Steve Wozniak Calls Edward Snowden a ‘Total Hero’

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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If there’s one constant in the universe it would be the straight talk we get from Steve Wozniak. The Woz pulls no punches, but talks straight from his gut. When queried by the media on his thought about Edward Snowden and the NSA disclosures, Woz didn’t hesitate to praise Snowden for his personal sacrifice.

So he’s a hero to me, because he gave up his own life to do it, Wozniak added. And he was a young person, to give up his life. But he did it for reasons of trying to help the rest of us and not just mess up a company he didn’t like.
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The problem I see is that public opinion clearly backs Woz, and with a representative government that is supposed to enact the will of the people... why is this even a problem? There's treason and then there's whistle-blowing, and this was clearly a case of the latter.
 
Dang, guess I'm the only one here who doesn't share the opinion of Woz and the rest of you. :(
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Dang, guess I'm the only one here who doesn't share the opinion of Woz and the rest of you. :(
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You don't think that at least in his own mind that he was whistle blowing? What gain was he otherwise seeking, or do you think that he secretly hates the country and was trying to harm it, and what do you base that on?
 
Does Woz think similarly about Chelsea Manning? I don't follow this all too closely; I'm curious what the difference is.
 
Don't know Woz's thinking on He/She Manning, but I think Snowden is the Paul Revere of the digital age. Check out Greenwald's book about the Snowden case. Pretty fascinating reading.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Dang, guess I'm the only one here who doesn't share the opinion of Woz and the rest of you. :(
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You're not the only one. I'm a big Woz fan but this might be the only thing he's ever said that I disagree with.



Ducman69 said:
You don't think that at least in his own mind that he was whistle blowing? What gain was he otherwise seeking, or do you think that he secretly hates the country and was trying to harm it, and what do you base that on?
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I don't know what his intentions were, but only a fool would would run to Cuba or Russia yet decry 'Murica for violation of privacy. And I kind of want to punch him in his smug face.
 
potency said:
You're not the only one. I'm a big Woz fan but this might be the only thing he's ever said that I disagree with.





I don't know what his intentions were, but only a fool would would run to Cuba or Russia yet decry 'Murica for violation of privacy. And I kind of want to punch him in his smug face.
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Those are the only countries that can say FU to an American deportation request.
 
potency said:
You're not the only one. I'm a big Woz fan but this might be the only thing he's ever said that I disagree with.





I don't know what his intentions were, but only a fool would would run to Cuba or Russia yet decry 'Murica for violation of privacy. And I kind of want to punch him in his smug face.
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lol... You do know that ALL countries 'violate privacy' at this point, so Cuba and Russia are hardly any different outside of you not liking them apparently...

That said, despite 'all countries doing it', America's founding principles and the desires of its majority population are against it, and that't what Snowden fought for...

At the end of the day, ONLY Russia wouldnt extradite him, so what location should he have gone that would have made him less 'smug' and 'foolish'? Would it change your opinion of his actions if he went somewhere else and then ended up in jail?
 
potency said:
You're not the only one. I'm a big Woz fan but this might be the only thing he's ever said that I disagree with.





I don't know what his intentions were, but only a fool would would run to Cuba or Russia yet decry 'Murica for violation of privacy. And I kind of want to punch him in his smug face.
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Bullshit. He ran to Russia, because it was the only place he could go where he wouldn't be extradited to the U.S. where he WOULD NOT get a fair trial.

There are people in this thread that are not even close to me on the political compass, and we agree on this point. This guy is a patriot of the first order (and yes, I voted for Obama and have no regrets).
 
you are not alone. snowden didn't even know what was in the files he stole. he just snatched and grab and ran away. he's the guy who sets a house on fire so he can run in and save the people inside and be the big hero.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Dang, guess I'm the only one here who doesn't share the opinion of Woz and the rest of you. :(
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potency said:
You're not the only one. I'm a big Woz fan but this might be the only thing he's ever said that I disagree with.
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Add me to the list. This is I think the only thing I disagree with the Woz. Snowden has done way worse harm than good with his actions. I consider him a traitor. But only history will tell which side is right.
 
Snowden betrayed our government but not the country. The government hates him but the people that care about their constitutional rights love him. Now the issue is if we need to worry about less terrorists getting caught if they remove the snooping that was in place if the Patriot Act goes away.
 
Ducman69 said:
The problem I see is that public opinion clearly backs Woz, and with a representative government that is supposed to enact the will of the people... why is this even a problem? There's treason and then there's whistle-blowing, and this was clearly a case of the latter.
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Princeton had a research paper on this, you can look it up on google. They went through a ton of data relating to our political history. Summary:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/princeton-scholar-demise-of-democracy-america-tpm-interview

Let's talk about the study. If you had 30 seconds to sum up the main conclusion of your study for the average person, how would you do so?

