Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid Of Dropbox”
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/11/edward-snowden-new-yorker-festival/
Snowden is such a shitty little weasel. He has the gall to lecture people on the supposed evils of Dropbox while groveling at the feet of Putin. He should just crawl into a hole and die of shame over his collaboration with such a disgusting police state.
P.S. Sorry for the weird format of the post, I’m trying out a new app.
Would you have preferred if he had stayed in the US to be tortured in some unknown prison? From what I understand, he applied for asylum to several countries, got rejected by all of them (under US pressure?) and then turned to the Russian government, who was more than happy to do anything to embarrass the US.
I think this was more an act of self-preservation on his part than him believing in Putin’s ideology. After what happened to a whistleblower like Chelsea Manning, I don’t think it’s irrational to want to escape the US justice system whichever way one can. His life is fucked no matter what, but at least he’s not getting waterboarded right now.
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Thought about this post regarding Chelsea Manning:
Marketing Bradley Manning
http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.co.il/2011/12/marketing-bradley-manning-by-suzie.html
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I think Echidne is in part motivated here by transphobia. That is the description of Manning the Army gave but it is very self serving.
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I said in the post what I would prefer. He should crawl into a hole and sit there quietly , reflecting on his existence. Nobody is forcing him to chase the spotlight so relentlessly.
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\\ I think this was more an act of self-preservation on his part than him believing in Putin’s ideology
Agreed. Regardless of how one judges Snowden’s conduct of publishing secret information (*), after he published it, he had no other choice but to escape to Russia. No other choice, unless one expects him to be ready to become a martyr for the course.
(*) I couldn’t ever honestly join “Support Snowden!” team since I would hate to get an Israeli version of him. The potential damage of such “truth medicine” is most likely greater than any benefits (for my country, at least).
Besides, I heard that things Snowden released were known to / understood by people interested in politics before.
In world politics, appearances play a crucial role and forcibly tearing off masks is liable to create serious wounds. Without improving anything at all. For instance, hurting relations between countries after releasing info about some hurtful remarks, some spying, etc.
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So to you, too, an American’ s right to keep his or her email account out of the slightest possibility of being read by the government is more important than actual lives of actual Russians?
I find that weird.
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I’m glad he did what he did and would rather he didn’t die for it. At this point in time being in the spotlight is the only think keeping him alive.
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Agree entirely.
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His stupid blabbering about Dropbox and Facebook is putting actual real live people in extreme danger. Is that not obvious or does nobody care because the people in question are not Americans?
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Whom exactly is Snowden putting into extreme danger. I do not understand at all.
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“Whom exactly is Snowden putting into extreme danger. I do not understand at all.”
– The activities of the US government that Snowden brought to light are child’s play compared to what the Russian government is doing. The dissidents in Russia who are trying to organize through social media are in grave danger. And here is Snowden, happily giving yet another reason to persecute them to Putin. What a great victory for free speech everywhere!
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\\ Whom exactly is Snowden putting into extreme danger. I do not understand at all.
David, Clarissa answered below in the thread:
“Snowden‘s interview makes it so much easier to say that everybody who uses Dropbox and Twitter is a CIA agent or pawn. The most logical conclusion is to ban Twitter and Dropbox. Coincidentally, these are the media used overwhelmingly by the dissident middle class.”
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// At this point in time being in the spotlight is the only think keeping him alive.
+1
As if Putin would let him to ” crawl into a hole and sit there quietly.” Had Snowden done that, how would the world remember his existence, and America get its nose rubbed in it? Dropbox, Facebook and Google are all American brands.
Exactly when Putin wants to limit freedom in Russian Internet, he enjoys listening to declarations about the evils of USA Internet space. Interesting whether those remarks of Snowden are widely published in Russian press for propaganda purposes.
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Oh come on. Let’s drop this silliness. Putin would never do anything to Snowden. We are intelligent people here, so let’s stop engaging in these weird fantasies.
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I understand the need for hero worship but at this point it has become completely obvious that Snowden is an enthusiastic participant in Putin ‘ s battle against free speech. Snowden is very happy in Russia, licking crumbs off the soles of oligarchs. He has the lavish lifestyle none of us here can hope for.
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I often disagree with you, Cliff Arroyo, but here I think you are almost exactly correct.
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// His stupid blabbering about Dropbox and Facebook is putting actual real live people in extreme danger.
How? I haven’t heard anything about “actual Russians” being in danger because of Snowden’s remarks.
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\\ Putin would never do anything to Snowden.
Why wouldn’t Putin be able to apply pressure in some way, if necessary?
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Yes, “I will limit your access to these expensive strippers!” Horrible danger! Snowden might even have to make do with cheaper strippers for a week. Poor victim!
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You knew his girlfriend is living with him,didn’t you?
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You are trying to post in the wrong thread. Tell me where you wanted the comment to go, and I will move it there.
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Snowdon is living with his girlfriend,so I don’t think Putin is supplying him with strippers.
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I’m really not seeing the connection here. Do you believe that only single people visit strip clubs? 🙂 🙂
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Putin supplies _everyone_ with strippers!
