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Comment by facetube | Hacker News Reader

Osama Bin Laden avoided electronic communication well before the NSA's illegal domestic spying activities were revealed. He passed notes and relied on trusted couriers. This is nothing but political opportunism.

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Right, but did that rigor go down to the field? Unlikely that his rigor would percolate all the way down, however with it now being common knowledge rather than paranoia most anyone downstream would also observe the same paranoia due to the revelations.

Snowden just provided the proof. It was already common knowledge that the government had massive communications monitoring programs. They were building an enormous data center, and previous programs had been uncovered.

It was not common knowledge and even those who were paranoid typically were sloppy with their implementations, but given they know they are targeted and the tools since developed to counteract this new reality, now rigorous communications security is easy, no special knowledge required.

Lots of people talked about it and were dismissed as tin foil hat wearers. Likewise RMS has warned about a lot of stuff that slowly seems to be coming a reality, yet he is still dismissed as a bit of a nutter.

This isn't true.

The NSA had bin laden's sat-phone line in the 90s. I've seen documentaries on it.

Yes, in the 90s. After 2001, Bin Laden switched to couriers, which is one reason he was so hard to catch.

Snowden confirmed the extent of NSA surveillance in 2013.

So that's 12 years for which the GP's statement was true.

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