I'd say that contrary to what decades of political science research might lead you to believe, ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States.
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I think Snowden created a defining moment in our history, and these types of events are rarely appreciated in their own time.

Anyone that still kneejerk believes he was/is a "traitor" are entitled to the opinion but I think time will vindicate him. NSA and all its secrecy bullshit have taken a major hit and there's more in the pipeline.
 
Bigshrimp said:
Snowden betrayed our government but not the country. The government hates him but the people that care about their constitutional rights love him. Now the issue is if we need to worry about less terrorists getting caught if they remove the snooping that was in place if the Patriot Act goes away.
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Seeing as it just came out recently that the Patriot act hasn't "thwarted" a single terrorist attack or plan, I am not sure I'll shed a tear if it gets neutered.

The only act we need to stop middle easterners from committing desperate violent acts in Murica is getting the fuck out of the middle east. But we never will. One thing about the US military is once we move in somewhere and set up base, we never leave.
 
Here is the thing I am all for someone stepping up, while I don't agree with everything but this is the digital age we live in and at certain point this is what we signed up for after 9/11 where most america was willing to give up some of their freedom to have stricter rules. What I also know is that Russia just isn't feeding him for free I am pretty damn sure he has had to give up some secrets about America. It's not about whistle blowing, it's what he must have had to give up to gain shelter In Russia. Thats just a fact.
 
DPI said:
I think Snowden created a defining moment in our history, and these types of events are rarely appreciated in their own time.

Anyone that still kneejerk believes he was/is a "traitor" are entitled to the opinion but I think time will vindicate him. NSA and all its secrecy bullshit have taken a major hit and there's more in the pipeline.
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100% agree with what you just said.
 
What's really interesting is that there must be still some juicy secrets that have not been published or are told only on official level. For sure even Snowden didn't tell it all.
 
jamesgalb said:
That said, despite 'all countries doing it', America's founding principles and the desires of its majority population are against it, and that't what Snowden fought for...
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America's founding principles were against a lot of things that were practiced in America anyway. Overzealous government spying is one of the less serious hypocrisies. I have no issue with Snowden releasing the information that he did, I don't think many would disagree it was the right thing to do.

But running off to Russia seriously undermined his efforts, bought lots of doubt about his motives and made the story too much about him and less about the actual issue of government spying. And being a plaything for Putin to hammer the US with given his record of abuses is disgusting. Having Putin as Snowden's protector is like having Lindsay Morgan as the spokesperson for Narcotics Anonymous.
 
snowcrash said:
Add me to the list. This is I think the only thing I disagree with the Woz. Snowden has done way worse harm than good with his actions. I consider him a traitor. But only history will tell which side is right.
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Okay...elaborate?

What's you beef....in some detail.
 
IIRC Russia wasn't his original destination. Long story short, if the government really wants you, you're traveling options are limited. He needed a harbor that would not only accept him, but one he could actually make it to, and it had to be a place that the government couldn't snatch him from.

Very short list. And he had to bear in mind that a government that protected you today, might trade you away tomorrow. At the beginning of all of this, they very much were willing to go to great lengths to deal with him. Now, not so much. A lot of thought went into how his information was released. Which is not to say it couldn't have been done better. Just that it was well thought out.
Sadly, Manning is an example for how things like this can ruin one.
 
Babel-17 said:
And in a related story, Dennis Hastert gets indicted by the FBI. Years ago, Sibel Edmonds wrote about him, as part of her revelations as a whistleblower. And they tried to destroy her as well.
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Not trying to say anything bad about this person, never heard of her before. But what she was talking about, right or wrong, has nothing to do with Hastert's current issues. The current chargers I think are much more serious and had the allegations been known at the time they occurred Hastert would have probably never been in Congress in the first place.
 
Babel-17 said:
IIRC Russia wasn't his original destination. Long story short, if the government really wants you, you're traveling options are limited. He needed a harbor that would not only accept him, but one he could actually make it to, and it had to be a place that the government couldn't snatch him from.
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Snowden is far from the first person to draw the ire of government. There are plenty of folks that would have been much better off personally if they had bailed and went to places like Russia. How he got there is irrelevant. The fact is that he's there, there are plenty of people that think he's sold information to Russia as part of the deal, and whether that's true or not, it's pretty obvious that everything would have been done to conceal such a transaction. Putin is getting something out of this deal more than just the public embarrassment.
 
