Confessions of a Snowden sympathiser

[bemildred]

I MIGHT be extradited to the US and face torture and an unspecified period of time in Guantanamo Bay for expressing this opinion (or worse still, have my Disneyworld passes confiscated at the gate to the Magic Kingdom) but I’m going to stick my neck out and say it anyway.

I feel sorry for Edward Snowden.

There, I have done it. It’s out now and surely, by the end of the day, my phone will have been tapped, my computers hacked and that time I collected cash in a bucket for the families of striking miners in the 1980s will be used as black mark against me - part of a dossier that will confirm my anti-establishment leanings. (I should also confess that I bought Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols on seven-inch vinyl as well).

In fact, thinking about it, I better move my family to the embassy of a sympathetic South American country now before the Burton Mail goes to press.

http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/News/Confessions-of-a-Snowden-sympathiser-20130729174702.htm

[think]

1. Great read and opinion from a perspective of someone outside of the US

K&R

[bemildred]

2. Ridicule is the only way to deal with this sort of dishonesty and manipulation.

This fellow does a superb job of it.

[populistdriven]

3. If the State has the power to make people think that way, are the people free?

Well the State fears its own people because they keep resisting.

They resist because the State's vanguard approach to authoritarianism is "crossing the red river rubicon" beyond which effectively resisting it is no longer possible.

Well Jefferson said "when people fear the government, tyranny prevails; when government fears the people, liberty prevails" so by your logic this is a good thing.

Only if the people prevail and collectively stop it. Sure, Manning and Snowden didn't tell us anything we didn't already suspect but resistance always comes at a personal cost and people are unwilling to bear this cost unless they know for certain what they are resisting. Manning and Snowden could see exactly what they needed to resist and now the people do.

Well the State will ostracise and punish them. This should stop any more "resistance".

It only emboldens the people to resist because the State is thereby proving, and people will be certain, that there is much more it is hiding. If it suddenly did what the people wanted the people would no longer need fear the State. Mission Accomplished. As Jacob Applebaum states “When you are followed around, when you are being investigated because of the whim of someone, this is the beginning of the end of your freedom,” and “Data retention is the beginning of the end of many of our freedoms in bulk and that is a very scary thing.”

Well I think the die is cast and most people will accept both what is known and what is suspected as normal. People will minimize the power of the Surveillance State. People will think and say the “state is benign” so long as they themselves are not aware of being targeted. People will also choose to ignore the State's intrusions to make sure they can continue to feed their children.

If the State has the power to make people think that way, are the people free?

/.