Watch Edward Snowden Live at SXSW

Comments

[MJGreen]

The NSA should do something about auto-play.

[GILMORE]

har

[Hugh Akston]

I'm sure they're working on a way to make all of Barry's speeches autoplay all-net, all channels. Would you like to know more?

[Tim]

The internet, free communication terrifies every government. I'd say it's the one thing an Obama and a Bush and a Putin all have in common.

[SIV]

SXSW?

Edward Snowden sells out.

[Paul.]

Wow, some kind of echo here.

[Paul.]

Oh jeez, I had it open in two tabs. Yes, autoplay will be fixed with Net Neutrality.

[GILMORE]

They really have trouble getting past the following =

- "The methods are Ineffective"

and

- "Its something we should be concerned about because of possible misuse"

and

- "how can we improve 'accountability and oversight'"

...and then getting to "There are fundamental limits to what powers Government should have"

Which, in my opinion, is where the conversation *starts*

That other shit is simply just a matter of debating the 'details' of the Unlimited Bureaucracy

[Slammer]

Lag. Lag. Lag. Lag.

[Tim]

Snowden why did you put yourself through all of this? You should have submitted a strongly worded letter through your supervisor up the chain of command.
Then instead of being an international celebrity/traitor history would remember you as "local man missing in surfing incident".

[Paul.]

Huh, not sure who's talking now, but he's saying that Edward Snowden proved that the internet needs more regulation. Jesus fuck.

[GILMORE]

OH NOES CORPORASHUNS!?

Fucking idiots - THEY WANT TO SELL YOU SHIT??!

[John]

Yeah. It woudl help if the panel wasn't inhabited by leftist half wits.

The fact that google does it, says nothing about whether the NSA should do it.

[Paul.]

Yeah, the NSA is doing something... BUT WILLIAMs-SONOMA KNOWS YOU BOUGHT 2 WAFFLE IRONZ LAST YEAR!11!

[John]

They will just sell you a bunch of things you don't need. Don't you see the inherent coercion of the system Paul?

[Gadianton]

How many of these people who are afraid of corporations gathering data over the internet swipe their 'discount' cards every time they go to the store?

[cavalier973]

"Why should the government not have the same access to our information that Big Business does?"

Why don't you ask that again when the Wal-Mart storm troopers are knocking at your door?

[mr lizard]

At least I have a chance of defending myself against walmart. Defying the government hordes only leads o unlimited escalation on their part.... Fight back hard enough and they will nuke you from orbit just to make sure

[cavalier973]

My point is that WalMart is not going to send in storm troopers. They might at one point offer them for sale or lease--for low, low prices, of course--but companies don't generally think that killing their customers is a good idea.

[sarcasmic]

but companies don't generally think that killing their customers is a good idea.

Nuh uh! I was told that before the FDA buying food was a roll of the dice! Maybe it was food, maybe it was poison! You never knew for sure if your next bite would be your last!

Every company out there would kill its customers if not for government!

Every single one!

[EDG reppin' LBC]

The Chinese restaurant take-out I ate Friday night seems to be trying to kill me and my wife. I love the barf/ass spray combination.

[sarcasmic]

I've pretty much given up on Chinese food.

Thai on the other hand...

[Zeb]

"Chinese" "food". At this point I only go for the crab rangoons.

[sarcasmic]

Yeah. I'll still do appetizers. No entrees though. Done with that unless I'm cooking it myself.

[Rhywun]

Usually, I enjoy catching up on HyR during my lunch break.

[Rhywun]

Is this something that hits you at a certain age? Because this doesn't happen to me.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Is this something that hits you at a certain age?

No. It's food poisoning.

[sarcasmic]

Hasn't happened to you yet. But it will. It's not like Chinese makes me sick every time I eat it. It's probably only happened a half a dozen times. But after the same thing makes you sick a few times it's only natural to want to eat something else.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Re: Sarcasmic, I didn't eat Chinese for about 10 years because I got sick a few times in the past. But, apparently my wife had found a decent place nearby. I think I'll be back off Chinese, for good.

I get the impression that food quality, and hygiene are not the number one priority at most Chinese restaurants.

