My Muslim friend who is otherwise a nice guy told me how after Snowden incident some of his friends are avoiding him on all electronic media.

I don't follow him on Twitter because I don't want to get hassled when I go through US customs since I'm from another country (NZ).

I don't go to the US because I don't want to get hassled when I go through US immigration. Shame, as my father, cousins, and half-siblings live out there - he's a US citizen and has been held at immigration over my facebook posts.

I cower in fear every day cause my grandparents were born in a foreign country.

Oh, I don't so much fear travel to the US so much as I'd just rather not reward their behaviour with my oh-so-esteemed presence.

Exactly. If fear of handful of terrorists have made our communities this corrupt then sadly looks like the terrorists have won in shaking the very foundation of western societies. This decay is slow but more like cancer it gives slow death to a civilization.

It's pretty clear that Al-Qaeda etc accomplished at least some of their goals. The 9/11 attack drew the US into Afghanistan and Iraq. And chaos in Iraq has been a huge factor in the growth of ISIS. 9/11 has also corroded respect for the US Constitution. The CIA got into torture, and the NSA maxed out its intercept and analysis capabilities.

So yes, it "sadly looks like the terrorists have won" :(

Edit: Deleted "('just a piece of paper' according to W)".

mirimir, that W quote is false.

http://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/bush-the-constitution-a-god...

Please check your facts before spreading false rumors. Thanks!

I'm going from memory. That quote was in the news, at the time. But yes, http://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/bush-the-constitution-a-god... tells me that it's probably bogus.

Thanks :)

While we're all busy checking our facts, the site you linked to does not state the quote is "false", it says it is "extremely unlikely".

It says it is "extremely unlikely" in the second line. If you read slightly further you will see:

> We judge that the odds that the report is accurate hover near zero. It comes from Capitol Hill Blue...

> Update, Feb. 21, 2011: The author of the Capitol Hill Blue story has now withdrawn it.

> If you read slightly further you will see:

Good point. Because I mentioned two words that appear at the top of the page, that means I obviously didn't read any further.

If you read the article you'll know that nowhere does it say false, as the other poster claimed.

Why don't they say it's false, if it's false? What's stopping them?

The fact that someone eventually removes something from their site does not mean it was false.

Someone using the contrived sentence "the odds that the report is accurate hover near zero" - rather than just saying "it's false" - also does not make it false.

I don't believe it happened either - sorry if you used your 500+ karma because I didn't issue a disclaimer to that effect - but that also doesn't mean it's false.

My point was about someone whining about getting facts right, by linking to an aticle that bends over backwards to not say what they think it says.

So, 5-10 years on, will people be claiming that Romney didn't diss Obama supporters in 2012? There is that video clip. But by then, it could probably have been faked. Reality is such an ephemeral thing.

Two million people follow Edward Snowden on Twitter... media personalities and people the US government are definitely watching anyway, and plenty of "normal" hangers on. I haven't seen or heard stories of anyone getting harassed over it.

I think maybe you're engaging in a ridiculous level of paranoia.

Paranoia is an entirely healthy response to this heinous intrusion into our human rights.

My anecdote - I'm Australian, lived in USA for decades, moved to Europe after 9/11. Every time I visit the USA it is an hours-long ordeal to explain, in fine detail, why I have the views I have, why I follow Snowden, why I participate in European hacker cultures, why my laptop is covered in security-conference-related stickers, etc. etc. During this process there is always the implied threat of imprisonment without due process. All my stuff is gone through. They find nothing, because I am not a threat in any way, other than that I freely associate with those aspects of society and culture which 'the mainstream' find mysterious, confusing, and scary.

So, I don't go to the USA much. Its about as much fun to get there as driving into a brick wall.

I've heard these stories before but every time I stand in awe as if it's the first time(I've never traveled to US and I'll never will).

Do they ask you about your FB/Twitter account or do they already know them?

They look me up on Facebook right then and there .. just type in my name, look at my friends, see my connections. I'm connected, in some ways, with quite some movers and shakers in the security space, and I suppose there are alarm-bells in such a scenario. I dunno, it just feels so rude, intrusive, and backwards. I had a great time when I lived in the USA - now I just think of it as a sad, sad place. It lost its soul.

Wow. I'm getting infuriated just at the thought of it. And yet, were I in the same spot, I'd suspect I would shut my mouth and take it, out of fear I might end up in Guantanamo or whatnot :D

Its surely no fun when all you've thought about for 30+ hours of traveling is that great American burger .. I don't know if it will ever change in my lifetime, but it sure is a pity that I remember a kinder, gentler America.

As a citizen of the US, I find this subthread a bit 'crazy town' and nobody I know would believe this story. Perhaps you are an extraordinary case? To be clear, I'm not saying your story is untrue, but such claims require some proof before you will get people to make an issue of this problem you allege.

