Topic: Snowden poll (Read 2279 times)

Agreed!

These are all whistleblowers; that is, they all denounced abuse or illegal conduct in the organizations they worked in, or had access to.

A good portion of them tried to do so through the hierarchy initially and were ignored. When they saw no other way to deal with the situation other than going to the press, trusting whistleblower protection laws, they found themselves fired, facing criminal charges, persecuted, some jailed, silenced and pretty much tortured like Chelsea Manning, while most of the wrongdoings they exposed are still being ignored by authorities to this day.

In this context, I don't really find it surprising that Snowden has chosen to reveal the information he had access to from outside the area of influence of the US; had he done otherwise, he would still be in solitary confinement "waiting trial" (read, this is a form of torture), and unable to defend his position and why he took the actions he did.

EDIT: further, and as beetcoin pointed out, he left his family, girlfriend, career, any possibility of returning to the US, his reputation (which, at least in the US, is constantly attacked by the media), and will have to live with fear of being either assassinated, deported, or kidnapped for the rest of his life. And people think he did it for the fame? 

Interesting poll.

From what I have read on the matter I would have said that he did it for the greater good. The fact that all it would take is one person who is privy to such information to divulge on how our interactions are being monitored (to some degree) makes it all the more amazing that it never came out earlier.

He must have known that in doing so he would be hailed as a hero by many, and a traitor by many others. Such a divisive decision, but one I believe he made for the benefit of letting us know what we would have otherwise been hidden from.

Sorry for the girls. Also included . I dont rly recognize all of the names u posted. Maybe coz im not American ?

You mean, guys and girls like Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Thomas Drake, William Binney, Jesselyn Radack, etc.? Do you have any idea what they sacrificed to be whistleblowers?

Yeah guys like him dont care about theirs lives , they only care about the truth lol .

I think you can't actually vote until you're at least a Junior Member, which according to this thread, https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/activity-new-membergroup-limits-237597, should be when you have 30 activity, or at most about 11 days from now.

erhm, sorry for a such stupid question, but how to poll? lol. It's a third time that I see some poll and just can't see any form with a radio buttons.

bullshit.. he is an intelligent guy. leaving your family, girlfriend, and career behind just to be famous and live as an outlaw, afraid of being murdered at any minute is not worth it. he has shown that he is a very good strategic planner, so he knew full well what would happen.

Can't vote yet.

I think he did it to write himself into history and become famous and to become a significant character.

if he can never be home with family, on his home country's soil.. i don't think any real "reward" is enough for him.

Oh, sorry; this ended up being buried and I didn't get to answer.

Most people have one (and depending on where you live, sometimes more than one) job, a family to take care of, bills they must pay, and a life they want to lead with as little trouble as possible; dealing with stuff like this on top of it all is not always easy and in the end, until they realize how it affects their lives directly, they won't do anything about it. And even then there will always be a lot of apathy, a lot of people who think they can't do anything about it, so it's just better not to waste time with it.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are those who would say that by comparison with people half a century ago, people today are far more engaged and far less tolerant of the abuses we're here discussing. As an example, during much of the Vietnam War you could see a lot of the information about what was going on in the media, and quite simply, nobody cared about it. It took several years before people even acknowledged what was going on and the opposition to the war really started taking hold. In contrast to that, you had opposition to the war in Iraq before it was even officially declared, and this even with the propaganda the media was spreading. So it's quite telling that the message in the media needs to be so distorted nowadays when compared to in the past; the ways to control the public are waning.

Now, part of the reason for this decline is the spread of alternative media, probably most of it operating through the internet. Most of these sources rely on public funding however, so donating to them is one way of helping things change. Another way would obviously be to make more people aware of them, so that mainstream media can't reach as many people. Of course not everyone uses the internet that much, so I guess at least advising people to get their information from more varied sources would be good: Aljazeera for example, where available, is a good source overall provided you're not looking for information on Qatar and its interests.

Whether or not this is enough, I don't know, but the tendency seems to be positive so far, if rather slow. But there are also those that propose more radical solutions, either in the form of disengagement with the system wherever possible, or a gradual replacement of the existing structures of power by something decentralized and under popular control.

