? I couldn't care less wether my government called me "unpatriotic" and most people also wouldn't give a damn.
What they report here in Europe about American petriotism is something I would not want to be anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it works, but in some countries it probably works better than in others. The US and Turkey are 2 examples I know where people are extremely nationalistic. In The Netherlands, most people consider those kinds of nationalistic behaviour seriously overdone and are only nationalistic when the royal family has something to celebrate or the national soccer team is playing.
Re:In the long run... (Score:4, Insightful)
You can rate him whatever you want. Your opinion is meaningless.
If exposing illegal activities that our country did rates him a scumbag by you, then you're not worth much to the country anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
For a start, he's not posting as an anonymous coward like you. That makes his opinion much more valuable already.
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't matter, the NSA knows who he is anyway.
Re:In the long run... (Score:4)
Those of us that are educated enough to remember Watergate know what life was like when Americans had the backbone to rein in governmental excess. And those of us educated enough to remember McCarthy know what bogeyman witch hunts do to the civil rights and liberties of the people. I wouldn't expect your education level to be high enough to understand either.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you overrate him. The best I can do is "I guess he was better than Sarah Palin".
Re: (Score:2)
He said he'd stop the illegal prison in Guantanamo Bay. He didn't even seriously try to.