I would not under almost any circumstances, including the revelation that he was working directly with the FSB† when he decided what to leak, use the word "traitor" to describe a national security leaker. In addition to being inaccurate, the word sucks all the oxygen out of the room and makes it impossible to have a dispassionate discussion about what happened.
But if you can get past Andreesen's unfortunate choice of framing, this story is useful as an indicator of how captive we are to our filter bubbles. The valence of Andreesen's feelings about Snowden isn't at all weird. Lots of people share the perspective that Snowden is doing more harm than good, but people on HN seem to have a hard time believing that.
† Which I doubt; it's too interesting, and the most boring narrative always wins.
Leaving aside the meat of the article, I found this quote interesting:
"""
Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year."
"""
Does anyone else find this to be the case too? I feel like the actions of taxpayer-funded agencies like the CIA/NSA have been despicable for decades, and I'm puzzled as to why this is the first time that people seem to actually care (which, don't get me wrong, is great). For those of us who gave a shit before Snowden, I feel like there was a sense of being resigned to the fact that most people (even in tech circles like HN) simply don't care; similar to something like climate change. I know that these revelations are relatively novel in that they involve surveillance of Americans' data as well as foreign nationals, but that was the case for warrantless wiretapping in the 2000s. That made news, but there DEFINITELY wasn't as much fuss made about it (to my bafflement at the time).
This is now the bog standard reply of the closet fascists who support the NSA and their rampant spying. They've had to switch to this response because their previous response "You're just being paranoid", has been utterly blown apart by the Snowden revelations and thank god for that.
Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of whether or not these activities are moral and something we should accept in our society, but at least the second reply doesn't actively shut down the conversation. Whereas before they could claim that we are being paranoid and there would be no real comeback to that, and thus our points could be safely dismissed, at least now one can reply "No we shouldn't be surprised, and now let's discuss whether or not it is something that should continue."
I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world were the exact people talking about how not torturing was what separated our good hearted security agents from those savages employed by "evil empires" such as Russia or China.
At the end of day, I am heartened because now at least the cards are on the table and these activities can't just be denied as the figments of paranoid imaginations. The conversation is moving along a bit, however slowly.
There are a lot of novelties in the Snowden leak for people, like me, who are interested but try to stay on the sane side of paranoid.
First and foremost, it's evidence with details. Echelon was more or less an open secret for a while, but even then there wasn't much information available about how it was being used -- just that communications were being collected and searched. It's the difference between, "There are data centers monitoring internet traffic," and, "here's a slide on an NSA presentation for software that will give you any person's entire browser history."
Second, there's the extent to which communications systems were being compromised. Taps on undersea cables and major backbones? Sure. Direct access to data at Google and Facebook and elsewhere? That was surprising.
Third, there was the scope. The assumption was always that it was impractical for the NSA or other agencies to store a lot of data about every person. But, now we know they don't store it -- they just exploit other databases.
There are the methodologies: I might assume that "they" are infiltrating the communications systems of certain foreign states, but to find out that they were doing it in part by hijacking Cisco equipment in transit and chipping them was surprising, mostly because it seems like such a stupid tactic in the event that word ever gets out.
And, there's the not very small matter of the targets involved. Spying for the sake of the War on Terror and against enemy states and all that is one of those things you grudgingly accept as part of the real world. But spying on our allies? What are they trying to accomplish there? What are they trying to gain that's worth the risk of being found out and pissing off your friends?
So, for me, the Snowden leaks moved the NSA from, "spooky, secretive, well-funded spy organization filling a necessary role," to, "totally out-of-control freaks that lost the plot years ago and seem to have set their hooks into the topmost levels of government."
I remember reading years ago about a giant data center being built in Utah for the NSA with the express purpose of collecting electronic data sent in the continental US. It was in Time magazine or something similar, and it wasn't really that big of a deal. Honestly, I think the reason that people cared so much this time was because of the drama of the story: the inside man who revealed thousands of secrets and then bolted to Russia, and the subsequent continuing drama where more information gets periodically released, etc.