Yeah, my post was more about a whistleblower who is becoming more and more vindicated. Her story was controversial at the time. Regarding Hastert, she was ahead of the curve in saying there was something very crooked about him.
Soon people are going to see where the millions of Hastert's money used for payoffs came from.
Edmonds made lots of serious allegations. People in government were cringing.

[In 2000, Hastert announced he would support an Armenian Genocide resolution. Analysts noted that at the time there was a tight congressional race in California, in which the large Armenian community might be important in favor of the Republican incumbent. The resolution, vehemently opposed by Turkey, had passed the Human Rights Subcommittee of the House and the International Relations Committee but Hastert, although first supporting it, withdrew the resolution on the eve of the full House vote. He explained this by saying that he had received a letter from Bill Clinton asking him to withdraw it, because it would harm U.S. interests. Even though there is no evidence that a payment was made, an official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording, that was translated by Sibel Edmonds, that the price for Hastert to withdraw the Armenian Genocide resolution would have been at least $500,000.[41][42]/QUOTE]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert

This might resurface and more people will learn about Edmonds.
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heatlesssun said:
Snowden is far from the first person to draw the ire of government. There are plenty of folks that would have been much better off personally if they had bailed and went to places like Russia. How he got there is irrelevant. The fact is that he's there, there are plenty of people that think he's sold information to Russia as part of the deal, and whether that's true or not, it's pretty obvious that everything would have been done to conceal such a transaction. Putin is getting something out of this deal more than just the public embarrassment.
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We aren't talking about simply pissing off government. That would include people like Wesley Snipes :). We are specifically talking about whistleblowers. Snowden was aware enough to know that, no, the government doesn't appreciate you stepping up, coming forward, and exposing high level wrong doing.
Snowden walked away from a very sweet deal that he had going on here in the USA. He was not some goody two shoes. He was not a wild eyed reformer. He was a guy enjoying the good life and getting ahead until he came upon something that would challenge anyone.
Snowden chose to take enormous risks and make personal sacrifices to do what he saw as his duty as a good person and a good American.
Anyone can disagree with his assessment but I think it hard to argue that we wasn't trying to live up to a high standard of ethics.
 
Babel-17 said:
Snowden chose to take enormous risks and make personal sacrifices to do what he saw as his duty as a good person and a good American.
Anyone can disagree with his assessment but I think it hard to argue that we wasn't trying to live up to a high standard of ethics.
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That's just it. Who really has any idea what this guy is sacrificing. I get that he left the country and friends and family but clearly what's being offered to him in Russia ain't bad gig for him. Being a tool for Putin just doesn't go over well for a lot of folks, no matter what Snowden did, even if releasing this information was the right thing to do which I think it was. But heading off to Russia? So when things get bad just run away? To a nation and leader that have as bad a record of freedom and spying as they come? To a former KGB agent?
 
And I think the real lesson here as that we need better checks and balances. A guy like Snowden needs to know there is are real contacts in government for a whistleblower to approach.
The real issue, I fear, is that these secret programs have taken on a life of their own and the people maintaining them will not abide oversight by representatives elected by the people.
This is an ongoing theme for our nation, cue Jack Nicholson lecturing Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men.
At the end of the day it comes down to the question; Do we have too much oversight, or not enough? Or is it mostly about right?
 
heatlesssun said:
That's just it. Who really has any idea what this guy is sacrificing. I get that he left the country and friends and family but clearly what's being offered to him in Russia ain't bad gig for him. Being a tool for Putin just doesn't go over well for a lot of folks, no matter what Snowden did, even if releasing this information was the right thing to do which I think it was. But heading off to Russia? So when things get bad just run away? To a nation and leader that have as bad a record of freedom and spying as they come? To a former KGB agent?
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He was a wealthy geek, living in the USA. He now lives in Russia and I can't imagine a deal sweet enough to compensate for leaving behind the life he had.
I don't want to get into it, I'd have to dig up links, but there are whistleblowers who took their chances by coming forward. Some even refused plea deals and went to court. The government apparently wants to crush them, and make examples of them.
Daniel Ellsberg (The Pentagon Papers) agrees that Snowden did the right thing. There was context to what Snowden chose.
 
revmouse said:
you are not alone. snowden didn't even know what was in the files he stole. he just snatched and grab and ran away. he's the guy who sets a house on fire so he can run in and save the people inside and be the big hero.
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Horrible analogy...

Snowden is like the guy that stopped a man from beating his wife without caring why he was beating her or how he was beating her... and you are like the guy who stands up and says "stop trying to be a white knight without knowing whats going on!"

Bravo sir.
 
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