this person claims to be a victim of oppression and surveillance, and you're comparing the recital of this story to nazi propaganda. ok.
i don't see how the story is over-reaching. people like you are the reason systems like prism exist - "oh, things got bad in some far away country, but this is america, something like that would never happen here. our politicians would never abuse the powers they are illegally giving themselves, so we don't really have anything to worry about".
this is the world we live in now. things are going to get worse before (if) they get better. unfortunately, i may never be able to tell you "i told you so", because in the future there may be no platform for us to express our discontent.
> "oh, things got bad in some far away country, but this is america, something like that would never happen here. our politicians would never abuse the powers they are illegally giving themselves, so we don't really have anything to worry about".
I actually believe free speech is a strong set of checks and balances, which once acquired, is hard to remove. It's a strong safety against abuse. It's something people actually believe in. Do you really think evil people are crazy enough to plot against free speech ? It's easier to just use free speech to prove someone's claims are stupid.
Oppression occurs mostly because of economics, not because of surveillance.
Aren't you happy Snowden remembered free speech ? It's a great example of summoning the courage to defend important concept, but there is no reason to compare a developed country, democratically-elected government, using congress and plenty of other of other functional institutions, with developing and third world countries. You got to watch history too.
On top of it, I agree about how surveillance can be used to blackmail people, but I doubt you can entirely shut dissent with just blackmail. Blackmail is not a good thing, but you can't honestly believe, with the amount of communications and books, that Orwell predicted the future. Orwell warned us, just like Huxley, so it's not like it's going to happen in the US.
I just want to have a honest debate, and I will shoot any emotional attempts to explain how this or that is good or bad, because it's not enough. This comment is just using emotions and fear to make a point. FUD if you prefer. I want to believe that surveillance is setting an apocalypse, but I'm just skeptic enough to just think twice.
i don't see how the story is over-reaching. people like you are the reason systems like prism exist - "oh, things got bad in some far away country, but this is america, something like that would never happen here. our politicians would never abuse the powers they are illegally giving themselves, so we don't really have anything to worry about".
this is the world we live in now. things are going to get worse before (if) they get better. unfortunately, i may never be able to tell you "i told you so", because in the future there may be no platform for us to express our discontent.