Why are people so shocked and upset about the NSA, when they could have expressed the same outrage at the PATRIOT act, which has been around for a decade, and which is responsible for the legality of much of the NSA's recent history? The NSA is a spy agency. That's what they do. They're using every legal avenue they have to collect as much information as possible. To assume that they're doing anything less than everything possible within legal limits is naive.
Without corroboration, you couldn't really talk about this too much in a public setting, because you'll sound like a conspiracy nut.
There were enough hints out there to realize that there is mass surveillance, but if you suggested the size and scope of what is actually happening in say 2008, people would think that you are a nut.
History is written by the victors.
Traitors? heroes? It is just a point of view, depending on who win at then end.
We now know on which side Marc Andressen is seated.
I don't understand Marc's position. He says that foreign governments knew about the spying but that Edward Snowden is a traitor for telling them what they already knew? So what damage is ES supposed to have done exactly? It is public record that terrorist organizations knew about intelligence services surveillance against them, which I suspect everyone on the planet would guess would be happening. So how has ES acted against the interests of the American people?
It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous.
Knowing that someone is spying on you is worth much less than knowing that they use Camera Model XYZ, which transmits on XYZ frequency and the camera is located at coordinates XX, YY.
I'm an European and treason and espionage are political crimes. If Snowden is a traitor, then he spied on my behalf against U.S. government. For me and many other citizens of so called free word he is a hero. He should get a medal.
In U.S. media the discussion centers around Americans being spied and if that is illegal. As a non-American, I see U.S. UK and other mass surveillance countries as constantly attacking me personally. As more and more people feel the same way, it will eventually have real consequences to U.S. interests. It might take generation or two, but it will happen.
First world countries are very interdependent and this kind of attacking harms us all. Even in the cynical machtpolitik world view this can be seen as shortsighted strategy.
I started disliking this guy since he coerced Oculus Rift into a sale to Facebook (and I'm assuming soon Imgur, too). He's probably too worried about his investments and what the Snowden revelations impact will be on them, and that's why he's calling him a traitor.
"The fallout from the Snowden leaks have hurt U.S. technology firms' ability to sell their products overseas"
What an idiotic, capitalistic claim. So Andreeson calls him a traitor because "business is now harder." Huh? Nevermind invasion of privacy and injustice.
Ooh! Big capitalist profiting vastly from status quo throws in lot with conservatism! News at 9.
Trusting any of these filthy rich buffoons, including governments, is imbecilic. The only way to change the system is through decentralized, bottom-up, participation-based (ie. opt-in) change.
tptacek|11 years ago
But if you can get past Andreesen's unfortunate choice of framing, this story is useful as an indicator of how captive we are to our filter bubbles. The valence of Andreesen's feelings about Snowden isn't at all weird. Lots of people share the perspective that Snowden is doing more harm than good, but people on HN seem to have a hard time believing that.
† Which I doubt; it's too interesting, and the most boring narrative always wins.
unknown|11 years ago
[deleted]
2close4comfort|11 years ago
gatehouse|11 years ago
I don't think "everybody knew" that the NSA was moonlighting in the drug war: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...
wutbrodo|11 years ago
""" Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """
Does anyone else find this to be the case too? I feel like the actions of taxpayer-funded agencies like the CIA/NSA have been despicable for decades, and I'm puzzled as to why this is the first time that people seem to actually care (which, don't get me wrong, is great). For those of us who gave a shit before Snowden, I feel like there was a sense of being resigned to the fact that most people (even in tech circles like HN) simply don't care; similar to something like climate change. I know that these revelations are relatively novel in that they involve surveillance of Americans' data as well as foreign nationals, but that was the case for warrantless wiretapping in the 2000s. That made news, but there DEFINITELY wasn't as much fuss made about it (to my bafflement at the time).
jgon|11 years ago
Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of whether or not these activities are moral and something we should accept in our society, but at least the second reply doesn't actively shut down the conversation. Whereas before they could claim that we are being paranoid and there would be no real comeback to that, and thus our points could be safely dismissed, at least now one can reply "No we shouldn't be surprised, and now let's discuss whether or not it is something that should continue."