Snowden is nothing but a whistle blower. The traitors are the politicians in the U.S. Congress, executives and lobbyists of Corporate America and U.S. Chamber of Commerce who made them do it, who ratified PNTR Communist China in 2000 knowing full well that this action will provide Communist China with the funding, technology and manufacturing know-how and all these with multiple applications; commercial, space and military. U.S. corporations also provided training for Communist Chinese engineers and technicians in high-tech manufacturing processes. Now the Communist Chinese have a robust economy, military and space programs while we are broke and cutting back military funding and pretty much on everything.

I heard people are trying to elect him from the nobel peace prize,  I kinda think he does deserve to get one or some sort of reward for sacrificing is life in the USa

Snowden is foolish and is very hubris. Of course someone engineered for him to get stuck in Russia, and he doesn't know it. It is very plausible for things to get set up the way it did, for him to be stuck at the airport for hours (people are capable of planning scenarios this complex). He thinks he's doing the right thing, and he thinks hes a hero. Really he is being used as leverage to make a corrupt government look better compared to a less corrupt one. To leave documents in Hong Kong, there is no guarantee that the Chinese wouldn't get this info. One mistake, and this info is theirs; leave it on a computer hooked to the internet and its theirs, if the government even knows who has the information, its compromised, no matter how trustworthy these journalists are, assuming they weren't spies.
For him to alert the world of their privacy being invaded may have been good for the long run, but how it happened may more than negate this benefit.

Snowden is part of their plan. Cause if he wasn't and spilling info that they wanted to keep quiet he would be sleeping with the fishes. A normal guy in hiding would never go on a show and if he did he would have bags under eyes for lack of sleep, be malnourished for not being able to eat for fear of losing his life. This guy looks like he is very happy for supposedly having a price on his head looks more like hes enjoying the celebrity status.. I have no clue what the plan will be but I know he is part of it.

Your input and time was not wasted. I do think you speak the truth. It is very sad its like this. Could it ever be changed? And I guess most people would never care?

Snowden saying that he wants to help the government reminds of the guy who wanted to live with wild bears. That is a naive position. Government will always try to grow and increase its power. Liberty is a threat to government. If you try to promote freedom with the government: the very moment the government takes you seriously you will end up like that guy trying to be friends with wild bears.
You will get eaten.

I know I'm probably wasting my time here, but I'll give it another go anyway...

This isn't a black and white issue: dictatorships only have state propaganda, and democracies have free press; it's more complicated than that. While in a totalitarian state the press is usually under direct control, in more open societies the press still has to respond to its owner's interests. That is to say, the press is restricted in its speech by the people that write the paychecks of those that work there. If they don't like what you're saying, they'll cut it out of the news, and if you insist on it you're fired.

There might appear to be freedom for discussion and different ideas going around in the mainstream media, but this is mainly in subjects that don't really affect the interests of the business owners; those with real power. That is not to say these exchanges aren't important, they are: so for example, you might see a lot of debate going around about gay rights. That's great, and it will affect the lives of many people, but ultimately it's meaningless to the "owners". Now look back at the reporting before the Iraq War we were talking about yesterday: where was the debate? There was none. The news were full of "Iraq has WMDs" and "they were responsible for 9/11" or some such nonsense, both of which were obvious lies.

To further illustrate this point, look at the cases of those that dared to speak against the establishment; you have multiple cases, just in this last decade if you want: Manning, jailed, tortured, held for an endless time before even getting the chance at a trial (nevermind a real trial); Assange and Wikileaks which despite in many respects being little different than the many other mainstream news organizations that printed the same stuff they did, they alone have been persecuted; the attacks on some journalists at the Associated Press; etc.. And even if you'd think they should be safe going through proper channels and reporting wrong doing to their superiors and stuff, the cases of Thomas Drake and William Binney for example show that those in power won't care, but will still hunt you down and shut you up first and foremost, in whatever way they deem convenient.

ROFL I GOT MY OWN POLL OPTION! I was half-asleep and I read that and was like wait...what?? then started cracking up at my desk.