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benevol

I'm not sure the problem is a lack of leaking solutions that we can trust, especially as long as WikiLeaks is around.

The problem I see is that there will be no more important leaks:

a) Given how around 50% the US population was brainwashed by government and media into believing Snowden is a traitor,

b) Given the fact that America has elected a president who wants Snowden executed,

c) Given that the NSA has locked down their systems completely since Snowden's revelations.

Who would want to take these risks to leak anything just to be put on "the list" by their own country and People?

If Snowden's leaks were not enough to get people thinking then the only thing that will is serious pain and suffering. And that is what I personally expect to come (for the lower and middle class, at least).

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I'm kind of split on Snowden. I think he had noble intentions with it, but I worry that he disclosed more than was pertinent to the surveillance state-ish aspects he was trying to blow the whistle on. Do I think he's a traitor? No, only because in my view there really needs to be some malice on the part of the person to be a true traitor. I think he's a well intentioned guy that, again, released too much.

But pretending that the government is totally locked down, I don't think that eliminates the need for tools for whistleblowing. Look at Enron. The ability for truly anonymous leaking wasn't a real thing at that point. Maybe the lady would have released the information externally about the company's practices had there been something in place to allow her to do so with plausible deniability? Maybe the possibility that someone could leak info now with plausible deniability acts as a means to help guide a current company's moral compass?

I read a post on HN a while back about how the government occasionally allows leaks/is tolerant of them because sometimes they use leaks to their advantage for altering public perception, and they won't be able to do that if there aren't occasional legitimate leaks.

when you've got game theorists and all sorts of mathematicians staffing the NSA/other think tanks you're going to wind up with all sorts of first-bluff odd tactics

Mind you, there are other things US citizens would want to safely/anonymously leak info on, besides their government (e.g. corporate malfeasance), in which cases the Snowden reaction does not have the same chilling effect.

And there are people living in other countries who want to leak things about their governments (or corporations), too; what the US thinks about leaks doesn't matter much to them.

>Given that the NSA has locked down their systems completely since Snowden's revelations.

Are you sure about that? NSA has been leaking far more recently than in the past. The Shadow Brokers are just one of many. Not to mention, the intercepted signals that are being talked about through the news with the Trump presidency.

> a) Given how around 50% the US population was brainwashed by government and media into believing Snowden is a traitor,

That means there's about 159 million people who don't believe he's a traitor.

> b) Given the fact that America has elected a president who wants Snowden executed,

?? Most whistleblowers don't plan to get outed, do they?

> c) Given that the NSA has locked down their systems completely since Snowden's revelations.

If there's one thing I've learned, any system can be considered "locked down", right up until the point that it isn't.

And people need to have access to the data for it to be of any use, right?

>Given how around 50% the US population was brainwashed by government and media into believing Snowden is a traitor

It's unfortunate that you jump to the conclusion that those you disagree with are "brainwashed". There are reasons to think he was a whistle blower with good intentions. But there are also reasons, like his leaks of the US government's unquestionably legitimate surveillance of foreign governments, to think he was not. Someone on the other side of the debate could just as well call you brainwashed for discounting or not considering the latter point.

Agh the old "questioning American hegemony, therefore traitor" act. Please enlighten me how spying on virtually every single government on the planet (ally or not) is "unquestionably legitimate".

So long as there is no world government with a monopoly on violence, that's just the way the game works. And it's not really anything to do with American hegemony in particular. Every country seeks to maximize its own power relative to others. Espionage is just one tool toward that end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relatio...

And while you may believe with good reason that an individual should have higher loyalties (perhaps to humanity as a whole) than to his nation state, the legal codes of the nation states obviously cannot endorse that view, as it would be destructive of their own power and their competitors will not be so altruistic.

> Given how around 50% the US population was brainwashed by government and media into believing Snowden is a traitor,

"brainwashed" seems a bit much. I have mixed feelings on the guy. Unfortunately he carried a ton of information and there is no way to completely guarantee he didn't give it to, say, China or Russia or anyone else nor is there any guarantee that the reporters didn't in turn give it to an adversarial.

I get that the privacy conversations that he sparked were great. I'm just not sold on him being all rainbows and sunshine either.

> Given that the NSA has locked down their systems completely since Snowden's revelations.

I would disagree with this assessment but I guess it depends on what you mean by "locked down".

> I'm not sure the problem is a lack of leaking solutions that we can trust, especially as long as WikiLeaks is around.

You still trust WikiLeaks?

As long as Assange is in control, absolutely. Currently, nobody beats the level of commitment that people like Assange and Snowden have proven.

I still support Wikileaks.

What has WikiLeaks done to lose trust?

Are you talking about the trumped-up completely bogus rape case?

I think that recent events have shown that leaks are still very much viable, and anything that can aid in the release of actual data as opposed to first-hand accounts in invaluable.

Also, anything that helps keep leaked data away from Wikileaks is a good thing. I wouldn't trust them any more. At all.

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