>My question is, is this really big news? I remember hearing about it in 2006 and since then I thought we all knew the government was vacuuming up phone and Internet data like it was going out of style. This leak is more confirmation of what we already knew with a few new surprises sprinkled in, but nothing that could overshadow the big problem which was that the government is intercepting about all communications within the US.
Is it news in the sense that people didn't suspect it was going on? No. Are the details news? Definitely.
Things came to light before in a way that was easy to sweep under the rug. This guys seems to want to make sure we have a conversation about it.
> He addresses the question of why he chose to not be anonymous by dancing around the question with some hand wavy answer that just about translates to "because I'm gonna be a patriot and/or a hero". He calls a lot of attention to himself very unnecessarily too. It's almost like there's a part of him that wants to feel important.
The likely answer is he revealed himself because he's scared and so the U.S. or China will have to treat him like a human being. Having a public profile affords a great degree of safety. I don't know that talking strategy about his safety would have been the best use of an opportunity in the introduction video interview.
>We're very quick to jump on the idea that the US government is this incredibly powerful, nefarious organization that's been competent enough to conduct a truly massive global and domestic secret spy program for 8 to 15 years depending on your sources. If that's the case, how do you let individuals like Snowden, with what we know about him so far (he's a young high school dropout hopping from job to job somewhat frequently, working for a contractor, who even describes himself as no one special with no special skills - ie an "Everyman") have as much power and access as he claims to have?
This is one of the bombshells of the story. If this is true--the government is building the programs and infrastructure that has been revealed, and this IT consultant had access to the information he claims he did--it's all we need to know to conclude these programs are extremely dangerous and that we shouldn't be running them, at least as they're currently conceived and implemented.
>I see Snowden as the guy who brought up an issue we should have never let go back when it first came out and because of that I'm glad he came forward. Other than that, I think he overstates his role and maybe even some of the particulars relating to this spy program.
Again, his point seems to be to bring back the conversation. So far, it seems "his role" is more a safety thing than an attention thing.
Is it news in the sense that people didn't suspect it was going on? No. Are the details news? Definitely.
Things came to light before in a way that was easy to sweep under the rug. This guys seems to want to make sure we have a conversation about it.
> He addresses the question of why he chose to not be anonymous by dancing around the question with some hand wavy answer that just about translates to "because I'm gonna be a patriot and/or a hero". He calls a lot of attention to himself very unnecessarily too. It's almost like there's a part of him that wants to feel important.
The likely answer is he revealed himself because he's scared and so the U.S. or China will have to treat him like a human being. Having a public profile affords a great degree of safety. I don't know that talking strategy about his safety would have been the best use of an opportunity in the introduction video interview.
>We're very quick to jump on the idea that the US government is this incredibly powerful, nefarious organization that's been competent enough to conduct a truly massive global and domestic secret spy program for 8 to 15 years depending on your sources. If that's the case, how do you let individuals like Snowden, with what we know about him so far (he's a young high school dropout hopping from job to job somewhat frequently, working for a contractor, who even describes himself as no one special with no special skills - ie an "Everyman") have as much power and access as he claims to have?
This is one of the bombshells of the story. If this is true--the government is building the programs and infrastructure that has been revealed, and this IT consultant had access to the information he claims he did--it's all we need to know to conclude these programs are extremely dangerous and that we shouldn't be running them, at least as they're currently conceived and implemented.
>I see Snowden as the guy who brought up an issue we should have never let go back when it first came out and because of that I'm glad he came forward. Other than that, I think he overstates his role and maybe even some of the particulars relating to this spy program.
Again, his point seems to be to bring back the conversation. So far, it seems "his role" is more a safety thing than an attention thing.