I personally do, he actually risked his life to release information about the government spying on people. And there are for sure more advanced ways now. Even your phone is listening.
2 months
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- 2 months
What Snowden did was objectively good, and he did so at great personal cost, but you should be cautious about making any living person your hero. His politics seem to lean closer to libertarian nut-job than anything else, and it’s very possible he will disappoint you in the future. Case in point, Glen Greenwald broke the Snowden leaks, and I considered him one of my heros for a time,.but these days he sounds more like Tucker Carlson than anyone else. The point is, admire heroic actions, but don’t make people your heroes.
2 monthsHis politics seem to lean closer to libertarian nut-job than anything else
Sure, but you could say the same of Luigi Mangione and that isn’t slowing anyone down.
Case in point, Glen Greenwald broke the Snowden leaks, and I considered him one of my heros for a time,.but these days he sounds more like Tucker Carlson than anyone else.
Glenn was always a libertarian crank. But after he got ousted from The Guardian, his economic needs superseded his politics. I might suggest that if Glenn had ended up on MSNBC rather than the gutter for FOX News washouts, he’d be denouncing Snowden today rather than praising him.
The point is, admire heroic actions, but don’t make people your heroes.
I don’t think you can criticize Snowden because the guy who interviewed him ended up becoming a crank. But I also don’t know of what became of Snowden, outside “he fled to Russia after Hong Kong wouldn’t hide him”.
I might suggest that Snowden was only able to leak what he did because he climbed up the ranks through Booze-Allen to begin with. And there you’ve got an inherent problem with whistleblowers - either coming or going, they must have done something you don’t like.
But I’d say his turn of conscious and his work ethic and professionalism in how the information was aggregated, leaked, and confirmed makes him a role model for anyone else who aspires to turn coat against a fascist regime. Whatever you think of the individuals, you still do need Role Models in order to inform how you might achieve similar results. That means studying other people - studying history at the individualist level - and asking how they did what they did. Ideally, you’re studying people you admire because you want to be more like them. Realistically, you’re going to study people and see their warts. And that might shape what you think about their motivations and whether your own motivations lead you the same way.
- 2 months
Sure, but you could say the same of Luigi Mangione and that isn’t slowing anyone down.
I mean, I would say you shouldn’t make him your hero either. Even if you think what he did was heroic, lone gunman assassins usually don’t turn out to be very stable, well adjusted people. Hell, Ted Kacynski has some good points about post-Industrial life, but that doesn’t mean he should be your hero.
I might suggest that if Glenn had ended up on MSNBC rather than the gutter for FOX News washouts, he’d be denouncing Snowden today rather than praising him.
Very possible, and nearly as disappointing. My point isn’t that he changed or became worse, just that I projected more of my ideals onto him than he actually shared.
I don’t think you can criticize Snowden because the guy who interviewed him ended up becoming a crank.
To be clear, I’m not. I’m saying that he has some views and beliefs that may lead him to disappoint you in the future. He mostly doesn’t comment much on politics outside of the surveillance state, but he has described himself as a libertarian, and said that he believes social security is a scam that needs to die. It seems clear that he is anti-authoritarian, but it’s very possible that, if he ever became more vocal about American politics, you’d learn a lot about him that would disappoint you.
- 2 months
I would say inspiring people. Not that anyone should be held to that standard, mind you; I don’t begrudge Edward for fucking off to Russia. One heroic deed is certainly more than most, and I think the world would be a better place if more people rose to the occasion. But to call him a hero? Idk. I personally wouldn’t.
- 2 months
I’d say a well known example is Greta Thunberg. She’s consistently stood up for good things at the cost of her health and safety, and while (no offense) nothing has been at the level of exposing a global surveillance apparatus, she has consistently engaged with the world, rolling each action into her public persona, only to use that persona to garner even more attention to her next action. I know Snowden clearly performed an extraordinary act at the cost of his own health and safety; truly a heroic action. And again, I mean this as no slight, dude did more than most; dude is well within his rights to go live as he wants. But, while I would say that Snowden has a consistency to his message, I wouldn’t necessarily say he has consistency to his action.
