The Solution to NSA Snooping? - Comments Page 1

I started to think you are wrong. Then I read the rest of this article. I think he is a Hero!

Mr Snowden is a modern folk hero - anyone who blows the whistle on abuses of power gets my vote.

Governments gathering intelligence is possibly a good thing, until it gets into the hands of unscrupulous, manipulative politicians as are found in hordes on Capitol Hill and Westminster.

Perhaps the entire web community could stage an action day to really scunner these "official" snoopers - if everyone on the 'net on the same day would send a dozen (non-encrypted) emails containing all the "sensitive" words like "bomb, quaeda, hijack, detonator" etc, we might identify the alphabet snoopers' centres from the columns of smoke arising as their monitoring computers go into meltdown.....

Edward Showden is a true American Hero.

If anything underlines the difference between the UK and the USA it's patriotism, followed closely by politics.

Many of us (in the UK) have known for many years about GCHQ that monitors just about every form of communication, our attitude has been 'so what who cares'. That is until recently.....

The Snowden thingie has affected the vociferous minority that believe in conspiracy theories and such like. Before being infected by this privacy twaddle we were quite happy to start international phone calls with words like 'Semtex' and 'C5' just for fun.

In the mid 70s I had a college friend who lived with his in-laws. Mom-in-law was an ex-chair of the Wales Communist Party...... phoning him was an experience of clicks and 'hollow' sounding connections. The only person it affected was the brother of another friend who had 'concerns' after such odd contacts of his sister were discovered when he was positively vetted.....

There is a simple maxim - 'If you haven't got anything to hide you've got nothing to be afraid of'.

Security has become an issue for both our Nations and safety comes at a price.

Before anyone thinks I am about to run off and start the British Tea Party, I'm a Socialist, member of the UK Labour Party.

Privacy and safety are not always compatible. I for one would favour safety every time.

Jon

Excellent article.

I think I can detect your own opinion of Snowden's reactions :-) but what I really wanted to comment on was the surprise that the "dully (sic) elected representatives" haven't done anything yet.

Wouldn't that be a little like using your left hand to prevent your right hand from doing something?

Jim

It is quite possible to be a trator and an patriot at the same time. Those who rebelled against England, to make us independant, were and we think pretty highly of them.

Yes, we Europeans always knew that Snowden stabbed the right backs. The NSA has been doing a lot of snooping on the USA's allies, so we hear, and that doesn't do a lot for strengthening alliances.

I fully support and appreciate Edward Snowden, Assange and others for their heroic disclosures of the governmental abuses that we, the taxpayers, have been funding. I wish we had many more such brave individuals who might start a movement to replace all the filth in the cesspool that disgraces Washington D.C.

The religions held power for centuries by their only real power, FEAR (and still do). There are a billion people in China being held hostage by their own government. Even though they do not have the power to do so. It's a program of propaganda of FEAR that keeps these Billions in line.

The spying capabilities of the NSA seem to ludicrous to believe. I wonder if Snowden is still a government agent doing what govt agents do best, promoting fear through disinformation.

All governments realize that if they can scare you straight, based on their own definitions then that's a job will done.

The human race learned early on in it's existence that Fear was a powerful weapon of motivation, and still is.

Snowdon should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing about such a monumental change in citizenry privacy efforts and thwarting governmental dirty tricks a la Orwell's 1984 scenario.

There is often a very fine line between treason and heroism, which side of the line a person comes down on often depends on who is telling the story. I am sure that many British folks felt that our founding fathers were guilty of treason, there were even many in the colonies that felt that way. Most people in the USA today however have a different opinion. It will probably take many years to determine which side of the line Snowden falls on.
I have to feel grateful that his actions woke up the Internet service providers to the need to make secure connections relatively painless. While the ability to have secure email has been around for many years via PGP, using it was just too painful for most people. I consider myself a fairly sophisticated and knowledgeable computer user and I found that it was more painful than I cared to submit myself too.

Oooooooh! "dirty {"traitor"}, backstabbing Edward Snowden" >> Them be some way-nasty personal statements about Edward Snowden; who woke up the nation about the nuances of what individual (on and off-line) "privacy" is supposed to be about in the digital era! I am still straddling the fence to make up my mind whether his whistle-blowing was to notoriety or for personal gains. I especially loved the word "perfidy". The rest of the topic was informative, as always. Thank you.

Thanks for this article Bob. I agree that it is debatable as to whether Ed Snowden was for us or against us. His activities sure brought to light that our government is not interested in our 4th amendment rights. The government who hired Snowden did not put into place, nor uphold the tools available that could have screened subcontractors or checked into what they were accessing or downloading. This article shows that most things are better accomplished in the private sector than by the government. It is bright thinkers, when faced with the shortfalls of existing technology that either destroy us with the malevolent intentions or make our lives better because they choose to do what is right and make things better.

All the cries of Snowden being a traitor are from the government wonks that have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and trying to deflect their complicity in circumventing the Constitution they have sworn to protect.

If you think Snowden is anything but a patriot then you are an idiot. I will be unsubscribing from your so called newsletter.

Nature abhors a vacuum. He stepped into the dishonorable, lying, cheating, immoral actions of our rotten leaders in Wash. DC. I blame them - mostly, but he sounds also like a traitor. Someday maybe we will find out when we purge our public offices of traitors and stupid ones.

I don't use Google, Micosoft's mail, Facebook or many of the pop culture sites. I use Verizon's POP3 mail in Mozilla Thunderbird. Is the NSA snooping into individual computers, or only popular sites? And how do I know my (wired, not wireless) router hasn't been fiddled with?

Snowden is only one of the reasons we are watching the watchers. He's a hero in my book.

--"It is quite possible to be a trator and an patriot at the same time. Those who rebelled against England, to make us independant, were and we think pretty highly of them."--(sic)

Exactly Jack!

I used (sic) because of spelling (traitor, independent) and grammatical (a patriot) errors, which don't matter but are nice to know if one is in error. Hope you take it with the spirit with which I gave it (more knowledge is not bad)...

I am finding a great deal of the information I thought was factual is in fact b*llsh*t, pretty scary stuff. Am becoming more and more of a Buddhist methinks...

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” quote by Benjamin Franklin 1755.

True then, true today!