Again, I'm not arguing for increased security, just for understanding the way others use language.
The oncologist deals with the consequences of the observation: communicate with the patient, gives advices on treatments, makes a therapy plan, deals with families, answer to their questions, takes the hit when the relatives think that the solution is not good enough or an Indian shaman could cure everything with snake's poison.
Snowden have done good, but escaped from the consequences of his actions.
A position that made everything he's done questionable
Had he faced a trial, even the most unfair of trials, would have put him in the position of being at least true to the values he was trying to protect.
Question the authority, suffer the consequences.
Question the authority, go to Russia is not what generally the public opinion accepts as "honest".
There is much to say also about who leaked the data but didn't protect the source.
The identity of deep throat has been made public after Nixon was already dead for years and Mark Felt was already an old man suffering from dementia.
I’m pretty sure questioning the authority without fear of retaliation is what the first amendment is supposed to be about. But that aside, your phrasing is a bit misleading. Snowden didn’t question the government. He exposed illegal activities by the government.
I find it interesting that you posit Deep Throat's approach as somehow more noble. If Snowden had anonymously leaked and kept on working would that have been less questionable or more honest?
This is a good point. In an ideal world their job would be less...complicated. So our job as intelligent, capable citizens is to make the system more ideal for them to do their duties.
Making a "captive workforce" out of AI tools and robots is, to me, the ideal solution. Either way it's inevitable. Since no one else will, I'm trying to get out ahead with thoughtful early planning. Communicating a common goal for the nation without fear is the way to get the technology into the hands of the right people. It's up to us, the intelligent and "good people" communicators, to push for it.
Very true. For example I think Marx did a great analysis but his solutions lacked. Same happens often in medicine. People who observe something are asked to also explain it. But if they can’t explain the observation it doesn’t mean the observation is wrong.
The problem is how to be sure the line get not crossed ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-Observation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Camelot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Abandoned_military_pr...
I guess one could also argue for calm on the basis that the Stasi once existed and these days East Germany is an okay place.
And the solutions to these issues are perfectly well known: the intelligence agencies need to be curtailed and reined in, and their ability to indefinitely store massive reams of data about every private citizen brought to an end.
They always has been overreach. This is not new.
Snowden is pointing out an issue. And he has done it with courage that I massively respect. You hardly see it these days. And that makes it anxiety and fear inducing, as the solutions are unknown.
But think of it this way - tomorrow someone might hand you a diagnosis of cancer. You can freak out about it or you can find a Cancer specialist to see what options are available. Asking the technician who gave you the report what the odds are, doesn't make any sense. He knows only how to create the report.
In this case just look to history, to understand how these things play out. History is the Oncologist.
Intelligence agencies have hard problems to deal with. On top of it, they are giant bureaucracies which means cockups, incompetence, turf wars, hiding issues are the norm. All that amplifies the problems, causes defensiveness, over-reactions and reactions to reactions.
If you read the history (and these days there are tons of resources) this sequence of events (of overreach) has unfolded a thousand times. There are a whole bunch programmes that have been shutdown because one group or the other got carried away or did damage. That history (in out current environment of over information/disinformation/misinformation) is what will always be a source of hope and faith.