- 2 months
You think him fleeing to Russia is inconsistent? It seems to me that the organizations he’s exposed are the sort of outfits that would murder someone like him, so in order to stay alive I don’t know what other choices he would’ve had.
Agree on Greta btw, but to continue with the same example, I would say that killing a little girl is less likely, because it would create a martyr. And if she were ever in danger I wouldn’t hold it against her if she chose to disappear somewhere. She’s already done more than enough.
My point being, I don’t necessarily see the difference, and I’m a bit confused at the apparent hesitation to label Snowden a hero. Tempted to assume that the smear campaign is working even in these circles.
- 2 months
He’s not. Unless you think taking a job to protect your country is “shitty”
- 2 months
I’m not saying anything. The thread is about Snowden and you said one can do great things and still be a shitty person, so I’m trying to understand what you mean.
- 2 months
Guy gave up his life to show Americans (and the world) the truth, and we as a society just ignored him.
- 2 months
ignored him.
No we hunted him and he had to hide in Russia.
- baines@lemmy.cafeEnglish2 months
it’s not so much we ignored him as the government ran a huge smear campaign to discredit him
- 2 months
I’m starting to think the world isn’t even worth saving, since this is how the world treats those that want to save it.
- 2 months
Only a few hundred billionaires. You can take a meaningful percentage of revenge if you’re just careful and get all your ideas 9f effectiveness from anime and ubisoft games.
Need to just let Dalamud fall already and embrace the next umbral era.
- 2 months
Man I’m too tired to deal with bahamut again. Can we just skip dalamud and go straight to having the first fall to the light entirely?
- Phantaloons@piefed.zipEnglish2 months
I think about where we’d be without him, and I think about where we are.
Oddly enough, it’s the same place.
- 2 months
It is not his fault. He raised it several times and proposed alternatives, but the flock continued to choose the same butcher.
- 2 months
There was a site a long time ago called behind the truth. There was an article from somewhere else that explained about the nsa backdoor files that are hard code installed on every windows pc. I knew back in 2008 that the nsa was spying on me.
When the Snowden thing came out I yelled BOUT TIME!!!
- 2 months
He told the truth about the US spying on it’s citizens. I got nothing respect for him.
- 2 months
No he provided evidence. There were people around the globe who knew about the nsa before Edward Snowden and told the truth. There were articles and videos back in 2008 about the nsa backdoor into windows. The only main difference is he, “proved it.” like you know how someone goes, “yeah! well prove it!!!” He did.
- 2 months
There were people around the globe who knew about the nsa before Edward Snowden and told the truth.
There was a whole fucking Will Smith movie about it in the late 90s. With Gene Hackman, and young Jack Black and Seth Green. Enemy of the State.
But yeah that wasn’t proof, either. But it was the closest to people shouting on the rooftops that this kind of thing was, in fact, happening.
- 2 months
before the transition* or before they transitioned* (not sure which one you meant to write)
And before SHE went to prison, I see no reason to say he other than being a anti-trans shit stain. The timing of the transition doesn’t matter at all, a person who is transsexual should be called the gender they know they are independent on if someone is talking about before their public transition. A person is the gender they feel they are and should be called so for any time in their life unless they have specifically said that they want to be called their biological/sexual gender when others talk about them before their transition.
- 2 months
conservatives have a wierd obssesion of him being a"traitor" guess exposing conservative hypocrisy is traitorous.
That’s because conservatives think they’re not going to be treated like ‘the plebs’. They think if they’re loyal to the empire, they’ll be exempt from the imperial boomerang when it comes back (it’s here).
His demand to return to the US and give himself in was if he got a public (non military) trial.
The government’s offer under Obama was that the only guarantee they would provide was that he wouldn’t be subject to torture.
Even if he had negligible effect on state level surveillance, the documents he shared provided some insanely valuable perspective into the capability and power of nation states in the cybersecurity space.
Anything the NSA is or was doing can also be applied to other major countries like China or Russia, and the capability + compute power has only grown in size since.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_disclosures
EDIT: Also in true American foreign interest memery, the top two most heavily surveilled states are Iran and Pakistan.
The USA has stretched ‘technically not torture’ too far for that to be comforting.
- StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.worlddeleted by creator2 months
Seeing how little we actually did, I often wonder if he regrets coming forward.
