Halp Do you think Edward Snowden did something good or bad overall?

The one saving grace is that they are apparently saving EVERYTHING. That's just as useless as saving nothing.

That's not true. First they decide who the "bad guy" is, then they go through that person's data and build a case. It basically allows them to do the same thing that post production does for so-called-reality-tv: create any narrative they want.
 
That's not true. First they decide who the "bad guy" is, then they go through that person's data and build a case. It basically allows them to do the same thing that post production does for so-called-reality-tv: create any narrative they want.

Yeah, and it seems like a lot of the time the bad guy is determined AFTER he does something.
 
Yeah, and it seems like a lot of the time the bad guy is determined AFTER he does something.

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confirmation bias. People who dont understand the basic rationale of security. You dont see the successes because the successes mean that you prevented something and it DIDNT happen.

Possibly. But that's also a great excuse to let this shit happen, right?
 
Its not an excuse. Bad shit happens every day, you dont hear about it. Fact.

The reason you dont hear about it, is because its not beneficial to society for people to live in fear knowing that people are trying to hurt them.
 
they fearmonger enough as is. I have no idea what you want to explain, but we dont need them to have 24 hour news cycle of the latest asshole trying to blow people up, when he didnt actually get to do it, because people stopped him.
 
they fearmonger enough as is. I have no idea what you want to explain, but we dont need them to have 24 hour news cycle of the latest asshole trying to blow people up, when he didnt actually get to do it, because people stopped him.

I saw a cop/soldier/whatever in Penn Station once going over a drink cup that was left on the floor with some sort of elaborate kit. If there were a headline generated from this it would read something like, "Suspicious item neutralized in Penn Station." It sure sounds like something was prevented, but the reality is that expensive man hours and consumable items were lavished on litter.
 
confirmation bias. People who dont understand the basic rationale of security. You dont see the successes because the successes mean that you prevented something and it DIDNT happen.

I'm not sure you understood my question. I wasn't sure what he was saying with that statement.

The problem remains that even though I know threats are being prevented I also know that abuses of power and resources happen all the time and that a lot of times threats are made much bigger than they really are. Sometimes this is to prevent the threat from actually getting bigger, sometimes it's to justify one's work but the fact remains that the American public has no oversight on the actions of its government in the event that it violates basic civil rights.
 
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If true, then Snowden probably did more harm than good. However, I think it's probably more likely that this kind of stuff actually does go on all them time. In the end, its really all about money and power.

I have neither.

Team Snowden.