[sarcasmic]

I prefer to drive all the way home from a restaurant before requiring a commode.

[sarcasmic]

Re: EDG, have you ever had Thai food? I'm no fan of the noodles, but I love me some green curry.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Oh yeah, I've had Thai and it's delicious. And I eat Chinese, but the real high end places. But no more "China Dragon" in the strip mall between the nail shop and check cashing place.

[sarcasmic]

It's just an odds thing. The older you get, the greater the chance that you'll eat bad Chinese. And once you blast gas propelled stir fry out your ass a couple times, it's only natural to want to eat something else.

[Rhywun]

I think I have had food poisoning once in my life and it wasn't Chinese. But yeah I do tend to steer clear of hole-in-the-wall joints. I don't eat "street food" either because of one too many stringy, gristly chicken kebabs.

[alan_s]

Also, at least I had to voluntarily give my information to Wal-Mart before they obtained it.

[cavalier973]

Black art? Snowden is racist!

[Paul.]

Glad to hear Snowden says Encryption Works.

[mr simple]

He just made a Harry Potter reference in regards to encryption and security. Nerd.

[John]

http://reason.org/news/show/mo.....te-highway

Meanwhile, Reason Foundation writer thinks it is totally okay to track everyone's movements as long as it is done in the name of efficient taxes.

Reason, fire Robert Poole or stop pretending to be libertarian. Privacy is a right. That means your top men dreams of a perfect taxation system don't take precedence over it.

Poole is worse than the fucking NSA. At least the NSA is claiming to try and protect me. Poole wants to violate my privacy even more so he can "better tax me". Seriously, why won't the idea of tracking everyone's movements so they can pay the proper road tax, go back to the lefty swamp it came from and stop infecting Libertarian think thanks?

[SIV]

Robert Poole founded Reason Foundation and served as its president from 1968 to 2001.

Fire the founder?

Pole is a fierce advocate for central planning and crony-capitalist faux-privatization.

[John]

OR maybe prosecute him for false advertising. That whole article is vomit inducing.

The whole thing is about how we could build this great road system if the people would just allow themselves to be tracked and heavily taxed.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

John reminds me sometimes of the old Woody Allen joke, 'gee, the food here is terrible, and such small portions!' I have to wonder why you spend so much time here when you consistently 'hate on' Reason.

Poole's idea, while perhaps not ideal, is a variant on developing a user-fee type of payment for government services, something that is not exactly alien in libertarian circles.

[Zeb]

Well, I think he has a point that if we are to have a good highway system there will need to be some different way of funding it. The alternative to more tolls would be a much higher gas tax most likely. Tolls are troubling in that they set up a system where individual drivers can easily be tracked. But on the other hand, they are probably the fairest way to pay for roads. Collect tolls based on miles traveled and the weight of the vehicle. If done with transponders and not GPS or something, it probably could be done so that it was anonymous, but I certainly wouldn't trust the government to do that.

A better, more libertarian way to deal with it woudl be to sell the Interstates to private companies and have them figure out how best to collect money to pay for them. But that would most likely end up being some sort of electronic toll system too.

[Leigh]

One idea they could do that would keep privacy intact is to use pre-paid cards that could be purchased with cash where you just take the card, insert into your car's payment system and then the system just deducts the credit when it goes through a check-point. Think of how your starbucks gift cards work. Not that they would do this - but it is certainly technologically possible.

[John]

Because the government putting what amounts to a taxi toll on my car is no infringement on my privacy or anything.

No tax scheme is perfect. The Libertarian obsession with ROADZ and privatizing them or having the perfect tax scheme for them is just fucking bizarre.

[Ken Shultz]

The feds use road money to impose their will on the states arbitrarily. It is a problem.

[Ken Shultz]

The feds use road money to impose their will on the states arbitrarily. It is a problem.

[Ken Shultz]

The feds use road money to impose their will on the states arbitrarily. It is a problem.

[Ken Shultz]

The feds use road money to impose their will on the states arbitrarily. It is a problem.

[Ken Shultz]

The feds use road money to impose their will on the states arbitrarily. It is a problem.

[Ken Shultz]

The feds use road money to impose their will on the states arbitrarily. It is a problem.