I don’t think you remember https before. Snowden’s revelations kicked off LetsEncrypt and the much broader deployment of https.
https://www.standwithsnowden.com/news/lets-encrypt-and-snowden.html
- 2 months
Damn right he is. He risked his safety and his life (and still does) to make sure we all know more about how the feds are spying on their own citizens.
He’s a true hero of the American People, that one, make no mistake.
- 2 months
And Europeans, even though many don’t know him, he’s shown how much the US spies on us too.
- stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish2 months
I consider him a true American patriot.
Nothing is more patriotic than wanting your country to do better.
Implementing drag net surveillance was a terrible decision, and exposing it was truly heroic.
Sadly, Snowden is now in the clutches of Russia who can and does use him as their pawn.
It is easy to say that this is where the EU should have stepped up and given him sanctuary, but that would have been less than ideal for him.
- Europe and the US have close ties with police and law enforcement, while no EU nation would hand their own citizens over to the US, they would absolutely hand over a US citizen to the US if requested.
- During the war on terror, Europe was complicit in plenty of illegal renditions of their own citizens to the CIA, they were then sent to illegal black sites and tortured, plenty of these persons have since been proven innocent.
Given the high profile of Snowden’s leak, the US still want’s him back, and back then even more so, had Snowden gone to the EU, he most likely would have been extradited, kidnapped or even assassinated.
By staying in Russia that was a far lower risk to him.
- anomnom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish2 months
He’s at lower risk from the US, but speaking out about Russia would probably be riskier. It’s an unfortunate situation for him to be stuck in Russia and not some other safe country.
I think the Swiss should have offered him assistance in an embassy or Vietnam or somewhere other than Putin’s Russia (which we knew was bad even back then).
Really though, Obama should have pardoned him.
- 2 months
EU states have handed over their own citizens to the US, if these people have hurt us citizens enough. There is a nice episode of the darknet diaries that just came out
- 2 months
while no EU nation would hand their own citizens over to the US
Europe was complicit in plenty of illegal renditions of their own citizens to the CIA
Make up your mind.
- 2 months
Unironically true. Wish we lived in the timeline where war crimes mattered and those war criminal bastards were rotting in prison. Now because the USA let their own war crimes slide, it’s made autonomous killing systems permissible and civilian casualty rates nearly completely ignored as the horrible precedent of today and on. I hate warfare with a passion
- stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish2 months
Eh, the EU makes a big deal of freedom, and has stood up to the US in the past, but here there are actual laws and regulations to follow, and if we stop extraditing US citizens to the US, the US would stop extraditing our citizens to us.
- 2 months
You are answering to someone from a tankie instance, expect their views to be aligned with authoritarian left and take them with many grains of salt. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
- 2 months
That countries in the EU are controlling countries in Africa. What else is there you could’ve said that’s not true?
- stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish2 months
Hey, thanks for telling me, I know about tankies, as well as the instances they run, though I don’t check every user to see where they come from.
I’ll tag him accordingly.
- 2 months
I don’t generally dwell on the libshits like yourself, some will never learn the art of thinking critically, but I would like to point out that the best way to control the population is to divide it. You’re either a fed or unknowingly lending them a hand.
- masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish2 months
The irony of calling someone a “lib-shit”, over what is, in the grande scheme of things, a minor quibble, in the literal same sentence they talk about how people are dividing the population intentionally to control them.
Lmfao, you’re the one dividing the population you unselfreflective dipshit. Grow up.
- 2 months
Here’s one example: https://www.pulse.ng/story/7-ways-france-still-controls-its-former-african-colonies-2024072617033075753
Don’t feel bad. Many are out of the loop. The west spends a lot of money ensuring most are clueless to what’s actually going on in the world.
- 2 months
That article made me vigorously expel air from my nose.
What’s the #1 way that France still controls its former African colonies?
“1. These countries must officially speak French”
Did you know England controls the United States? How? England makes the US speak English. I’m super serial! This isn’t a laughing matter, so stop laughing at this matter.
- 2 months
Luckily it seems entirely fabricated like many other claims on that post in Pulse Nigeria’s Food and Travel section
- 2 months
Nothing is more patriotic than wanting your country to do better.