Part of the problem with your state is that its citizens are too gullible and too naive and don't dig deeper because they've gotten used to things having a 'normal state', and all of this is all 'too fantastic and weird'.

You may not ever have experienced what I've described, but it happens every single day, time and again. You can find others' reports if you care to look for yourself .. my anecdote only has relevance if it serves to make you, an American citizen, truly contemplate what you have allowed to occur in your name. The security nightmare is real for a lot of people.

I don't mean to be rude, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's the best we have and it won't be easy, but my neighbor thinks there are aliens hovering over our houses once per month (his phone can't record it for some reason)...

Your condescending attitude is worse than being rude. Your ignorance is astounding too.

BTW, I left you the, surprisingly hard(took me 3 minutes) to find, evidence you asked in the other comment.

The problem is, your states' security apparatus has all the means it needs to hide the evidence... by design.

As a citizen of the world I'm stunned that nobody you know would believe that story.

A 5 minute search on the Internet would be... enough?

As if all similar stories are part of some global conspiracy?

Like... you only know how good, efficient and super cool the people at the TSA are?

Really?

There are many things claimed on the internet, but they are not all true. If you would like to explicitly link to a claim you think is valid, please do. Otherwise your comment reads like, "Oh yeah, I read it on the internet!"

As an American citizen, you have the responsibility to get educated about the simple facts and not ask of others to do that for you.

Laura Poitras is an American citizen too. Is she credible enough for you? Can you tell me what are her thoughts on the TSA?

No? Do you even care? If you do care, then put the effort to learn what is already accessible to you. Otherwise what's the point in engaging in discussions with comments "oh yeah you read it on the Internet derp derp"

Here, have a freebie from Bruce Schneier: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/04/hacker_detain...

EDIT: it seems, when facts come in, downvotes are cast! Ouch. It burns

> I think maybe you're engaging in a ridiculous level of paranoia.

One of the interesting effects of the Snowden revelations was how what is considered "paranoid" changed.

Pre-Snowden, if you thought that the USA government was definitly spying on everyone, you'd be considered a bit paranoid.

And well... Snowden told us those paranoid people were right...

To many people, I'm sure. But to anyone following certain organizations (the EFF comes to mind), Snowden basically "pulled the curtains open" on what was somewhat known for quite some time (perhaps not to the depth that Snowden revealed, but people knew that there was some computer surveillance going on before Snowden.)

The EFF has a timeline of quotes / stories that basically extend back to the September 11th attacks.

https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline

I personally don't think paranoia, though. To me, this whole collecting data on everyone instead of targeted individuals is more this: a huge data storage that is both subject to both internal abuse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT) and data leaks (Snowden); a wasteful process that didn't really stop a lot of terrorist attacks (eg, San Bernadino, the Boston Marathon bombings, Fort Hood, the Charleston church, etc.); a process that damaged America's reputation considerably (even from a pure business perspective); etc. Honestly, the NSA spying appears to end up being a colossal waste of resources and a general failure overall.

If some NSA database records this opinion, good. :)

Rewatching "Enemy of the State" a short while ago reminded me of this idea.

"I think maybe you're engaging in a ridiculous level of paranoia."

But this is the whole point... people change their behaviour because of fear of being persecuted, it may seem irrational and paranoid to some looking in with certain beliefs about what constitutes a risk, but it is entirely understandable and this is the negative effect of governments that spy on their citizens to mark them as threats.

For someone who is on H1B and under GC processing this matter a lot more because they are under additional scrutiny.

> I think maybe you're engaging in a ridiculous level of paranoia.

Not at all, what we're trying to do is quantify what is the appropriate level of paranoia. As others have pointed out, (see sibling comment by rmc) it turns out that some people why were previously considered far too paranoid turned out to be right.

Most of the people got me wrong. My muslim friend said that people stopped following him (muslim friend) and not about Snowden.

According to him the immigration can look at your social graph see how many Muslim friends your have can their system can raise red flags for you based on that so a lot of people avoid muslims.

If they do harass you, you won't know that it's related to this. Also, it could only trigger I'm certain combinations with other things.

I think the op meant they were avoiding the Muslim friend and not Snowden's Twitter.

[nevermind, was confused, sorry]

I think he meant he doesn't follow Snowden

I don't think so. Who was following Snowden before the leaks?

CBP has hassled me over having a book on Korean and a documentary about Hitler.

It's not necessarily racist if someone was overly nervous and hid friends, especially if they were non-Arab and notably Islamic (since Muslim isn't a race). Though the chance of a random CBP agent having a bad day probably dominates your threat profile unless.you're otherwise really notable.

If I was going to, say, China, I might hide friends that were pro-evangelizing their religion. Fortunately I don't use social media.

Very. The panopticon works.