[Ken Shultz]

Damn phone!

[Zeb]

And it's not even 3:00.

[Zeb]

I am capable of having an opinion on many subjects without being obsessed.

Once license plate scanners are fully rolled out, your worries about privacy will be rather quaint anyway. License plates are the real enemy of privacy and anonymous travel.

[Ken Shultz]

I don't want the speed of my motorcycle tracked.

The progressives are already trying to control what we eat. If they could shut down my over the speed limit motorcycle activity, they totally would.

So if I can't get onto a road without a transponder, and I can't use a transponder without sending them my speed, we're talking about a huge infringement on my liberty.

And that's not even talking about the privacy implications of the government knowing where each of us are at all times.

I think John was wrong to go off on Poole like that, but that doesn't mean John was wrong about how the government tracking where we drive wouldn't be a new Orwellian flavor of awful.

[Zeb]

Oh, sure. I think they'll do it with or without electronic tolling, most likely. I'm much more worried about license plate scanners than electronic toll systems (though I won't put one of those on my car either). The toll transponders that exist now could certainly be used to track your vehicle, but they don't know how fast you are going or your location at all times. I have heard of schemes to use GPS tracking to assess road taxes, and that is terrifying. But there are other ways to do it.

I don't claim to have a perfect answer, but I think that the way roads are funded is going to have to change so it is worth talking about.

[RBS]

I don't claim to have a perfect answer, but I think that the way roads are funded is going to have to change so it is worth talking about.

Apparently this is too reasonable for some people.

[John]

The problem with private ownership is that it would allow people who own choke points to squeeze above market rates of return.

If you don't think that is a problem, I would advise you to look at the German states alone the Rhine. For centuries economic growth was stunted because anyone who owned land on the river and could build a castle and run a chain across it could extort a toll on traffic. When the German states united and traffic was allowed to flow, growth exploded.

The market is not some ideal. The market is nothing but a way of describing behavior. And not all markets are perfect and not all market results are the best. They usually are but don't have to be. Roads are one of those examples.

[Zeb]

I think major inter-city roads could work well privatized. It would likely have to be fairly heavily regulated to avoid problems like what you point out. I brought it up here because having many private companies running the tolls would get rid of some of the privacy problems you get when it is government run.

But whoever runs them, you need money to build and maintain roads? What do you think is the better way to fund them? To you see any alternatives to either more tolls or higher gas taxes? And if electric vehicles take off, where do you make up the lost gas tax revenues?

[Ken Shultz]

He isn't really considering the privacy implications in this article, but I don't think that necessarily makes him a traitor to the cause. He's just got some ideas to make the federal government less arbitrary on one issue without considering how it would make the feds unreasonably stronger on another. He's just wrong on this issue --no reason to cast him out of the garden into darkness.

[Ted S.]

My god you've still got butthurt that Sarvis didn't cost Cuccinelli the election.

[The Late P Brooks]

Let me guess- Autoplay?

Fucking wankers.

[John]

Somebody needs to tell this guy that pony tails went out with Reagan.

[cavalier973]

Reagan had a pony tail?

[John]

No. Hipster men stopped having them when he left office.

[Paul.]

Clearly not.

[cavalier973]

"Reagan Had a Pony Tail" would make a good name for a rock'n'roll band.

[Zeb]

Hipsters may have, but people who don't want to bother getting haircuts haven't.

[cavalier973]

What is the price of this "TOR"?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Your soul and your monocle

[cavalier973]

NEVER!!!!

[cavalier973]

Wait, I have a soul?

[Sudden]

You mean you don't have a spirit medium that collects the souls of your orphan servants? You should have several souls to spare at this point.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

What is the price of this Tor?

[John]

This panel makes me depressed. Apparently objecting to the NSA also means being a techie douche bag who thinks Amazon trying to sell me books is just like the NSA listening to my phone calls.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Like half of slashdot

[cavalier973]

Amazon.com is evil! I heard about it on NPR!

[GILMORE]

This beardo guy makes a good point = if you want 'security' - you will have to pay for it.

SURPRISE!

[Tim]

I don't need a consultant to tell me not to click on the link from Ndongo in Nigeria.