I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world were the exact people talking about how not torturing was what separated our good hearted security agents from those savages employed by "evil empires" such as Russia or China.
At the end of day, I am heartened because now at least the cards are on the table and these activities can't just be denied as the figments of paranoid imaginations. The conversation is moving along a bit, however slowly.
thaumaturgy|11 years ago
First and foremost, it's evidence with details. Echelon was more or less an open secret for a while, but even then there wasn't much information available about how it was being used -- just that communications were being collected and searched. It's the difference between, "There are data centers monitoring internet traffic," and, "here's a slide on an NSA presentation for software that will give you any person's entire browser history."
Second, there's the extent to which communications systems were being compromised. Taps on undersea cables and major backbones? Sure. Direct access to data at Google and Facebook and elsewhere? That was surprising.
Third, there was the scope. The assumption was always that it was impractical for the NSA or other agencies to store a lot of data about every person. But, now we know they don't store it -- they just exploit other databases.
There are the methodologies: I might assume that "they" are infiltrating the communications systems of certain foreign states, but to find out that they were doing it in part by hijacking Cisco equipment in transit and chipping them was surprising, mostly because it seems like such a stupid tactic in the event that word ever gets out.
And, there's the not very small matter of the targets involved. Spying for the sake of the War on Terror and against enemy states and all that is one of those things you grudgingly accept as part of the real world. But spying on our allies? What are they trying to accomplish there? What are they trying to gain that's worth the risk of being found out and pissing off your friends?
So, for me, the Snowden leaks moved the NSA from, "spooky, secretive, well-funded spy organization filling a necessary role," to, "totally out-of-control freaks that lost the plot years ago and seem to have set their hooks into the topmost levels of government."
thinkpad20|11 years ago
Why are people so shocked and upset about the NSA, when they could have expressed the same outrage at the PATRIOT act, which has been around for a decade, and which is responsible for the legality of much of the NSA's recent history? The NSA is a spy agency. That's what they do. They're using every legal avenue they have to collect as much information as possible. To assume that they're doing anything less than everything possible within legal limits is naive.
unknown|11 years ago
[deleted]
Spooky23|11 years ago
There were enough hints out there to realize that there is mass surveillance, but if you suggested the size and scope of what is actually happening in say 2008, people would think that you are a nut.
Fuzzwah|11 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852246
dang|11 years ago
midhem|11 years ago
jsmcgd|11 years ago
It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous.
I'm deeply disappointed :(
mikeyouse|11 years ago
nabla9|11 years ago
In U.S. media the discussion centers around Americans being spied and if that is illegal. As a non-American, I see U.S. UK and other mass surveillance countries as constantly attacking me personally. As more and more people feel the same way, it will eventually have real consequences to U.S. interests. It might take generation or two, but it will happen.
First world countries are very interdependent and this kind of attacking harms us all. Even in the cynical machtpolitik world view this can be seen as shortsighted strategy.
napoleoncomplex|11 years ago
It's always surprising when one discovers the Ellisons and the Andreessens of the world. Luckily their type is a rare exception in the Valley though.
higherpurpose|11 years ago
kumar303|11 years ago
What an idiotic, capitalistic claim. So Andreeson calls him a traitor because "business is now harder." Huh? Nevermind invasion of privacy and injustice.
contingencies|11 years ago
Trusting any of these filthy rich buffoons, including governments, is imbecilic. The only way to change the system is through decentralized, bottom-up, participation-based (ie. opt-in) change.
seanhandley|11 years ago
hockeybias|11 years ago
[deleted]
aerolite|11 years ago