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\\ That’s an approach I respect.
But, could you explain, please, which Russians are in danger? Since you made this claim before.
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Snowden ‘ s interview makes it so much easier to say that everybody who uses Dropbox and Twitter is a CIA agent or pawn. The most logical conclusion is to ban Twitter and Dropbox. Coincidentally, these are the media used overwhelmingly by the dissident middle class.
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I think you attach too much importance to Snowden. Putin could and can make this claim at any time, and ban whatever he wants.
I also don’t believe Russian people will be arrested with “for using Facebook” as an official explanation of the ‘crime.’ It’s too much in today’s world, even for Russia.
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Of course, Putin will do this anyway. But this isn’t an excuse for participating in the atrocity. If we go in this direction, then we can’t blame any individual Gestapo worker. Obviously, Hitler would have done the same thing without any specific individual’s participation. Dies that excuse the individual participants, though?
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By the way, Navalny has already been arrested solely for posting stuff online.
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Hmm, that’s jumping quite a bit further than what Snowden is saying. Not that he’s saying much, or hell, anything that everyone in information security has been saying for years.
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He is eating out of a hand that is repressing free speech and policing the Internet unlike anybody in the world. I understand that he can’t say that openly, I get it. But what a totally Soviet thing to do, criticizing something the US does when the country where you live is doing the same thing times million. This is beyond hypocritical. Yes, he’s got to earn his keep but I reserve the right to have an opinion on his method of making a living.
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Oh, I agree entirely. I was mostly thinking of the technological side of what he’s saying rather than the political implications
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…this, however, is not S.’ fault. I agree with el, below, on this.
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“…this, however, is not S.’ fault. I agree with el, below, on this”
– Of course, the existence of Putin’s regime is not his fault. However, his personal and enthusiastic collaboration with the regime is. I really really don’t see why it is better to support Putin’s assault on free speech in Russia than to support Obama’s assault on free speech in the US. At least, Obama hasn’t jailed any US journalists. Neither has he been shutting down search engines and social networks. Neither has he jailed anybody for using Twitter and WordPress.
What is the value of Snowden’s activities in a battle against a police state when he started supporting a much more brutal police state? Can anybody answer this question?
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The whole thing is very ironic, yes. But the OP was to go somewhere like Ecuador.
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There is no way for us to know what the Op was, what he was thinking, what he wanted to achieve. All we can really know is what we are seeing right now. And we are seeing Snowden as a spokesman for Putin’s policies.
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There’s all sorts of documentation on plans and efforts to be elsewhere.
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Documentation?? That makes it sounds really suspicious.
IN any case, Snowden sold himself to Russia. The only question is whether he did that sooner or later, and that’s not a very interesting question. Really, really bad things are taking place in Russia. And nothing Snowden has achieved in the US justifies participating in the Russian nightmare. Nothing.
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Or, given where my comment placed, el’s above. And Stille, although I still say S. does not have many choices right now and Russia wasn’t his plan.
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“S. does not have many choices right now and Russia wasn’t his plan.”
– First of all, we don’t know what his plan was. As for his choices, there is absolutely no reason to believe he didn’t give this interview of his own free will.
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\\ I understand the need for hero worship
Not me. If his Leaks hurt my country, I would like to kill him myself. That’s why I never joined jeering him on. What do you think of the following view of WikiLeaks?
“The actual effect of WikiLeaks is likely to be profound and precisely the opposite of what it supposedly sets out to achieve. Far from making for a more open world, it could make for a much more closed one. Secrecy, or rather the possibility of secrecy, is not the enemy but the precondition of frankness. WikiLeaks will sow distrust and fear, indeed paranoia; people will be increasingly unwilling to express themselves openly
[…]
The dissolution of the distinction between the private and public spheres was one of the great aims of totalitarianism. Opening and reading other people’s e-mails is not different in principle from opening and reading other people’s letters. In effect, WikiLeaks has assumed the role of censor to the world, a role that requires an astonishing moral grandiosity and arrogance to have assumed. Even if some evils are exposed by it, or some necessary truths aired, the end does not justify the means.”
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon1202td.html
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Cheering, not “jeering.”
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” If his Leaks hurt my country, I would like to kill him myself.”
– In psychoanalytic terms, this means “If you hurt my Mommy, I will kill you.” 🙂 Now let’s translate my “loving a country is insane and dangerous” to psychoanalytic parlance. 🙂 🙂
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\\ Now let’s translate my “loving a country is insane and dangerous” to psychoanalytic parlance.
I am sorry, but I don’t understand how to translate.
\\ – In psychoanalytic terms, this means “If you hurt my Mommy, I will kill you.”
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. 🙂
America and Western European countries are less vulnerable than Israel, imo. Even though Israel has a relatively good economy, others don’t have Middle East conflict and anti-semitism working against them.
Americans, who support Wikileaks, think America will remain the world leader, with or without the leaks. Otherwise, many would change their tunes fast at the first signs of leaks-created damage to themselves (to their pockets, security, etc.)
There is a good chance leaks would hurt Israelis more than Americans, had somebody released the “right” ones.