[Paul.]

Also glad to hear Snowden say that the real threat of the NSA isn't cracking the encryption, they're just trying to go around it.

[John]

Someone needs to explain why anyone should care what Snowden has to say. If he has new information, then leak it and be done with it. If he doesn't, then his opinion is no more or less valid than anyone else' opinion.

Snowden is not and should never be the story here. Can we please drop our obsession of making everything about celebrity and fame just this once?

[cavalier973]

I like your ideas; I think some news outlet should contact you. Maybe give you your own show, perhaps.

[Paul.]

I thought we weren't making this about personalities.

[cavalier973]

You make a good point, as well. Have you thought about a career in media?

[Paul.]

I've got a face for radio!

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

You make a good point, as well.

"Gilligan, not everyone can have a point!"

[cavalier973]

That's true! I didn't think of that...well done. I see something in the "5 to 7 EST" time slot in your future.

[Marshall Gill]

Someone needs to explain why anyone should care what Snowden has to say.

In my book, putting your life on the line because "I took an oath to uphold the Constitution" places his opinion quite high up on my list. I get the whole celebrity worship and couldn't care less what he thinks about subjects other than the NSA, but on this subject, to me, he has definitely earned it.

[John]

If you like him, good. And maybe he has value in terms of hearing his story. But it would seem Reason constantly pretends he has some value on the larger issue. He doesn't. Pretending he does, just lets the NSA's defenders change the subject.

[GILMORE]

"Because there are *so many other experts on the NSA's activities* equally available to comment in public on the topic, why should we care about this particular one?"
/JOHN-DERP

[John]

Who says Snowden is an expert? He is just some drone who obtained a lot of information.

Go DERP all you want and spend your time debating how great Snowden is. I can assure you that the NSA would like nothing better than to make this about Snowden and make Snowden the issue here.

But don't let that stop you from worshiping Snowden and making it about him. You are Libertarian which means you most fear actually accomplishing anything.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

First, John, Snowden is an inspiration, a man who could have just collected his nice government check but instead did something principled and for liberty. You complaining about him being the focus for an event to promote awareness about privacy concerns is not only politically na?ve, but seems analogous to complaining about featuring Rosa Parks at an event about civil rights (after all, she's no expert on civil rights!).

Second, Snowden is one of the few people who worked inside this survellience state and is willing to talk about it publicly, so that makes his insights valuable.

[GILMORE]

"But don't let that stop you from worshiping Snowden"

?

Is this similar to how we hate on Sarah Palin because of something something?

Jesus john, I love it when ever anyone points out you're maybe "technically wrong" about something, it becomes a full-on flame war against some bullshit imagined opinion rather than *what anyone actually said*

Because no one here is "worshiping" snowden at all. You're just having a hissy fit about hating on the guy, and seem to feel oppressed now that someone is pointing out how retarded you're being.

[GILMORE]

I think you're entirely wrong, John.

Particularly in the sense that the guy is currently a wanted criminal for an act that a large number of people - myself included - think was in the public interest.

You seem to think the fact that he could wind up dead in a ditch at any moment, "not the point"?

[John]

Thinking he shouldn't be prosecuted doesn't mean I care what he has to say. I thought George Zimmerman was innocent of any crime too. But that doesn't mean I care what Zimmerman has to say about self defense law.

Same thing here.

[GILMORE]

Do I need to explain to you how shitty that analogy is?

[John]

I guess I need to explain it to you because you are too fucking stupid to understand. Snowden leaked a bunch of information. The information is what matters. His opinion of that information or the value of his moral character says nothing about that information.

What did your daddy not talk to you enough. Do you just need a hero that badly? Every time you idiots make this about Snowden, you all the NSA to avoid the issue and drag the whole thing into a debate about whether Snowden is a good guy or not and avoid the debate about what the NSA is doing.

God you people just like to lose.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

John, is there anyone of any political persuasion that you do not just try to bully and act like a jerk around?

[GILMORE]

Ok, I wont explain it.

Maybe you can play with Bo now, john.

[The Laconic Marc F Cheney]

John is on fire today.

[Citizen Nothing]

John is on fire today.

