cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48428963
I personally do, he actually risked his life to release information about the government spying on people. And there are for sure more advanced ways now. Even your phone is listening.
Of course. If you risk your life and freedom for the greater good on your own account you sure are a hero.
Yup, a hero. Sacrificed himself for a greater good.
Scary thing is he didnt really accomplish much with his sacrifies. NSA is much scarier today and things just goes on.
I don’t think so, while the impact wasn’t as great as he and other people wished, it nonetheless had a big impact, many people started to care, just because of what he exposed.
If it weren’t for him the majority would’ve been still thinking gov spying on citizens is a conspiracy theory hhhhh
I think he had as much impact as anyone in his position could possibly have, if not way above average for a whistleblower.
The problem is that the public quickly turned on him, in no small part due to the PR strategy of those who DO have the power to change this. And most of the public shrugged and said what are we gonna do?
His contribution was proof that suspected domestic spying under the guise of homeland security was being widely misused. Which is a violation of YOUR constitutional rights. Of course anyone paying attention suspected it before, but he brought receipts. Many people think he should be in jail or worse because of this.
Unless he’s lying, and I don’t think he has been shown to lie, he did attempt to use proper channels. The media has historically been called the 4th branch of government for a reason - and ultimately that’s where he turned.
The man effectively lost much of his freedom and the people he did it for were unable to take it any further.
We are learning as a species that public relations (messaging, propaganda, whatever) is effective, and when the ownership class can put trillions into controlling the masses, it works.
I’d like to think there’s a counter for it, but the worker class seems to be willing to suffer a lot of misery so long as someone else is suffering more than they are.
If we could function like ants… Sacrifice 10% to save the 90%, that would be a net gain for the species. But nobody is voluntarily signing up to be in that 10% 😅
Perhaps that’s both a feature and a bug of humanity
If he isn’t a hero to you, I question you as a person.
I’m still confused. All I took away from it is that it’s illegal to point out someone is committing crimes. A full mask off moment that will echo through history.
A good person and a decent human being? Yes.
Heroes are shit.
He’s a hero and Aaron was a martyr.
I think he did the right thing even though it meant sacrificing his freedom. People are more aware of government surveillance around the world, even if it’s only increased in other ways. We can try to fight it in the open, now.
He’s a hero solely for trying to save Atari Teenage Riot.
It’s sad that only 10% of the data he leaked ever made it to the public. From what I’ve read, the unreleased stuff has been lost. I could be wrong and don’t have a source handy for that.
I’d let him hide out in my apartment.
Man that band has gone off the rails these last few years. Last time I checked they (or just Alec?) were shilling NFTs lol
What’s the link between ATR and Snowden though?
Strange that I can’t find anything about it online anymore. I swear I read once that Snowden used ATR as a cover by travelling with them, or had a song of theirs play as a signal to a Wikileaks contact when making a drop of leaked data or something along those lines. Pretty sure Snowden has stated he liked the band a lot too but can’t find that either.
All I found was that their album Reset was based of Snowden’s revelations. I want to believe there is more to it than that, but I admit I may be wrong. My mind may have fabricated this info, it hasn’t been the first time but it doesn’t feel like that, I’m fairly certain I read about a connection before.
More likely, the article I read has been purged from the internet or is being blacklisted from search engines, which I’m sure sounds like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, so easily could be true these days.
I don’t necessarily think hero is the right word, but his actions are commendable, even if they largely had little effect.
He is. This shouldn’t even be a question.
unquestionably yes.
Always, he is a real hero <3
@Anonymous_Leaker yes.