And, you didn’t express your opinion about his position, or even what you think about the leaks at all. 🙂
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In psychoanalysis, your relationship with your country represents your relationship with your mother and your relationship with God stands for your relationship with you father.
I’m on my way to class so I will have to read the article later.
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“If his Leaks hurt my country, I would like to kill him myself.”
You sound mentally healthy!
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It seems to suit only some people. Those who live “perfectly ordinary” lives.
“In psychoanalysis, your relationship with your country represents your relationship with your mother”
What if you are an immigrant and have several different relationships? What about people who even haven’t made the choice to immigrate, but went with family at relatively young age, like me? (I don’t regret the immigration, but it’s not like I chose it in my young teens.)
“and your relationship with God stands for your relationship with you father.”
What if you have always been an atheist? This approach suits only religious people and probably those who were raised in religious environments.
Do all people from religious families, who become atheists, have a problem with their fathers? Seems something religious fundamentalists would simply love to hear: “your disbelief shows your father hasn’t raised you properly.”
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Most immigrants I know (and I know lots) have a very loving relationship with their country. My colleague from Spain is very happy in the US but he lights up when he talks about Spain, constantly travels tgere, etc. People who escape a repressive regime, for instance, hate the regime but love the country.
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\\ You sound mentally healthy!
Now I will say it without exaggeration: “If his Leaks hurt my country, I would like to see him jailed and thus stopped myself.” Is this mentally healthy?
Of course, I wouldn’t like to see him beheaded, like some my neighbors would love to do to me. And whom Snowden could help with his leaks.
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Nobody wants to see you beheaded. You know that you always freak me put with these comments, right?
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\\ Nobody wants to see you beheaded.
Many Muslims in Gaza and elsewhere would have been delighted to see (an Israeli) Jew beheaded. “Israeli” is in “( )” since
“surveys such as the one that found that 30 percent of British Muslims believe British Jews “legitimate targets,” or another that found that 7 percent of British Muslims (100,000 people, if the results were representative) believe that suicide bombing in Britain is justifiable.”
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2006-08-24td.html
This article is from 2006, but I don’t think things have improved since then. During the Gaza operation and afterwards, there have been Muslim attacks on Jews in Europe and even in USA.
\\ You know that you always freak me put with these comments, right?
🙂 Don’t be freaked out. I am fine so far.
Oi, may be, you haven’t understood that by “my neighbors” I meant “Muslim terrorists.”
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“Don’t be freaked out. I am fine so far. Oi, may be, you haven’t understood that by “my neighbors” I meant “Muslim terrorists.””
– Autistic here, right? Taking everything very very literally.
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Don’t remember whether you have written on the topic, but I can see some connection to supporting Snowden in the following quote.
In his review of “The Only Superpower: Reflections on Strength, Weakness, and Anti-Americanism” by Paul Hollander (a sociologist), THEODORE DALRYMPLE reports:
“America, he notes in The Only Superpower, is seen as the most modern of all countries, in the vanguard of almost everything, so all the discontents and disappointments of modernity—which are many, serious, and often contradictory—are laid at its door. For Hollander, anti-Americanism is a form of inverted utopianism: if it weren’t for America, mankind would be living in a latter-day Garden of Eden.”
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/bc0427td.html
Snowden is seen as somebody who will turn this dream of utopia into reality via the magical wand, aka WikiLeaks.
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Sounds like a book I really want to read. The review, at least, sounds fascinating.
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\\ Sounds like a book I really want to read. The review, at least, sounds fascinating.
I am glad you found some his posts interesting. Now I feel free to link two more reviews:
Zadie Smith’s London
The novelist explores the tensions of living in a multicultural city.
http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_1_otbie-multicultural-london.html
Modernists in Medieval Clothing
Kenan Malik traces Islamic terror to twentieth-century influences.
A review of “From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy” by Kenan Malik
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/bc0716td.html
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\\ What is the value of Snowden’s activities in a battle against a police state when he started supporting a much more brutal police state?
Depends on one’s pov. From one ideological position, the value is zero or even negative, since Putin is worse than Obama.
From another position, the value is positive since
1. Everybody understands Snowden is a puppet now, and doesn’t pay attention to declarations made under duress. Including many Russians. (Other Russians listen only to Putin anyway and/or haven’t ever cared about Snowden.)
Btw, I read Russian blogs and don’t remember seeing there any mention of Snowden. Ditto about Russian news I heard. Do people on the street in Russia hear / think about him at all?
2. Putin would’ve done everything he wants anyway, while American political system is more democratic and can be improved due to Wikileaks. In practice, he did zero harm in Russia and some good in America.
My personal guess is that Snowden had zero real influence on anything, except entertaining some people and making others, including some politicians, slightly uncomfortable.
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Are you aware of how much Putin ‘ s propaganda has been harping on and on about Snowden? His defection has promoted the anti – American cause in Russia enormously. And his collaboration with the regime is being used as an argument all the time. The argument in question is “Well, if we were a police state, would Snowden be so happy living here? Even Americans are fleeing the horrible US.”
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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