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Comment by JacksonGariety | Hacker News Reader

My (very liberal) mother asked me today if I had read David Brooks' piece on Snowden.

I said I had and she told me that she agrees with the government surveillance and told me Snowden was a traitor to the American people.

I said, "You support PRISM?!"

She said, "What's PRISM?"

People have no idea. All they know is Snowden, Snowden, Snowden...

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I support PRISM and don't think Snowden is a traitor. Is that opinion acceptable?

PRISM can't be dismantled, for the same reason no one on the planet has figured out how to dismantle nuclear arsenals. The other guy is doing it too.

Any opinion is acceptable, and in this case the 2 aren't mutually exclusive. Although "but the other guy is doing it too" sound like a bad excuse. This kind of thinking typically leads to escalation. So before using "the other..." better be very very sure it's worth it.

Ofcourse it leads to escalation. What do you think the reaction outside the US to PRISM is? Are other governments, now that they know the extent to what the US is upto, going to reduce data collection and strengthen privacy laws?

Give me a break.

This is not comparable at all. Nuclear arsenals cannot be dismantled because of the benefits of MAD and the other guy might be considered in a position of force.

In our case, PRISM can be dismantled without the other guy (i.e the population) retaliating in any way or any enemy country gaining any advantage out of that.

It won't happen. Data today holds the same value as nukes during the cold war. A whole lot of intellectual and emotional evolution has to occur, across entire populations, before dismantling either becomes feasible.

I have a feeling this incident is going to start a big data arms race, mostly because, many governments in other country are going to start investing in their own NSA's.

The only thing that can control it, is the economics involved.

It won't happen. Data today holds the same value as nukes during the cold war

That is so true. Remember that last DPRK scare? "North Korea builds server farm" they screamed. Seems that any time the DPRK needs some attention, they just announce a test of their number-crunching machines.

Lacking much imagination. DPRK don't need a server farm just a pen drive from St. Petersburg.

And yet the news never says "DPRK buy pen drive" but only "DPRK closer to nuclear weapons with global reach".

I support PRISM but thing Snowden committed a crime, specifically unauthorized disclosure of classified information, which falls under the umbrella colloquially known as "treason."

The latter is a matter of definition IMHO. But I applaud you for speaking out. It seems like the groupthink reigns on this one, and nobody seems to realize that they may have had a damn good reason for doing what they did. For example, if monitoring the Internet can avoid actual ground conflicts by early intervention, saving lives on both sides of the conflict -- is that really a bad thing?

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