Somebody grab a seltzer bottle.

[Zeb]

God you people just like to lose.

What opportunity to "win" are people missing out on here because there was one too many blog posts about Snowden?

You need to relax and stop imagining that you can read everyone's motivations and intentions all the time.

[cavalier973]

Ha! There's no such thing as "innocent people"!

/Calvinist

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Just a hair off topic:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ru.....learances/

Mark my words. This program will be limited to federal employees.

[Paul.]

We're all federal employees now.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Actually I meant to preface that with "Let me be clear."

[John]

Of course not. And it won't stop the next Snowden. What was Snowden doing prior to leaking any of this that would have indicated his intentions? Nothing.

All this will do is provide managers the ability to black mail employees and prevent anyone from ever blowing the whistle on something again, which of course is the point.

[sarcasmic]

What was Snowden doing prior to leaking any of this that would have indicated his intentions?

I don't know about that. For one thing he didn't hide that he is a Ron Paul fan. That is subversive all by itself. He wore snarky shirts, like the one that spoofs the NSA logo. Then he says he tried to raise concern over the spying programs. Put it all together and you've got a person who does not blindly trust authority, and people who do not blindly trust authority do not belong in positions where they have the opportunity to embarrass authority.

[cavalier973]

I just realized that that's the Constitution behind Snowden's head. He is...rather a small fellow, what?

[paranoid android]

I just assumed he was broadcasting from inside Saul Goodman's office.

[cavalier973]

Wait...applause? What?

[GILMORE]

notable =

'intelligence' is often immediately apparent from *how* people talk about things. Not 'what' they say, but the manners they have in relation to the subject matter. The 'attitude'. The body language, the tone of voice. Its the whole non-lingual vocabulary that con-artists try and master, the thing that makes you *listen* and accept what is said without any instantaneous doubt.

Snowden is fucking smart. Nothing in what he's said. In fact, if anything, most of what he's said is extremely simple and straightforward - which is exactly why its obvious he's smart. His grasp of the material is so solid that his reactions to any questions seem to start with an 'intellectual sigh', where its clear that he is distilling lots of complexity into simple sentences for the children asking these questions.

A writing professor once said to me, "if you can't translate an idea into a version a 10yr old might at least grasp, you don't really understand it that well yourself"

[mr simple]

Someone grab me an ACLU whistle. They sound like important things to have.

[BigT]

Can you imagine the bitches you'd attract!!

[cavalier973]

That's it? LAAAAAAME!!

I wanted to see the Federalis busting through that giant-sized Constitution and throw Snowden to the ground, then smile at the camera with a "thumbs up" gesture.

[The Late P Brooks]

but companies don't generally think that killing their customers is a good idea.

You poor naive deluded fool.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Several people have mentioned the comparison of private companies tracking one's internet movements and government agencies doing the same. I agree with those who do not see them as analogous or equally concerning, but I do not think I can dismiss all concerns about the former. If I make an agreement to use someone's services, like Gmail, where they openly tell me they will look at my movements or emails while using their service, I can see no cause for complaint. Likewise a site like Amazon tracking what I do while on their site.

To the extent that any site follows what I do after I go to their site, I find that akin to a trespass and/or non-agreed on invasion of my privacy.

[GILMORE]

Cookies. How do they work?
/DERP

[Christophe]

They can't track you without your consent. It's physically impossible. Your computer is sending the information to their servers. There's no trespass involved (at least not in any classical sense).

Now your browser's behavious is absurdly promiscuous, effectively letting anyone running ads follow you from site to site.

If that's a problem, there's a half-dozen really easy fixes, any single one of which will completely negate that tracking. Ctrl-Shit-N in Chrome = problem fixed (and that's the sledgehammer approach).

If you want the tracking to be opt-in instead of opt-out, you end up with the ridiculous disclaimers like on all EU-based websites. Not effective, and mostly just a hindrance.

[The Laconic Marc F Cheney]

Ctrl-Shit-N

Damn it, now I have to change my pants.

[Rhywun]

Someone's eating Chinese again.

[cavalier973]

I chuckled.

[Zeb]

If you like lots of free content and services, then invasive advertising is just something you have to accept and expect.