cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48428963
I personally do, he actually risked his life to release information about the government spying on people. And there are for sure more advanced ways now. Even your phone is listening.
Always, he is a real hero <3
He gave people information that they otherwise wouldn’t have, regarding the surveillance state at the time. Definitely good for the common person, bad for the government.
I do wish there was more done about it. It seems like not enough happened and now things are even worse with the thousands of internet trackers, Google, Meta, Flock, etc… We needed some kind of privacy protections but we didn’t get enough and now we’re here, on platforms like Lemmy, avoiding the all-knowing algorithm as much as possible.
How did we go from “Ahh! The government can listen to our phonecalls and read our emails!” to “Sure Big Tech, train your AI on my personal photos, location, usage habits, and manipulate my internet experience for profit! Please do!!!”
He’s a hero solely for trying to save Atari Teenage Riot.
It’s sad that only 10% of the data he leaked ever made it to the public. From what I’ve read, the unreleased stuff has been lost. I could be wrong and don’t have a source handy for that.
I’d let him hide out in my apartment.
Man that band has gone off the rails these last few years. Last time I checked they (or just Alec?) were shilling NFTs lol
What’s the link between ATR and Snowden though?
Strange that I can’t find anything about it online anymore. I swear I read once that Snowden used ATR as a cover by travelling with them, or had a song of theirs play as a signal to a Wikileaks contact when making a drop of leaked data or something along those lines. Pretty sure Snowden has stated he liked the band a lot too but can’t find that either.
All I found was that their album Reset was based of Snowden’s revelations. I want to believe there is more to it than that, but I admit I may be wrong. My mind may have fabricated this info, it hasn’t been the first time but it doesn’t feel like that, I’m fairly certain I read about a connection before.
More likely, the article I read has been purged from the internet or is being blacklisted from search engines, which I’m sure sounds like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, so easily could be true these days.
I don’t really believe in the concept of ‘heroes’ as in unquestionably good people who are to be emulated, but there are people of commendable moral principles, actions, and character that are worth noting.
His actions were unquestionably noble and effective in revealing the depth of surveillance of statesian citizens by a government many of them trusted, but mistakes in how that data was passed to journalists are also worth noting so such actions aren’t self-sacrificing. He’d be more useful continuing to expose how that continues and has gotten worse, and simultaneously deserves a more comfortable life for his efforts. But he was also young and from my interpretation of my reading seemed to almost accidentally find himself at BAH. If someone more experienced and guided by good handlers were involved, his results could have been multiplied, and his efforts better rewarded.
He is. This shouldn’t even be a question.
unquestionably yes.
Is the Pope catholic?
What a loaded question. Hero is such a poorly defined yet super high bar. Firefighters who die rescuing children don’t even typically want to be called a hero. This just sets up people to say no and muddy the water.
Did he stand up for democracy and transparency and rule of law? Yes. Did he suffer for his actions from powerful people more concerns for the political harm caused by the exposure of illegal actions? Yes.
Did he do everything right? No, he’s human, and wasnt asking to be lionized or elected anything. He wanted people to look at the materials and demand change from governments. He didn’t get what he wanted, and ended up stuck in Russia, where people can dismiss him as just a traitor, so no, he didn’t do everything right. He could have also thrown himself on the mercy of the American justice system, no matter how doomed that would be. But he’s human, so I don’t expect suicide.
No such things as heroes
Yeah, gonna go against the grain and say he’s a self-centered douchebag who made everything worse. He didn’t “risk his life”. He risked life in prison - and defected to a MUCH worse country for very, very, very stupid reasons. Any “I did it for freedom” excuses he spouted, or that you ascribe to him, are public relations bullshit.
If he had any integrity he’d have just gone to jail. Instead he went to fucking Putin, like THAT’S supporting freedom.
I’ll just address one of the many incorrect things you’ve said, in that this assumption that he “defected to Russia” is utter nonsense. He was trying to get to I believe Ecuador and his passport was revoked while in the Moscow airport. He effectively lived in the airport for about a month IIRC (it’s been a long time since I’ve had to debunk this BS) before Putin granted him asylum.
Bottom line, he’s not in Russia by choice. He’s effectively trapped there, unable to travel, until the US State Department overturns the ban.
yeah, people get snowden and assange confused and that’s a damn shame
You are expecting someone to commit suicide for their values. Thats what life in prison under unjust prosecution is. He would expect to die there, alone.
Yeah, thats the most moral stance he could have taken, but he also didn’t ask us to put our trust in him. He’s not a politician. Those people DO ask us to put our trust in their character and ethics and were demonstrably shown to be lacking when illegal spying was clearly present.
All he asked for was for people to look at the evidence he presented and demand rule of law. He could be a puppy killer, and it wouldn’t matter. He didn’t ask to be elected to anything or put in charge of anything, and he acted like a self-serving human being in the end.
If America lives up to the claim of being just, it didn’t seem to look like it in this case. The instant and well funded propaganda campaign against him was not an indication it would be a case of blind justice.
and defected to a MUCH worse country
Why do you actually think this? Obviously you believe the war in Ukraine was unprovoked and evil, but like, the US does unprovoked and evil wars far more often. The US has far more people in its prisons, and kills more people through both military and economic warfare. The US supports Israel and UAE in their barbarism, while Russia supports anti-colonial governments in the Sahel region (for cynical reasons, because those movements are kicking out the US and France, but the motivations don’t change the results).
Based on the sheer numbers, Russia is at least the lesser evil. The US is still the Great Satan.
He didn’t “risk his life”. He risked life in prison
American prisons, famous for their safety
Of course. If you risk your life and freedom for the greater good on your own account you sure are a hero.
Yup, a hero. Sacrificed himself for a greater good.
Scary thing is he didnt really accomplish much with his sacrifies. NSA is much scarier today and things just goes on.
I don’t think so, while the impact wasn’t as great as he and other people wished, it nonetheless had a big impact, many people started to care, just because of what he exposed.
If it weren’t for him the majority would’ve been still thinking gov spying on citizens is a conspiracy theory hhhhh
I think he had as much impact as anyone in his position could possibly have, if not way above average for a whistleblower.
The problem is that the public quickly turned on him, in no small part due to the PR strategy of those who DO have the power to change this. And most of the public shrugged and said what are we gonna do?
His contribution was proof that suspected domestic spying under the guise of homeland security was being widely misused. Which is a violation of YOUR constitutional rights. Of course anyone paying attention suspected it before, but he brought receipts. Many people think he should be in jail or worse because of this.
Unless he’s lying, and I don’t think he has been shown to lie, he did attempt to use proper channels. The media has historically been called the 4th branch of government for a reason - and ultimately that’s where he turned.
The man effectively lost much of his freedom and the people he did it for were unable to take it any further.
We are learning as a species that public relations (messaging, propaganda, whatever) is effective, and when the ownership class can put trillions into controlling the masses, it works.
I’d like to think there’s a counter for it, but the worker class seems to be willing to suffer a lot of misery so long as someone else is suffering more than they are.
If we could function like ants… Sacrifice 10% to save the 90%, that would be a net gain for the species. But nobody is voluntarily signing up to be in that 10% 😅
Perhaps that’s both a feature and a bug of humanity
If he isn’t a hero to you, I question you as a person.
