Today , Edward Snowden is untimely about almost everything . Yes , he ’s a nationalist , and yes , I believe that what he did in 2013 to reveal dangerous element of our surveillance state was important and commendable . But Snowden is wholly oblivious to the challenges that we face as we move into the class 2017 — a perilous bally meter for our country , to say the least .
On Tuesday , I had the joy of attend the Real Future Fair in Oakland , which feature some amazing speakers like Mae Jemison , the first American char of color in blank space . It was a fascinating group discussion , but there was one speaker that made me implausibly discomfited : Edward Snowden , who link up us in Oakland via teleconferencing robotfrom Russia . And I ’ve come to the conclusion that he ’s elevate an idiotic worldview that ’s entirely destitute of answers for how to effectively combat the scourge that Donald Trump and his neo - fascistic goons puzzle to our democracy .
What let me so get at up about Snowden ’s talk ? He hard believe that technology is more important than insurance as a way to protect our autonomy . Snowden contends that he held this belief when Obama was in office staff and he still trust this today , as Donald Trump is just two months away from entering the White House . But it does n’t make him right , no matter who ’s in office .
“ If you want to build a good hereafter , you ’re going to have to do it yourself . Politics will take us only so far . And if chronicle is any guide , they are the least effective means of watch variety we want to see , ” Snowden said on phase in Oakland from Russia , completely oblivious to how story might actually be used as a pathfinder .
Snowden spoke about how of import it is for individuals to act in the name of liberty . He continually downplayed the role of policy in ordain modification and clip out some libertarian refuse about laws being far less of import than the encoding of electronic gimmick for the protection of exemption around the macrocosm .
“ Law is but varsity letter on a page , ” Snowden say . It ’s a musical phrase that ’s still ringing in my pinna , as a shockingly obtuse rejection of cultured society and how real modification happens in the world .
How do we promote the cause of impropriety around the macrocosm ? Encrypt your devices , according to Snowden . Okay , now what ? Well , Snowden ’s tap out of ideas if you get beyond “ useSignal . ” The close he got to advocate for anything involving insurance policy modification was when he told people they could donate to the Freedom of the Press Foundation which , it should probably be noted , hecurrently works for .
opine if advocate of human right held this same worldview fifty years ago . What would the American polite rights motility have looked like in the fifties and 60s if you did n’t trust variety in insurance policy mattered ? If you unfeignedly cerebrate that laws are irrelevant and that securing your communicating from government surveillance is the only force for shore leave , then your boastful job with the FBI ’s persecution of Martin Luther King Jr. was that they tap his phone lines . King ’s use of his phone was a means to an end , just as the FBI ’s surveillance of King was a means to an ending . The end , as far as civil right-hand leaders were interest , was enacting policy . Shielding your communications from administration surveillance is merely a tactic to countenance you to operate and organize without governing interference . Encryption does n’t fight against unfairness all by its lonesome .
What about the 1964 Civil Rights Act , a crowning accomplishment of the polite rightfield movement that fetch about real modification to a system built on systemic racialism ? The Civil Rights Act did n’t finish racism , and it , along with its effectual first cousin the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , are currently being butchered beyond recognition after a devastatingSupreme Court decision . But the solvent to progressive losses in the lawcourt is n’t “ encrypt your phone . ” The answer is to play about policy changes through local and home laws to ensure that human rights are protected . inscribe your data point all you like — it ’s an crucial , if admittedly blemished , way to aid get up and protest . ( secrecy tools like Tor areleaking like a sieveand there are a hundred different ways for the commonwealth to access your communications even if you have the most advance opsec in the existence . ) But do n’t tell me that insurance policy does n’t count .
If you seriously put forrad this idea that struggle for policy is somehow irrelevant and that laws are “ simply letters on a page ” you have very little to offer innovative lodge . You ’re surrendering to living in a essentially broken human beings and are ignoring the methods by which history actually evolves to meet the needs of a civilised lodge . Every time someone like Snowden says “ encrypt your telephone ” our reception must be , “ okay , now what do we do ? ” And Snowden does n’t have an reply .
“ engineering work other than than jurisprudence . engineering science be intimate no jurisdiction , ” Snowden said via video league in Russia , ostensibly oblivious to the fact that a change in policy would be necessary for his issue to the United States , not stronger encryption of his communicating .
This is n’t the first time that I ’ve thought Snowden was leading Americans astray . In the fantabulous documentary film Citizenfour , about Snowden ’s leaks and the immediate fallout , I opine he enounce some middling idiotic matter as well .
“ I remember what the internet was like before it was being watched , ” Snowden said in the infotainment . As a man in his early 30s , he ’s either lie down or unknowledgeable of story . Either one would n’t surprise me at this stage , to be honest .
The internet has always been supervise by the body politic . It was created by the fucking US armed forces and has been supervise fromday one . Surveillance of the cyberspace was n’t invented after September 11 , 2001 , no matter how many people would care to believe that to be the subject . To claim that there was this magical time when the internet was a “ frontier ” is a tragical misreading of account . Much like myths of the Wild West , there was no unpopulated “ frontier ” online . There were plenty of the great unwashed there first . And in the case of the internet , those people were part of the armed services and word assemblage biotic community . They all , quite literally , built the net .
In Oakland , Snowden also address his tweet from October 21st in whichhe said that , “ There may never be a safer election in which to vote for a third option . ” Snowden told us that he more or less stands by his tweet and that anything else “ freezes us into a moral force of ‘ you must always choose between two tough options ’ ” which is a “ fundamentally un - American musical theme . ”
Not that it ’s deeply significant , but I should probably receipt again that I believe Edward Snowden ’s passing water of classified national security info to journalist was a effective thing . Whenever the government is conducting operation that infringe on our right , it is always the ripe and right thing for people to speak out against it . But Snowden ’s whistleblower activities are mostly irrelevant to the thought that he ’s spouting today . And I trust that almost everything I heard him say on point in Oakland was genuinely idiotic .
If you ’re looking for NSA docs about the surveillance land , Snowden is your human beings . If you ’re looking for direction on how to make the man a more just place , we have to wait elsewhere and listen to hoi polloi who consider in the only affair that can possibly influence the world for the better : revolutionary changes in policies that bear on the lives of everyone around the globe .
ActivismDonald TrumpEdward SnowdenEncryptionpresident trumpSurveillance
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