There’s a diary on the rec list which is receiving a lot of ridicule by the usual suspects and very little serious discussion.
You can blame the diarist (and I’ve seen a movement now among the Very Serious Bloggers that popular diaries appearing on the rec list are WRECKING this blog!), as the diary itself doesn’t go into much detail as to this tweet from Edward Snowden:
Maybe it would be a good idea to have some more information on what Snowden was talking about while he was watching the latest Democratic debate.
This Rolling Stone article gives some explanation. It’s short, so I will only quote two paragraphs:
… it was troubling Saturday evening to hear Clinton's response to a question about the power of high technology to ensure privacy. Blasting "encrypted communication that no law enforcement agency can break into," Clinton said, "I would hope that, given the extraordinary capacities that the tech community has and the legitimate needs and questions from law enforcement, that there could be a Manhattan-like project — something that would bring the government and the tech communities together to see they're not adversaries, they've got to be partners."
Clinton's Big Brotherish proposal was as troubling as it was vague. And it seemed stubbornly resistant to the reality that America's tech firms have shifted to powerful encryption — precisely in the wake of Snowden's revelations — as a way to reassure consumers around the globe that they are not tools of the American surveillance state.
I know there are many people here at Daily Kos who despise Snowden and throw around a lot of unfounded garbage about him — that he still has endless data that is dangerous to the US, he gave Russia information; all accusations without one shred of proof — the hatred is visceral and I don’t share it. I oppose it. Without Snowden’s revelations, we never would have had proof of the kind of illegal spying our own government has used on its citizens, proof that directly led to Federal Judge Richard Leon's ruling that this spying was unconstitutional:
Reiterating his prior ruling which found the U.S. government's surveillance of civilians' telephone records to be unconstitutional—"Orwellian," even—a federal judge on Monday ordered the National Security Agency to halt its bulk collection program.
"This court simply cannot, and will not, allow the government to trump the Constitution merely because it suits the exigencies of the moment," Judge Richard Leon wrote in his 43-page decision in the case Klayman v. Obama.
We still have a long way to go when it comes to fighting the “Orwellian” tendency of our security agencies to put their notion of security ahead of our privacy and our freedom. Sadly, too many people are willing to give up their privacy, believing they will be safer if they do so. Thus far we haven’t seen any proof of this and plenty of proof to the contrary. Making the haystack bigger doesn’t make finding the needle any easier.
I believe it was at the second debate that Bernie Sanders spoke about Edward Snowden and although I wasn’t completely happy about his comments, at least he noted that Snowden did bring forth important information we would not otherwise have obtained and that should mitigate any punitive action the US would take against him.
As far as Bernie’s official stance on the issue:
Bernie Sanders believes that increasingly omnipresent mass surveillance and attempts to undermine net neutrality are corrosive to democracy in America. He has voted against the Patriot Act and opposes warrantless wiretapping. In regards to net neutrality, he has co-sponsored and introduced legislation in favor of an open Internet.
Mass Surveillance: Mass surveillance should be curtailed, occurring only when the government follows due process, obtains warrants, and adheres to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
I realize the above is very general and I feel no matter who becomes President, those of us who believe that our right to privacy is directly related to our freedom as citizens and human beings are going to have to continue fighting against the powers that be, for no matter who becomes president, an enormous amount of pressure from the NSA, CIA, etc., will be put on — and we will have to deal with that.
But yeah, I think Edward Snowden made a good observation about Hillary’s willingness to go along with our compromised security agencies in asking tech companies to be “partners” with groups like the NSA and CIA, and especially when it comes to encryption.
I know it’s silly season and tempers are at the boil — I also know that Daily Kos as a whole has never been quite on the same page as those of us who believe this is an extremely important issue.
We know now that activists of all kinds are being spied upon, from Black Lives Matter to environmental activists.
Regardless of what you think of Snowden, this is an important issue that will no doubt be buried during this campaign season — especially as we hear the drum beating about more terrorism and “be afraid” messages flood our media.
I hope that those of us who value privacy and freedom don’t get distracted by those drum beats.