First, where do you get that Snowden is trying to "prevent" anything?
Isn't that what whistleblowers do?
Secondly, we aren't law enforcement and can't torture with impunity the people whose posts we find.
We are the government. If enough people want to judge someone by what they said on a forum, it'll work up the chain to someone with power.
Thirdly, public internet posts aren't subject to privacy, and to the degree one may think they are of the sort that phone calls and private emails ought to be, what is the standard being described as hypocritical here?
The hypocritical part is looking back on a trove of data and applying a narrative to it. Nobody wants to be held responsible for what they said as a teenager, but how fast are we to gobble it up when it's someone else.
It's obvious this is a "hey look at meeee!" essay, but I'm not sure it rises to the level of hypocrisy. Many if not all of the people who read it are reading the other Snowden articles, so what the author is doing is actually trying to steal a little bit of attention from what people are legitimately gobbling up. In this way I don't think of it as hypocritical as much as crass and selfish.
Sorry, I was actually in agreement with this article, but didn't really make it clear enough.
The hypocrisy is in the people trying to find and make bullshit connections. This article is pointing out how ridiculous it is and pondering how the author--presumably a boring law abiding citizen--would look in hindsight.
Isn't that what whistleblowers do?
Secondly, we aren't law enforcement and can't torture with impunity the people whose posts we find.
We are the government. If enough people want to judge someone by what they said on a forum, it'll work up the chain to someone with power.
Thirdly, public internet posts aren't subject to privacy, and to the degree one may think they are of the sort that phone calls and private emails ought to be, what is the standard being described as hypocritical here?
The hypocritical part is looking back on a trove of data and applying a narrative to it. Nobody wants to be held responsible for what they said as a teenager, but how fast are we to gobble it up when it's someone else.