Is being patriotic and wanting your first world country to do better something heroic?
- 2 months
Yes, at minimum a martyr.
Watching his disclosure real time while everyone around me ignored it was something else
- 2 months
You’re correct that the word is primarily utilized to describe one who dies but also can be used to describe those who face general suffering or persecution.
- 2 months
I think he blew up his life to reveal something the general public probably should be aware of, but ultimately didn’t care about.
Idk if it was heroic, but it certainly was interesting how he released the info slowly to get catch the government in numerous lies attempting to downplay the truth of the matter. One of the Obama administration’s biggest blights.
- 2 months
the news quickly buried it and allowed propaganda to trash his name, usa surely dont want more shit to come out.
- 2 months
Yes, but…
He was a definite hero in releasing what he discovered. He blew the whistle on things that the government was doing that it had no right to do, and that people had a right to know about. He risked his life and freedom to do it, and is paying for that by having to live in exile in Russia.
The “but” is that at times he has speculated on things that he doesn’t have any direct knowledge of.
For example, what he revealed in the PRISM leaks is that the US was tapping into submarine cables owned by companies like Google and getting the data that was going between various Google datacenters unencrypted.
That showed up in the PRISM leaks as this slide:
Snowden claimed that Google was cooperating with the NSA, when that slide shows what was really happening. The NSA learned how Google’s architecture worked, found a vulnerability, and exploited it without Google’s knowledge. Google reacted to the PRISM revelations by putting in a huge effort to encrypt data everywhere, in transit and at rest.
Until then they had thought that the data was safe. The places inside the Google network where the data was unencrypted were protected by significant physical security. They didn’t think anybody could get in, at least not get in undetected. But, their threat model didn’t include the US government treating them the way they’d treat an enemy country.
Google did “cooperate” with the US government, in that when it received a legal order for someone’s data they complied with that legal order. They even set up systems to make that process seamless. Things like the FISA court were a bit of a joke, so it was really easy for the government to come up with a legal order that Google release the data. But, Google still did require that the government go through the motions of getting a court to sign off on the orders. I think that’s why they were so surprised that the government didn’t think that was enough and had tapped into their backbone traffic.
If you look at what actual full cooperation with the government looks like, look at the revelations of Mark Klein. He was also a heroic whistleblower. What he showed was that AT&T set aside a special room in one of their facilities where AT&T would copy all the Internet traffic hitting their network so that the NSA could sift through it as they wished. There was no need for a diagram of where AT&T added or removed encryption because AT&T was just handing it to them unencrypted.
So, yeah. He is a hero for what he did. But, he was irresponsible for mixing the things he knew for a fact with his own personal speculation on them, because some of his speculations were wrong.
- 2 months
Enough of his speculations were right to make it worthwhile. The other option was to let the NSA control the narrative on how the data was collected and used.
Better to have them vehemently deny his errors than have them deny it all and have to prove the true ones.
He is the biggest American hero this century, bar none.
- 2 months
Why not just stick to the facts? The facts were damning enough.
By speculating on things and getting them wrong, he opened the door to them saying he was wrong about everything.
Bit of a nuanced take, a trimmed down copy-paste from another comment of mine prior. Tl;Dr: he’s a product of the system that left the system.
Snowden was an individual that worked in the intelligence community in the mid-2000s. In this era, the American populace was so afraid of terrorism they signed away freedoms for national security. In this post 9/11 world, patriotism was a given, almost nationalistically, if you were American. It’s fair to say that a highly nationalistic media and culture can influence the individual to embrace those mentalities more… even if it perverts your true best interest. Snowden likely viewed service to the NSA as patriotic, and in support of his fellow Americans. While he started off supporting it, he soon saw immorality, and decided to resist against them with what I see as an effective measure. I feel that for most whistleblowers, this logic applies. I wanna say “Good job, but still shame on you for taking the job to begin with,” yet this system we’re in can cause us to support things we otherwise wouldn’t like.
Looking to modern issues: The manipulation of individuals, mass surveillance, leveraging of government by powerful. Critisizim of these was always there, but where it was pointed at and pursued sure felt a lot different after Snowden.
